#cult movies per me

[ilmondodishioren]

I miei personali cult movies natalizi

I miei personali cult movies natalizi

Eh sì, anche se latito in questi giorni, volevo comunque dire la mia su cosa vedere in questi giorni di festa… per chi farà festa ovviamente, la sottoscritta lavorerà persino la vigilia, ma non ci pensiamo… 🙈 Partiamo dal presupposto che i gusti sono strettamente personali e che quello che piace a me, può non piacere a qualcun altro e viceversa. A volte leggo in giro di suggerimenti che sembrano…

[izzy-b-hands]

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

The Radio Times magazine from the 29 July-04 August 2023 :)

THE SECOND COMING

How did Terry Pratchett and Neil gaiman overcome the small matter of Pratchett's death to make another series of their acclaimed divine comedy?

For all the dead authors in the world,” legendary comedy producer John Lloyd once said, “Terry Pratchett is the most alive.” And he’s right. Sir Terry is having an extremely busy 2023… for someone who died in 2015.

This week sees the release of Good Omens 2, the second series of Amazon’s fantasy comedy drama based on the cult novel Pratchett co-wrote with Neil Gaiman in the late 1980s. This will be followed in the autumn by a new spin-off book from Pratchett’s Discworld series, Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch, co-written by Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna and children’s author Gabrielle Kent. The same month, we’ll also get A Stroke of the Pen, a collection of “lost” short stories written by Sir Terry for local newspapers in the 70s and 80s and recently rediscovered. Clearly, while there are no more books coming from Pratchett – a hard drive containing all drafts and unpublished work was crushed by a vintage steamroller shortly after the author’s death, as per his specific wishes – people still want to visit his vivid and addictive worlds in new ways.

Good Omens 2 will be the first test of how this can work. The original book started life as a 5,000-word short story by Gaiman, titled William the Antichrist and envisioned as a bit of a mashup of Richmal Crompton’s Just William books and the 70s horror classic The Omen. What would happen, Gaiman had mused, if the spawn of Satan had been raised, not by a powerful American diplomat, but by an extremely normal couple in an idyllic English village, far from the influence of hellish forces? He’d sent the first draft to bestselling fantasy author Pratchett, a friend of many years, and then forgotten about it as he busied himself with continuing to write his massively popular comic books, including Violent Cases, Black Orchid and The Sandman, which became a Netflix series last year.

Pratchett loved the idea, offering to either buy the concept from Gaiman or co-write it. It was, as Gaiman later said, “like Michelangelo phoning and asking if you want to paint a ceiling” The pair worked on the book together from that point on, rewriting each other as they went and communicating via long phone calls and mailed floppy discs. “The actual mechanics worked like this: I would do a bit, then Neil would take it away and do a bit more and give it back to me,” Pratchett told Locus magazine in 1991. “We’d mess about with each other’s bits and pieces.”

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – to give it its full title –was published in 1990 to huge acclaim. It was one of, astonishingly, five Terry Pratchett novels to be published that year (he averaged two a year, including 41 Discworld novels and many other standalone works and collaborations).

It was also, clearly, extremely filmable, and studios came knocking — though getting it made took a while. rnvo decades on from its writing, four years after Pratchett's death from Alzheimer's disease aged 66, and after several doomed attempts to get a movie version off the ground, Good Omens finally made it to TV screens in 2019, scripted and show-run by Gaiman himself. "Terry was egging me on to make it into television. He knew he was dying, and he knew that I wouldn't start it without him," Gaiman revealed in a 2019 Radio Times interview. Amazon and the BBC co-produced with Pratchett's company Narrativia and Gaiman's Blank Corporation production studios, with Michael Sheen and David Tennant cast in the central roles of Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon. The show was a hit, not just with fans of its two creators, but with a whole new young audience, many of whom had no interest in Discworld or Sandman. Social media networks like Tumblr and TikTok were soon awash with cosplay, artwork and fan fiction. The original novel became, for the first time, a New York Times bestseller.

A follow up was, on one level, a no-brainer. The world Pratchett and Gaiman had created was vivid, funny and accessible, and Tennant and Sheen had found an intriguing romantic spark in their chemistry not present in the novel.

There was, however, a huge problem. There wasn't a second Good Omens book to base it on. But there was the ghost of an idea.

In 1989, after the book had been sold but before it had come out, the two authors had laid on fivin beds in a hotel room at a convention in Seattle and, jet-lagged and unable to sleep, plotted out, in some detail, what would happen in a sequel, provisionally titled 668, The II Neighbour of the Beast.

"It was a good one, too" Gaiman wrote in a 2021 blog. "We fully intended to write it, whenever we next had three or four months free. Only I went to live in America and Terry stayed in the UK, and after Good Omens was published, Sandman became SANDMAN and Discworld became DISCWORLD(TM) and there wasn't a good time."

Back in 1991, Pratchett elaborated, "We even know some of the main characters in it. But there's a huge difference between sitting there chatting away, saying, 'Hey, we could do this, we could do that,' and actually physically getting down and doing it all again." In 2019, Gaiman pillaged some of those ideas for Good Omens series one (for example, its final episode wasn't in the book at all), and had left enough threads dangling to give him an opening for a sequel. This is the well he's returned to for Good Omens 2, co-writing with comic John Finnemore - drafted in, presumably, to plug the gap left Pratchett's unparalleled comedic mind. No small task.

Projects like Good Omens 2 are an important proving ground for Pratchett's legacy: can the universes he conjured endure without their creator? And can they stay true to his spirit? Sir Terry was famously protective of his creations, and there have been remarkably few adaptations of his work considering how prolific he was. "What would be in it for me?" he asked in 2003. "Money? I've got money."

He wanted his work treated reverently and not butchered for the screen. It's why Good Omens and projects like Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch are made with trusted members of the inner circle like Neil Gaiman and Rhianna Pratchett at the helm. It's also why the author's estate, run by Pratchett's former assistant and business manager Rob Wilkins, keeps a tight rein on any licensed Pratchett material — it's a multi-million dollar media empire still run like a cottage industry.

And that's heartening. Anyone who saw BBC America's panned 2021 Pratchett adaptation The Watch will know how badly these things can go when a studio is allowed to run amok with the material without oversight. These stories deserve to be told, and these worlds deserve to be explored — properly. And there are, apparently, many plans afoot for more Pratchett on the screen. You can only hope that, somewhere, he'll be proud of the results.

After all, as he wrote himself, "No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence."

While those ripples continue to spread, Sir Terry Pratchett remains very much alive. MARC BURROWS

DIVINE DUO

An angel and a demon walk into a pub... Michael Sheen and David Tennant on family, friendship and Morecambe & Wise

Outside it's cold winter's day and we're in a Scottish studio, somewhere between Edinburgh and Glasgow. But inside it's lunchtime in The Dirty Donkey pub in the heart of London, with both Michael Sheen and David Tennant surveying the scene appreciatively. "This is a great pub," says Sheen eagerly, while Tennant calls it "the best Soho there can be. A slightly heightened, immaculate, perfect, dreamy Soho."

Here, a painting of the absent landlord — the late Terry Pratchett, co-creator, with Neil Gaiman, of the series' source novel — looms over punters. Around the corner is AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books. It's the bookshop owned by Sheen's character, the angel Aziraphale, and the place to where Tennant's demon Crowley is inevitably drawn.

It's day 74 of an 80-day shoot for a series that no one, least of all the leading actors, ever thought would happen, due to the fact that Pratchett and Gaiman hadn't ever published any sequel to their 1990 fantasy satire. Tennant explains, "What we didn't know was that Neil and Terry had had plots and plans..."

Still, lots of good things are in Good Omens 2, which expands on the millennia-spanning multiverse of the first series. These include a surprisingly naked side of John Hamm, and roles for both Tennant's father-in-law (Peter Davison) and 21-year-old son Ty. At its heart, though, remains the brilliant banter between the two leading men — as Sheen puts it, "very Eric and Ernie !" — whose chemistry on the first series led to one of the more surprising saviours of lockdown telly.

Good Omens is back — but you've worked together a lot in the meantime. Was there a connective tissue between series one of Good Omens and Staged, your lockdown sitcom?

David: Only in as much as the first series went out, then a few months later, we were all locked in our houses. And because of the work we'd done on Good Omens, it occurred that we might do something else. I mean, Neil Gaiman takes full responsibility for Staged. Which, to some extent, he's probably right to do!

Michael: We've got to know each other through doing this. Our lives have gotten more entwined in all kinds of ways — we have children who've now become friends, and our families know each other.

There have been hints of a romantic storyline between the two characters. How much of an undercurrent is that in this series.

David: Nothing's explicit.

Michael: I felt from the very beginning that part of what would be interesting to explore is that Aziraphale is a character, a being, who just loves. How does that manifest itself in a very specific relationship with another being? Inevitably, as there is with everything in this story, there's a grey area. The fact that people see potentially a "romantic relationship", I thought that was interesting and something to explore.

There was a petition to have the first series banned because of its irreverent take on Christian tropes. Series two digs even more deeply into the Bible with the story of Job. How much of a badge of honour is it that the show riles the people who like to ban things?

David: It's not an irreligious show at all. It's actually very respectful of the structure of that sort of religious belief. The idea that it promotes Satanism [is nonsense]. None of the characters from hell are to be aspired to at all! They're a dreadful bunch of non-entities. People are very keen to be offended, aren't they? They're often looking for something to glom on to without possibly really examining what they think they're complaining about.

Michael, you're known as an activist, and you're in the middle of Making BBC drama The Way, which "taps into the social and political chaos of today's world". Is it important for you to use your plaform to discuss causes you believe in?

Michael: The Way is not a political tract, it's just set in the area that I come from. But it has to matter to you, doesn't it? More and more as I get older, [I find] it can be a real slog doing this stuff. You've got to enjoy it. And if it doesn't matter to you, then it's just going to be depressing.

David, Michael has declared himself a "not-for-profit" actor. Has he tried to persuade you to give up all your money too?

David: What an extraordinary question! One is always aware that one has a certain responsibility if one is fortunate and gets to do a job that often doesn't feel like a job. You want to do your bit whenever you can. But at the same time, I'm an actor. I'm not about to give that up to go into politics or anything. But I'll do what I can from where I live.

Well, your son and your father-in-law are also starring in this series. How about that, jobs for the boys!

David: I know! It was a delight to get to be on set with them. And certainly an unexpected one for me. Neil, on two occasions, got to bowl up to me and say, "Guess who we've cast?!"

How do you feel about your US peers going on strike?

David: It's happening because there are issues that need to be addressed. Nobody's doing this lightly. These are important issues, and they've got to be sorted out for the future of our industry. There's this idea that writers and actors are all living high on the hog. For huge swathes of our industry, that's just not the case. These people have got to be protected.

Michael: We have to be really careful that things don't slide back to the way they were pre the 1950s, when the stories that we told were all coming from one point of view and the stories of certain people, or communities within our society, weren't represented. There's a sense that now that's changed for ever and it'll never go back. But you worry when people can't afford to have the opportunities that other people have. We don't want the story that we tell about ourselves to be myopic. You want it to be as inclusive as possible

Staged series 3 recently broadcast. It felt like the show's last hurrah — or is there more mileage? Sheen and Tennant go on holiday?

David: That's the Christmas special! One Foot in the Algarve! On the Buses Go to Spain!

Michael: I don't think we were thinking beyond three, were we?

So is it time for a conscious uncoupling for you two — Eric and Ernie say goodbye?

David: Oh, never say never, will we?

Michael: And it's more Hinge and Bracket.

David: Maybe that's what we do next — The Hinge and Bracket Story. CRAIG McLEAN

[mrs-barnes-rogers-writes]

Pretty As A Picture - Chapter 10

Marvel

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes

Theme: Soulmates - Feeling the connection as soon as you see each other.

Summary: When Bucky fell from the train, their soulmate was told he was gone. When Steve Rogers disappeared into the ice, their soulmate was again told one of her soulmates were gone. But she didn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. Committed to a mental health institute, she dies of a broken heart. That's at least what the hidden S.H.I.E.LD files say, but if that's the case than why is there a photo of her. A photo that shows her side by side two redhaired Avengers.

Warnings will be per chapter.

For this fic reader will be British, but let your imagination replace if needed.

Chapter Summary: The reader wakes up.

Chapter Warning: Mentions of hospital care.

“So, I’m gonna make it really clear, you’re going to have your work cut out with her. She’s stubborn, a know it all, unfortunately because she does know it all, photographic memory and all that, the situations she sometimes gets herself in aren’t always great but she always and I mean always has a way out. She doesn’t eat right. Her sleep pattern is worse than a teething toddler and believe me I know” He said looking down at Nathanial in his arms, “but she is fiercely loyal, if you call her for anything, she could be having tea with a royal and she’d drop everything to save your ass or in Laura’s case so you can have a shower without a screaming child and take a nap in peace. She’ll hold you through your nightmares, be your biggest supporter and snap a guys neck if they’ve hurt you. She feels all her emotions at ten times the level we do. Sometimes that’s great, sometimes it’s really not. Now, I’m gonna ask you, don’t pursue this unless you’re sure. Please.”

“She’s our soulmate Clint, there’s no way we aren’t pursuing this.” Replied Steve.

“I know she’s your soulmate but….”

“But what?” Asked Bucky.

“She sometimes, well it’s not my place to say.”

Steve and Bucky both huffed in response. They’d been sick of those words over the last few days. When you’d gripped the bed rail and bent it right in front of them it was clear you were different in some way. Match that with carrying Pietro like you did, Steve and Bucky were sure you were like them. A super soldier.

When Helen Cho entered the room after you’d been sedated, and spoke quietly to Bruce as they set up the cradle, they didn’t miss Bruce’s whispered “accelerated healing” or the mention of having to possibly rebreak some of your bones as they’d have already have set wrong. When they asked Bruce the response was “it’s not my place to say”. The same words were uttered when Steve asked Natasha why her and Clint were her emergency contacts and next of kin.

“You know I’m sick of hearing those words.” Steve told Clint.

“You know what fine, fuck it, yes I know language in front of the baby. He’s heard worse. Natasha and Y/N are his godmothers, he probably knows the f bomb in six different languages already. Look she struggles with the whole soul mate thing.”

Bucky’s head snapped up.

“How so?” Asked Steve.

Before Clint had chance to answer you groaned from the bed, causing the three men to jump to their feet, Nathanial jostling in Clint’s arms.

“Lightsssss, bright light, bright light.” You groaned, squeezing your eyes tightly.

“Shit, I forgot, F.R.I.D.A.Y dim the lights.” Clint instructed. “Good morning you little gremlin.”

“Gremlin?” Steve asked. “Sweetheart can you hear us?”

“It’s from a movie.” Bucky answered “Don’t put it on your damn list, it’s awful. Babydoll?”

“It is not. It’s a cult piece.” Clint replied.

“Whatever. Doll, can you hear us?”

You groaned again and muttered Clint’s name. He pushed past Steve and handed him a wiggling Nathanial, squeezing your hand and stroking your face affectionately. Bucky wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“Hey kid, I’m here, open your eyes, you’ve had us all worried. Laura’s even started knitting again, you know how she hates it, only does it to keep herself busy, and don’t get me started on Natasha. I thought we’d have to sedate her at one point.”

“Natty.” You replied as your eyes started to flicker open.

“She’s upstairs, probably already on her way down.”

Bucky huffed. He didn’t want everyone in here. He wanted to speak to you, hold you, take care of you, figure out how the hell you were here. You started to look around, still squinting, jumping when you saw you were in the Med Bay.

“Easy kid. You’re in the compound Med Bay. You've been out for three days.”

You started to fidget in the bed.

“Y/N, listen.” and he gently cupped your jaw, moving your face to look at him. “You’re gonna be OK kid, you scared the shit out of us all, but you’ll be OK. You’re in the compound. Only Banner and Cho have looked at you. OK?”

You nodded in reply, your eyes full of tears. Clint kissed your forehead.

“Pietro? Did he? Is he?”

“He’s alive. See?” Clint stood upright and pointed to the next room in the bay. You followed his pointing to see you were separated by a glass wall but sure enough there was Pietro. Wanda and Vision at his bedside. He waved weakly at you and you attempted to wave back.

“Careful sweetheart.” You glanced up at the voice, meeting Steve’s eyes. “Hi honey.”

Spotting baby Nathanial in his arms, you reached out and made a gesture for Steve to pass him to you.

“Gimme.”

“Y/N,” Clint said as he perched on the bed “really?”

“Baby, gimme please.” You looked up at Steve with puppy eyes, who realised he immediately had no defence against your sad face and he turned to Clint, not knowing what to do. You pushed out your bottom lip for added effect and looked back at Clint.

“Fine, but you’re gonna need to sit up a little. Clint replied, before gathering up some pillows.

You tried to push yourself up as much as possible and Bucky silently tried to help. Why were you ignoring them? Clint moved around to the side of the bed Bucky was at and placed a pillow under your arm, saying something about it being the best side as your drip was gone, before whispering to you.

“Maybe stop being a brat and acknowledge your soulmates.”

You shifted uneasily and glanced at Clint as he gave you a knowing look, before he gestured at Steve to come around with Nathanial.

“Hello.” You said quietly, not making eye contact.

“Babydoll” “Sweetheart.”

Bucky placed a kiss on your head as you side eyed him.

“Is this a good idea?” Steve asked as Nathanial wiggled in his arms some more. “You said yourself how unsettled he is.”

“Just watch.” Clint laid Nathanial in the crook of your arm, making sure the pillow took most the weight. Nathanial snuggled into you, taking out his pacifier to give you a drool filled grin.

“Hi baby.” You said softly. Nathanial snuggled down more and closed his eyes, gripping on to the blanket Clint had placed over him.

The three watched you fondly as Nathanial drifted off to sleep, as you stroked his face affectionately. Bucky and Steve both felt a lump form in their throat as they watched. Thoughts of what could have been and what could be filling their heads. White picket fences seemed so far away now but there was something about you, their soulmate, with a baby in her arms.

Clint slipped back discreetly from between the two and moved to the other side of the bed. Spotting Natasha and Bruce hurrying down the corridor he gestured for them to slow down and wait, nodding back at Steve and Bucky. Steve slipped his arm around Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky mirrored his actions in return.

“We got her back bud.”

Bucky went to speak but let out a sob instead, as tears began to run down his face. Steve pulled him into a hug. You side eyed them not really knowing what to do. Clint noticed your uncomfortableness and squeezed your hand affectionately as tears formed in your eyes. You leaned back into the pillows, shaking your head.

“It doesn’t make any sense.” You almost whispered. “I can’t be their soulmate.”

Enjoy this fic? Fancy a cuppa? My Ko-Fi.

TAGLIST

@abaker74 @animegirlgeeky @calwitch @slowlyshycomputer @paasrin @cjand10 @otterlycanadian

[murdrdocs]

you should totally write another enemies to lovers w ethan but like fem!reader and him get paired into a project we’re they have to take care of an egg together as if it were a baby? (like those cheesy movies LMFAO) and maybe they constantly argue about it and even try to convince their teacher to get paired into different groups but they’re forced to work together. then one night, reader has been taking care of the egg all day, she decides to go to ethan’s apartment but as soon as she leaves her apartment building she gets a call from ethan!gf (to mess w her) and at that point she’s just running to ethan’s apartment and yeah you can do the rest.

description. you're paired with ethan landry for a silly, 2000s-esque 'baby project', forced to reckon with the troubles of parenthood, and your inconsiderate feelings towards the brown haired boy.

includes. GN!reader, allusions to sex but no smut, reader curses a lot, chad's here :D

word count: 1.6k+

a/n: im so sorry it took me so long to write this but its here now :) also i changed this a bit just bc here we have the fake babies that cry and stuff and it adds drama yk and this was not supposed to be this long but enjoy nonetheless (also x2 this isn't proofread at all and it's written like an extended blurb)

anytime you said your life "was a movie" you were never serious. which is because before ending up in this class, life for you was nothing but usual teenage and young adult endeavors; parties, hanging out, spending entirely too much money.

but now, your life literally is a movie. an early 2000s movie that the production shouldn't have greenlit because it desperately flopped in the theatres and digital release, only to become a cult classic 20 years later.

however, you're stuck in that flopping at box office point, coming in the form of being assigned a project where you had to take care of an egg, then a fake baby, in a class you shouldn't have been in in the first place, and being paired with ethan landry out of all people.

you don't have anything against ethan per se, but you don't like him either. on a scale of dislike, neutral, and like, you're in the lower end of neutral with your feelings towards ethan.

he wasn't a horrible guy, but he just reminded you of the guys back home. the ones that were always unnecessarily rude and help "opinions" that were really just hate speech waiting to be turned into hate crimes. and sure, he hadn't done anything in particular to be compared to those people, but you're better off being safe than sorry.

you're sitting across from him now, a brown egg sitting between you two, and your eyes switching from glaring at the egg to glaring at ethan.

"so ... how do you wanna do the schedule?" ethan asks, fiddling with the sticker on his smoothie cup.

your glare intensifies and you sit back in your seat, crossing your arms over your chest. "i want you to know that i don't wanna do this with you."

ethan looks slightly shocked by your blunt statement, which infuriates you more. and then he says, "...okay?" like he doesn't care. asshole.

you decide to be the bigger person, taking a deep breath before you continue speaking. "okay."

it's silent for a few moments. "now that we have that cleared up, how do you wanna do the schedule?"

you and ethan decide on who should take care of the egg-baby for the first week, until you upgrade to a fake baby. that night when you go home, you send an email that is a mix between begging and demanding your professor to switch your partner.

the week was fine. it could've been better if your professor switched your partner, and if you didn't have to communicate with ethan landry more than you would have ever wanted to. but apparently, people can't always get what they want.

by the first class the following week, 3 groups have broken their egg and failed the first half of the assignment. you sit and listen to your professor lecture each and every one of you about the importance of good child care, and how taking care of the egg was the easy part. as she hands out doll babies in a carrier, and understand how lifelike the not-toy is, you start to realize just how much harder this is going to be.

"who would've known blackmore had this sort of money." chad marvels at the doll in the stroller. he has his hands on his bent knees, his brown eyes shifting to notice every detail about the doll in the stroller.

"it fucking knows how much time each of us spends with it, chad," you complain through a mouthful of burrito bowl contents. you have a little time alone since ethan had class, so you took the time to take yourself, and amelia/janice (you and ethan couldn't agree on a name) to the dining hall for lunch with chad.

"just spend time with ethan. i do it everyday."

your eyes roll so hard that you have to pause and hold a hand to your head. "easier said than done."

chad laughs a bit, sitting down in the seat across from you once again and starting to dig into his own burrito bowl.

"what's your problem with him anyway?"

"oh don't even get me started–" but he did get you started. you detail all of the things that deems ethan to be insufferable in your eyes. his abercrombie model body, his nerdy persona, his "well actually" moments, his need to correct everyone, the way he seems like he actually hates tara and sam, his not-so-subtle superiority complex. chad stops you whenever you start to mention his hair.

"just sounds to me like you're hiding your true feelings behind anger."

you don't have a response, instead opting to check your email to see your professor sending a third denial to switch partners.

you're thinking of a way you can convince her whenever ethan texts you.

'my shift? '

"gotta go," you tell chad, sliding him your tray to dispose of with a grin, feeding him an excuse about being a "busy parent now" whenever he tries to argue.

okay, truth be told, ethan landry wasn't that bad. he offered to take up shifts whenever you even alluded to being stressed about other things, he offered to buy you meals in return for watching amelia/janice for an extra half hour. he seemed like he both cared about passing this project, and you.

"just so you know, i also tried to switch partners," ethan admits with just a hint of shame in his voice, and a light pink tint to his cheeks. but you don't know if that's from his confession or the alcohol in his system.

it's the end to another grueling week taking care of amelia (ethan let janice go) and you decided to celebrate by opening a bottle of wine. you were feeling oddly good that whole week, so whenever ethan came over to drop amelia off, you invited him in for a drink.

which turned into two. which turned into a late night kitchen makeout session.

the alcohol was obviously hindering your thinking abilities because not only were you pressing ethan landry back against your counter with your body and letting his hands roam all over your figure while he kissed you, you also pulled back and stared at him wildly to ask, "wait, amelia's down for the night right?"

ethan smiles big, playing along, "yeah, she's down for the night".

his hands find the end of your shirt and the slide underneath to feel the warmth of your skin. your room was occupied by your daughter, but your roommates were out for the night and the couch was available.

you let ethan lead you there and decide that yeah, ethan landry isn't that bad.

this, is the climactic point in the film. it's so cliché that you can predict the next moments, and you don't like them.

you were walking from your apartment to ethan's, preparing to drop amelia off for ethan to take care of now that he was out of econ. you've done this same walk safely many times before, so you weren't worried about yourself at all. you had your headphones on, playing music at a low volume just in case, and there were only a few minutes left in your walk. when your phone rang, you didn't think much of it. you answered it without checking your phone, a chirpy "hello?" being your greeting.

the voice on the other hand was unrecognizable. "hello." he said it like a statement, not a question, as if he had an upper hand.

"who is this?"

"i'm ... an admirer."

a chill runs through your body and you quicken your pace. "okay? what's your name?" you're looking around, searching for people on the street to witness something just in case. but there's only 2 to 3 people walking at this late hour. what are the fucking odds.

"i go by many names. some people call me the boogey man, others their worst nightmare." he speaks slowly, methodically, with a smooth tone, a direct contrast from the fast shakiness in your voice.

"oh, yeah? why do they call you that?"

"because ... i'm known for gutting people like a fish."

you don't say anything, going to reach for your phone and hangup instead. which, you do. you hand shakes as you go to call ethan instead, but before you can click on his contact you're getting a call from him.

"ethan? thank god, i was just about to call you. some fucking weirdo called me and he was freaking me the fuck out but i'm almost at your pla–"

"you think i'm a weirdo?" the same voice.

you glance down at ethan's contact, blinking, making sure you didn't read it wrong. but it's right.

"... ethan?" you ask softly, your heart thudding intensely behind your chest.

"yes?"

"is that you?"

"uh-huh."

fucking asshole.

"you fucking asshole." the entrance to ethan's apartment building is in sight now, as is the boy himself, standing in front of the building with his phone held in one hand, and a white object in the other. the closer you get, the bigger his smile gets, and the narrower your glare gets.

you stop in front of him, shoving the stroller into his foot and pushing at his chest for good measure. "you fucking asshole!" you repeat, as if he hadn't heard you the first time.

ethan laughs, he cackles, like he just told the best joke in history. the dial tone of ethan ending the call is barely heard over the blood rushing in your ears.

"c'mon, babe," ethan tilts his head as he pockets his phone and the white object. his hands reach for you, and you flinch away the first time, but the second time you let him rest his hands on your waist and pull you into him. he places a kiss on your forehead, then your nose, before pressing a soft kiss to your lips.

"i fucking hate you." there's no bite behind your bark.

"yet you decided to have a baby with me."

stupid fucking assignment.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you think they should have went with the Chosen One plot for Anakin when they made the prequels? I've been rewatching the original trilogy and there is no mention of any prophecy. It seemed more like Anakin was a very powerful Jedi, but nothing grander then that.

Then, all of sudden the prequels are saying that he is the literal messiah of the Galaxy, destined to bring balance to the Force.

I mean, this isn't the blog for that, anon.

It's really not the blog for it not just in the sense that we talk about how things are here not how we want them to be but also because I think the Original Trilogy are also incredibly bad movies. They're not winning awards for being any better than the rest of the gang or any more righteous, they just have nostalgia, a few great actors carrying the weight (but only a few and not even some of the most important ones), a fantastic soundtrack (that admittedly is strikingly similar in parts to Holst's The Planets), and some great special effects and editing as of the time that George has tried to strip away with every passing year. It's no skin off my nose if the Prequels took some liberties to make things better (and... the thing about The Prequels is that they're not better, of course, but the plot is a lot more compelling than 'the Death Star blew up once' followed by a short break then 'the Death Star blew up twice')

But as for your question, it didn't strike me as too odd we didn't hear of it, because that's the whole thing: Jedi culture is wiped out to two known survivors (that we see anyway). And per those Jedi survivors, Anakin was very clearly not the chosen one as he did anything but bring balance to the Force.

So, you have Obi-Wan who doesn't want to talk about fucking any of it and lies through his teeth multiple times to Luke because he just doesn't want to talk about any of it. Then you have Yoda who wants to talk about it even less.

Neither is bringing up "did you know there was this prophecy where your father was supposed to bring balance to the Force? Boy, did he sure not do that".

Vader certainly isn't bringing it up either as, well, look at his miserable life and how much he hates himself and the Jedi. He's not bringing up their stupid prophecy that clearly wasn't true.

Remember very little is known about the Jedi for the common people, especially after Palpatine's taken over and spread propaganda and such. Han doesn't even think the Jedi are real and if he does it's "that weird space religion cult thing that died out???"

That is to say the prophecy is not common knowledge and especially not for people like Luke, Han, or even Leia for that matter for all she's a little more Jedi adjacent.

Even within the Jedi we see that people don't take the prophecy seriously. That was a Qui-Gon thing. He was super into that prophecy, yo, and the other Jedi (Yoda, Mace, Obi-Wan even) all sort of stared at him looking very upset for insisting on this.

And in the war, while Anakin was an exceptionally talented Jedi, he wasn't really used as a propaganda piece/seen as the only Jedi who would save them all.

The prophecy was just the reason Qui-Gon insists on training him despite his age and is one of those things that seems to have actually been correct for all that no one will ever admit it.

(@therealvinelle can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm going to lay down something that will make people very upset: Anakin being "The Hero with No Fear", seen as one of two great Jedi in the war who are doing so much for the cause more than anyone else, and the extra focus on this prophecy was an invention of Disney's 2008 The Clone Wars, not the films.)

[ruewrote]

𝑖 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑛𝑜 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒.

PAIRING: peter parker x fem!reader WARNINGS: strong language GENRE: angst SONG INSPIRATION: gilded lily by cults WORD COUNT: 806

navigation | ask | spiderman masterlist

he was late again, as per usual.

you had now gotten used to the empty apologies, the i promise i’ll be there’s.

tonight you two were supposed to hang out. you were going to confess how you truly felt about him, but what’s the point in confessing when the other person is absolutely oblivious to how you feel romantically or not.

you now laid in your bed, cuddled up watching a movie but all you could think about was him and you hated it. he was out doing god knows what and he’s left you once again.

ugh—. you were so sick and tired of his bullshit. you hated how you believed every word that comes out of his mouth.

how everything that you were mad at him for suddenly goes away when you’re together.

hated how youd make excuses for him being absent in important events. telling them and yourself that he’d be there soon, they’d give you a knowing look and you just smiled sadly at them.

you hate hated how his smile could change your whole day and then ruin it the next.

you were facing away from your window, but surely heard the little taps of peters fingers against the window. squeezing your eyes shut and clutched the pillow in your arms as you pretended to be asleep, not wanting to deal with his shit so late at night.

you felt as his presence shifts from the window as he walks away. letting out a breath that you didn’t know that you were holding in.

it hurt you to do this. he was your best friend for god sake, but he’d now hurt you one too many times.

so you started to get hang out with mj and ned more often, keeping your distance was beyond hard since you spent every waking minute together, well used to.

keeping occupied had slightly helped. that didn’t stop your thoughts from flickering to him every now and then.

he had noticed when you had pulled away. peter tried to go back to his old ways with you but you just ignored them. knowing it would only get you hurt again at the end of the day.

that’s when you had gotten home from school, headphones on full blast — humming to yourself as you placed your school supplies down and shut your bedroom door. turning around to only be met with peter.

you jumped back a little, pulling off your headphones — he had you trapped and you knew it.

“where have you been?” his hands on his hips like he was the one to have the right to be pissed off this whole time. you audibly scoff at him, throwing your headphones onto your bed.

turning back toward him with your arms crossed over your chest, “you have some fucking nerve coming in here and demanding answers from me!�� pointing from him to yourself — he stepped closer to you, but you just scooted back.

“you were the one that left me all this time! not the other way round,” tears had begun to fill your eyes, blinking them away.

“you left me! with no explanation. your best friend. i sat here and waited for you, only to get excuse after excuse thrown back at me!” peter had slumped himself up against the wall; defeated. frustratedly running his hands through his hair.

“i’m sorry, i just got busy!”

that just made you laugh, that kind of sad manic laugher.

“busy? you just got busy? hm, so what were you so busy with that you couldn’t even give me a text to say that you couldn’t make it or that you’d be running a bit late. something peter anything would’ve sufficed.” throwing your hands up just letting the tears fall now.

“i broke my phone, i-i swear i tried.” he walked up to you, close enough so that he was towering over you — which made you stand up from your seat to be eye and eye with him.

“you’re really gonna stand there and give me some half assed excuse again? really? right now?” the boy was also having a fight in his mind to confess that he’s spiderman.

“i want you to get out of my house.” you whispered to him, loud enough for him to hear.

“you don’t mean that y/n…” tears of his own filled threatening to overflow. glancing down at the floor.

“i don’t want to see you right now, get out please. i won’t tell you again pete.” your words came out shaky as you pointed to your door — swallowing the lump in your throat.

he fell to his knees before you, begging you to hear him out.

“don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

with that said he left with only one glance at you…

© ruewrote.

[wouldntyou-liketoknow]

I'd Like to Adopt These Side Characters, Please (And Also Make One Arbitrarily To Appease The Vibes)

So, I've already mentioned my plans to write something for our dear single-minute-of-screentime-boys from the FNAF movie. And, as per usual for me, posting some headcanons will help the ideas flow for that WIP. . .

___

Jack Samar

His passengers always are, in fact, "the weirdos." It just seems to happen without fail. College partygoers crashing down from adrenaline (among other things) highs, random drifters that could all probably be in the same cult if you pay attention to detail, that one guy who's all too happy to take advantage of the open secret that the ducks in the park are free. . .Most of the time, it's nothing too serious. But he's still got some very interesting stories here and there.

He's one of the best drivers in town. And that's not just due to his job as a cabbie; he knows how dangerous driving can be, so he takes pride in making sure his skills are sharp. (Seriously, if you've ever driven a car, then you know it's practically a miracle to see someone else on the road who actually knows what they're doing.)

He has a steel-trap memory; he knows every part of town like the back of his hand. Constantly driving on various routes just has that effect on you.

He's a bit of a rescuer. As in, if he happens to see a stray animal while driving, then he'll park, coax said animal into the car, and then drop it off at at the local shelter. If you have him drive you from Point A to Point B, there's a good chance you'll spot a scruffy-looking cat or dog riding shotgun.

If he isn't too tired at the end of his shifts, he'll drive over to Sparky's for a late-night snack before heading home to rest. Both he and Ness are good listeners, so a decent chunk their banter is dedicated to venting about sucky patrons.

He's certainly aware of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaria, as well as the rumors surrounding it, but he never really bothered with the place. And he doesn't plan to start bothering with it after seeing Golden Freddy in the back of his taxi.

Although. . .well, that occurrence might have made him start weighing the pros and cons of trying to get more information out of Mason. (He's very much hesitant about it, of course. Yeah, he was the one to help Mason out, but the assumption of Mason's experience with Freddy's is still far from pleasant.)

(Yes, his name is a pun inspired by Cory's samurai joke. What did you expect from me?)

___

Ness Aeoruhndbt-Ultendera

"Ness" is only his nickname, but he doesn't plan on revealing his full name anytime soon. Not even to his friends, for whatever reason. There's also a bit of an inside joke about how his surname is too long to actually fit on his nametag. (Yes, that gibberish my personal idea for his surname. I spent way more time working on it than I probably should have because I was determined to make a weird/funny reference, so leave me alone, okay?!)

He's been in the restaurant business ever since he was a kid; he's worked in several different joints before Sparky's. Coming from a family of foodies, he truly enjoys what he does, no matter how small-scale. Sure, some days are worse than others, but that's just life.

Similarly to Jack, it's not that uncommon for him to serve some strange characters. (Hell, sometimes the strange characters in question will wave down Jack's cab right after they've finished their meal at Sparky's.) Nothing usually comes of it, but he's still more than observant enough to pick up on certain oddities.

He makes a genuine effort to be polite and outgoing with customers. But make no mistake, he absolutely can, has, and will verbally curb-stomp someone if they push him or his coworkers too far. (Aunt Jane was lucky that her jab was minor. Plus, Ness just had other customers to focus on.)

It's no surprise that he LOVES conspiracy theories. Now, he knows which crackpot rabbit-holes to avoid, but he's still the type to listen to true crime podcasts almost religiously. In a way, researching and brainstorming is a comfort to him.

He's actually developed legitimate friendships with a specific few of Sparky's regulars. (Jack and Mason are part of this camp.) In fact, if there aren't many other customers that need tending to, he'll sit down and chat with them while they eat.

While he's perky during the day, he's still a night owl. It helps that his regular-friends almost always stop by in the late hours. (This has also paved the way for him to become a bit of a coffee-addict, but not to the point of concern. Speaking of which: he takes great joy in people's reactions to his argument that coffee is actually a type of soup.)

Oh, and that rubber-chicken-head-pencil-topper? Its name is Fabio, and Ness has been carrying it for several years now. He can't remember where/when/how he came into possession of Fabio, but you can pry it from his cold, dead hands.

___

Mason Kingsley

I wasn't originally planning to make a technical fanego for the FNAF movie. But after I learned that Mark was intended to make a cameo, I was intrigued. Thus, Mason—aka Trauma Boi—was born. His inclusion here (and in that future story I mentioned) is basically just a "What if?" scenario. As in, A. What if Mark had actually played the role of that first nightguard in the movie, and B. what if he'd actually survived his ordeal at Freddy's. . .?

Please read "survived," as "escaped by the skin of his teeth with grievous injuries and is now sort of dead inside."

Fittingly enough, Jack happened to by passing by when Mason fled the restaurant. It's pretty damn easy to stop for a guy who's covered in blood and cradling a broken arm and screaming for help.

After Jack drove Mason to the hospital, the two of them made an effort to stay in touch. Their respective patronage to Sparky's helps out with that.

Time passed, as it tends to do, and Mason eventually recovered. Keep in mind that the recovery was physical; he's still having night-terrors about animatronic monsters. Just the mention of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaria will make him start shaking and murmuring under his breath, pale and tense.

He absolutely refuses to talk about the incident in detail, but it left some very obvious scars on his neck, chest, and arms. He's constantly trying to keep said scars covered.

Silver lining: shortly after recovering, Mason was able to adopt a therapy pet. Enter Checkers, a golden retriever who's just the best emotionally-tuned girl and is always by his side.

He stops by Sparky's for dinner once or twice per week. He wasn't too receptive to Ness' chitchat at first, but by now they have a solid friendship. (It started when Ness "accidentally" brought out a large side of bacon with Mason's order. Checkers most certainly appreciated that, so it's become a small tradition between them.)

(And just to clarify, because I KNOW someone is gonna read this and take it the wrong way: I'm NOT using this to try and whine about Mark's absence in the movie. It's really not too hard to understand that his own Iron Lung project has kept him INCREDIBLY BUSY. It's an amazing accomplishment for him, so of course it should take priority over a cameo in FNAF.)

___

@sammys-magical-au @that-bat @bee-the-matpat-simp @insane4fandoms

[mask131]

So you want to know about Oz! (4)

Now that we got the topic of the Oz books out of the way, let's talk about... The MGM musical! The 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz"!

Or rather, let's NOT talk about it. Let's talk about... its alternate continuity.

"Alternate continuity" or "alternate Oz" are terms cherished by Oz fans and scholars, because they allow one to navigate through the maze of Oz adaptations.

I don't want to talk here about the MGM movie per se, because A) there's way too much to say and B) everybody knows it or saw it, so I don't need to explain what it is as thoroughly. But I want to insist on a specific and given point... The 1939 musical COMPLETELY changed the game.

It is an adaptation of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", yes. And it is the most famous and acclaimed Oz adaptations that ever was - to the point it is a landmark of American cinema, and a key part of American popular culture. But, and here's the important part: it is also not at all a faithful adaptation of Baum's novel. It is a very loose adaptation that omitted, reinvented and added MANY, many things - and the problem is that, since the movie is much more famous and well-known than the original novel, it created its own "alternate continuity" of Oz works, completely dissociated from the original novels by Baum (and other authors). These are two different worlds, that start from the same story-point but diverge in many, many ways.

In this post, I want to look at all the works, movies and adaptations that present themselves as prequel or sequels to the MGM movie, and that build together this "alternate Oz continuity" that is the 1939 continuity.

How do you recognize these works, and separate them from the ones more aligned with the old novels? Simple! All you need is to look out for key details that were introduced by the MGM musical!

The Wicked Witch of the West is considered the supreme evil of Oz, and is depicted as having a green skin and being clad in black.

There is only one Good Witch, Glinda Good Witch of the North.

The magical slippers are Ruby Slippers, not Silver Slippers.

Insistence on Oz being a "dream lord" paralleling the real-world

The Wicked Witches are sisters, and not just unrelated allies in wickedness

And other details of the sort. Alright! Ready? Let's go!

Let me begin with something a bit obscure... The 1990 cartoon "The Wizard of Oz".

In 1990, a Wizard of Oz cartoon started airing on television. This animated series proposed itself as the direct sequel to the MGM movie. Dorothy, still with the ruby slippers, returned to the Land of Oz, called by Glinda due to new troubles brewing in Oz: the Wicked Witch of the West was resurrected. The series is mostly about the group of heroes travelling through Oz, encoutering various Oz folks (purely invented for the series) and defeating the various schemes of the Wicked Witch, while trying to catch up with the Wizard of Oz, whose hot air balloon is tormented by the West Wind...

Unfortunately, due to poor ratings, the series was never renewed beyond its first season. Even worse, it just... kind of stopped mid-season. 13 episodes were created (I am not even sure all were aired?) and... the show just stops. No conclusion, no ending, it just stops. Sometimes, the two-part opening episode "The Rescue of the Emerald City" is edited as one short animated movie.

Much more famous: the Disney movie "Return to Oz", from 1985. One of thes "obscure Disney movies", one of those "weird fantasy sequels", one of those "dark 80s children movies"... There's multiple reasons why this piece became a cult-classic today.

It is most notably one of the many instances of Disney trying to create an Oz product in line with the MGM movie, despite not having the rights to do so, and thus playing around with the public domain of the Oz novels. This movie presents itself as a sort-of-sequel to the MGM movie (sort-of because, since they couldn't make an actual sequel, they have things that do not match - like Dorothy's new appearance - and things that do match - the slippers are ruby). In terms of inspiration, it is mostly a retelling of the third Oz novel, "Ozma of Oz", but with various elements taken from the second Oz novel "The Marvelous Land of Oz". For example, one of the villains of the movie is Mombi, the witch from "The Marvelous Land of Oz", but her behavior and appearance are those of Princess Langwidere, a secondary antagonist of "Ozma of Oz".

Another famous attempt by Disney at gaining their ground on the MGM-Oz domain is this movie:

2013's "Oz: The Great and Powerful". Meant to be a prequel to the MGM Wizard of Oz (but stll placing itself in its own continuity, since it couldn't be an ACTUAL prequel), it tells the story of how Oscar (the Wizard) arrived in Oz, and how the power-struggle between the three Ozian witches put itself in place. And it was... it was not a great success. In term of Oz adaptations it is recognized today to be between "mid" and "failure". (It is still VERY pretty though)

Speaking of Oz failures...

Do you remember THIS movie? "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return"? Oh that's one messy story...

"Dorothy's Return" (2013) was an animated movie adapting one of the novels written by Roger S. Baum, L. Frank Baum's great-grandson, called "Dorothy of Oz" (1989). And it did... VERY poorly, despite the huge amount of money and advertisement put in it. But you know what's even funnier? Why does the movie has such a long title? Because "Legends of Oz" was actually a HUGE franchise project. There was this plan to create a big line of animated movies and derived products, of which "Dorothy's Return" would have been just the first step. The movie came out, did poorly... and the entire franchise was canceled. But not without a lawsuit being opened for the shady practices and financial ruins behind this project... Yeah it is QUITE a story!

Still within the domain of modern Oz movies people do not particularly like...

The Tom and Jerry Oz movies!

These animated pieces are part of the modern trend of putting Tom and Jerry in famous movies (there is also the very unfamous Tom and Jerry + Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie). The first movie, "Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz" was basically just Tom and Jerry being present during the MGM movie. And... that was it. Oh yes, they did include the Jitterbug deleted scene but you know. It was just that.

Less known is this movie's direct sequel, "Tom and Jerry Back to Oz". It was less talked about than the first one, despite being at least more original! It is notably a loose adaptation of the third Oz novel, "Ozma of Oz".

More successful and beloved: 2017's "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz".

Just like the 1990s series, it is a children cartoon presenting itself as a direct sequel to the MGM movie, but unlike the 1990s series it was HUGELY successful. It aired for three full seasons, and while it is placed within the MGM continuity, it notably modifies several details so kids could be able to get into the story more (Dorothy is a little girl, the Wicked Witch is replaced by her daughter), and sprinkles several elements from the novels (Ozma, queen of Oz, is a recurring character). It is mostly a... I'll say "slice-of-life" type of show, about Dorothy and her friends just... living in Oz, solving problems if they are, avoiding the various schemes of the Wicked Witch's daughter.

Now that we looked at all the most "recent" incarnations, let's take a look at an older classic: 1972's Journey Back to Oz.

This animated movie is a loose adaptation of the second Oz novel, "The Marvelous Land of Oz", but presented as a sequel to the MGM movie. Tip is replaced by an MGM-looking Dorothy as the protagonist, Mombi is depicted as a green-skinned witch and the cousin of the deceased Wicked Witches of The Wizard of Oz, and Dorothy's voice is provided by Liza Minnelli, the daughter of Judy Garland.

And to conclude it all a movie that... nobody seems to have noticed upon its release?

2000's Lion of Oz. An animated musical movie for children, adapted from Roger S. Baum's novel (yes, still him) "The Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage" (1995) ; but still placing itself, by the characters' design, under the legacy of the MGM movie.

This movie presents the backstory of the Cowardly Lion, who, as it turns out, was a lion Oscar Diggs brought with him to Oz, and who, before meeting Dorothy, underwent a quest to fight the nefarious plans of the Wicked Witch of the East...

[behold-cyaegha]

Jumped on the Markiplier Edge of Sleep <- QCODE/Regency Productions trying to screw him over watch-a-thon mostly because I want to see a live-action Iron Lung and had the time to do so. I don’t know shit about Markiplier and haven’t ever watched his channel and I’ve never listened to the Edge of Sleep podcast before. I was just mildly pissed off enough by what I read the production companies where putting him through - and in the right mood to start a new show - that I bandwagoned and binged it tonight.

And Jesus H. Chuddley Frog. This show is amazing.

SPOILERS UNDER CUT

It’s weird. It’s trippy. The intro is fucking stop motion combined with - I dunno - 1940s dance music or something. There’s cults and monsters and flying whales?!?

Mark is really good at subtle emotion exploding into extreme emotion. All the cast is great, actually. The main 4 characters are really well written individuals that initially read like stereotypes and then start to get fleshed out as we follow them -> and they’re played by really good actors who put real emotion into these characters. The side characters also feel real, get you attached, and some are incredibly unique in a wild and even fun way.

The sets and makeup and practical effects are excellent. None of that “toss some CG at it in post” shit that often happens. Both the fantastical make up and the more mundane are totally believable as happening in this universe.

One of the central conceits of the story is that the main cast hasn’t slept in a long time and that actually shows. Shadows grow under their eyes. Their lips begin to chap. They sweat. They become pale. These are all things that a lot of big budget movies forget to add to so-called sleep deprived characters.

And the actors also show the sleep deprivation in dynamic detail!

As a life long insomniac who needs medical intervention for so much as a nap, I was really there with these characters on the last leg of their journey. Especially Matteo. Fuck knows there have been times where I absolutely should not have been driving and had to implement all sorts of strategies to keep focused.

And the continuous story surprises! You think you know where the story is going and you’re wrong! You think a scene is going to be mundane and it’ll pull the rug right out from under you!

Man, I am invested in this. I want to know where this is going! About the only thing I don’t like is that the episodes are only 20 minutes long and a “season” is six episodes. At least Sherlock gave us ~1.5 hours per episode for that kind of season count! (Can you tell how long it’s been since I routinely watched tv? It’s been a while.)

And the running theory on QCODEs bullshit is that they plan on intentionally sinking it and writing it off as a tax break. So… you know, no reason two. No Iron Lung because they stipulated the success of this project for backing Mark’s IL project. Oh, and they also had the fucking nerve to not even name him properly in the credits?! Like, he’s the actor for the main character and they’ve got his YouTube handle up there rather than his name. Now, maybe that’s what he wanted but it reads as an insult to a lot of people, including me.

Either way, 10/10. I actually do recommend watching it. If nothing else, to take a shit on Hollywood and not let them use it as a tax write off.

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

The Pacino Variant

Since I found out that JAW got inspiration from Al Pacino to play some of Carmy's layers I immediately started thinking about Frankie and Johnny's dynamic and how it was all so messy in their relationship before it got to the good part. Granted, JAW was not inspired by Johnny, but by a different role Al Pacino played, but still. It got me thinking about how this very Austenian love story, of course, very realistic and bittersweet had certain points in common with Sydcarmy and once I started I just couldn't stop drawing parallels between the sydcarmy dynamic and the frankjohnny one because F&J was a very atypical comedy, just like The Bear and that's why many viewers now don't even understand how The Bear is a comedy, which it is, of course: A noir one. Back then, something similar kinda happened with Frankie & Johnny, it flopped as a rom-com but it became a cult movie and was critically acclaimed.

Here's a clip:

Context: they met while working together at a diner.

The main characters were described as: "lonely little people struggling to find love."

Rolling Stone's review back then read the following:

"Somehow Mr. Marshall, Mr. McNally, and their superb leading actors are able to retain the intimacy of their material. They also retain the story's fundamental wariness about romance, even when everything about Ms. Pfeiffer and Mr. Pacino has the audience wondering why they don't simply fall into each other's arms."

See? Sounds very Sydcarmy to me, building intimacy while NOT dating, Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) is all business-no love, a tough cookie, she's been burnt before so she doesn't let any new guy into her life

and Johnny has to do the hard work to convince her (which Carm is not doing bc he rather denies his own feelings and deflects onto Claire as both this amazing meta by @Chefkids and my own humble opinion point out). In Johnny's case, there's no Claire but there is a rather complicated past that also conditions his choices and Frankie doesn't make it any easier on him, etc.

So my point is that the whole Sydcarmy back and forth before it actually happens, which I already mentioned here I think is gonna be more of a cliffhanger kinda thing bc before we get to that part they need to be at each other's throats, Carmy's relationship with C has to crash and burn, The Bear needs to win a bunch of awards and hopefully get out of debt, which will be S3's main focus, along with Nat's baby that's gonna be a total game changer in terms of the Berzatto family's dynamic, etc... when all of those boxes are checked ✅✅✅ then we will venture into Sydcarmy territory on Storer's terms. And I can't help but wonder if that transition from friends to lovers is gonna be kinda like F&J's, I think it might, because it sounds Storer-friendly. I'm not talking about the endgame per se, just the transition.

Would love to know what you all think about this theory.

If you haven't seen the movie and now feel curious about it, here's a playlist, and those short clips pretty much sum it all up.

❤️‍🔥

[kitasgloves]

"Follow You"

tracklist

— ♬ "So you can drag me through hell. If it meant I could hold your hand"

— ♬ Tendou x Reader, timeskip, SFW, gen reader, established relationship, brief mentions of stalking, no beta

The afternoon was cloudy with the pavement still freshly soaked from rainfall. Tendou Satori knew he shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't be walking down this path, he shouldn't be wasting his time like this, and most of all he shouldn't be following you. Well, he was technically stalking you but he doesn't want to be honest with himself. In his defense, this only happened today and he doesn't intend any harm. He could explain that he's only keeping an eye on you, making sure you're safe. He could argue that he has the right to do this because you were his. But his eyes linger on you for more than that reason alone.

His head was haunting him and his heart felt like a ghost. He needs to feel something 'cause he's still so far from home. Tendou hopes you'll cross your heart and hope to die, promise him you'll never leave his side. When you meet each other for lunch the following day, Tendou doesn't mention how he followed you home yesterday. He didn't intend on repeating it so he thinks it's unnecessary to bring it up.

"And then she said-"

You were talking miles per minute and Tendou just listened to you with a loving look in his eye. He could listen to you blabber about the most absurdest things and he'll be beyond contented. Tendou adored everything you did beyond what a normal person would consider. You could consider him obsessed and he won't shy away from that fact. Tendou knows the things that made you smile down to all of the things that make you tick. He knows what makes you laugh and what makes you crinkle your nose in disgust. He knows the flavors you hate and love. He even knows the toothpaste you use. He knows everything that you're willing to put out there.

Tendou found it wild to imagine that he managed to find someone who loves him for how he is, it would be foolish to let you slip away. Ever since he asked you to go to prom with him back in high school, you stuck with him. You stayed with him even after college. You stayed with him despite his flaws. You took him into your arms with no room for hesitation, even if people told you how weird he was, and even if the world showed you how he's not good for you. You got him on his knees he's your one-man cult. Tendou crosses his heart and hopes to die, promise you that he'll never leave your side. 

The redhead has always made it his mission to express his love for you in various ways. Making you chocolates, lending you his clothes, dancing with you in the kitchen, and singing you to sleep. Tendou made sure to reassure you that there was nobody else that made his heart beat so hard that it would break out of his ribcage. He looks at you with a tender stare and a gleam in his eye, 'cause he's telling you you're all he needs. He promises you you're all he sees. He'll never leave.

"Are you sniffing my shirt?"

You enter the room with an amused smirk. Tendou pauses brings your shirt down from his nose and cracks a grin at you through the doorway.

"And what if I am? What are you gonna do about it?"

"I dunno, punish you?"

"Don't you think I'm already punished enough with your obnoxious elephant snoring?"

"Hey! I don't snore!"

You pout as you throw a pillow at him that you grabbed from the bed. Tendou cackles and discards your shirt on the floor to sprint at you at full speed, you squealed as he scooped you in his arms and attacked you with pecks and kisses. You burst into a fit of giggles even if he went in to bite your right cheek. The two of you decided to spend the afternoon in bed watching a movie and cuddling under the sheets. The film was one of those typical zombie apocalypse ones.

"Satori, would you love me even if I get turned into a zombie?"

"Yeah, I'll even let you bite me"

"Well, that's stupid"

"Huh? Do you want me to keep you around my house and feed you dead humans until I die?"

"Babe, what the hell?"

You laugh at him and he joins. Tendou thinks back at the conversation at the end of the movie, everything he said was serious but he had a feeling you knew that already. He wasn't even trying to hide how he adores you uncontrollably. And he likes it when you say nothing about it and just let him do his thing. Come and sink to him and let him breathe you in. He'll be your gravity, you'll be his oxygen. So dig two graves 'cause when you die, he swears he'll be leaving by your side.

"Happy anniversary, Satori!"

Tendou gasps when you hand him homemade chocolates that you managed to hide from him. He grins from ear to ear and goes to kiss you on the lips before pulling you into a bone-crushing embrace. He opens the box and sniffs the saccharine scent of the chocolates, he pops one in his mouth and all the flavors melt on his palate.

"Baby, this is delicious! Dare I say better than mine"

"Oh my god, really?"

"Uh-huh. Dang, I better watch out or my business is gonna die because of these chocolates"

He jests and you slap his arm with a chuckle. Tendou fetches his anniversary gift for you and hands it to you wrapped in red with a white bow. You tear off the wrapper to see an expensive black jewelry box and your breath hitches. Tendou bites his lip, a smile already erupting on his face as he watches you eagerly open the box.

"Satori, you didn't..."

"Oh yes I did, my darling"

"This...oh my god, thank you!"

You pounce at him and he laughs. You gave him a few aggressive kisses on his face before staring back at the gift he gave you. It was the necklace you've always wanted since the day you saw it in a Paris jewelry shop, you remember how you would sigh and complain to Tendou about how your life would be better if you got that necklace. You were beyond astonished that your boyfriend went out of his way to give it to you. Tears well up in your eyes.

"Now now, no need to cry, my dear! Let me help you put the necklace on!"

Tendou carefully takes the necklace and drapes it around your neck, he secures it and then kisses your left temple. You rushed to the mirror to see the necklace glimmer around your neck and swoon at your boyfriend giving you one of his loving looks. You trudge over to him and wrap your arms around his neck as he grabs your waist.

"Thank you, darling"

"Anything for you, [Name]"

You lean towards him to pull him into a quick but passionate kiss. Tendou couldn't possibly be happier. You hold onto him as he sighs softly under your gaze.

"I can't believe I managed to bag someone like you, Satori"

"I should be saying that"

"You'll do anything for me, huh?"

"You can drag me through hell if it meant I can hold your hand"

Tendou says. He will follow you 'cause he's under your spell, and you can throw him to the flames. He will follow you. And from that familiar knowing look in your eye, Tendou knows that you know he will definitely, inevitably follow you until the end of existence.

©kitasgloves (do not steal or copy)

[turtlesundaes]

MARCH FOR RAPH DAYS TEN, ELEVEN AND TWELVE !!!!

Completely copied and pasted from my notes so you guys can have some cringe ramblings :>

———

SO… WE ALL REMEMBER MARCH FOR RAPH…

And I sort of got grounded…ish..

So instead of actually doing the prompts like we’d normally do- (drawing, writing, etc.) -we will rant about the topic instead because depression sucks but I still really want to do this !!! :>

I will be letting my mind wander so I will probably get off topic but I try my best.

Also some of these might become actual fanfics (???)

And it will all be posted within the same five minutes because why not.

DAY 10. Bowling with Casey

I did start drawing this one and it was gonna b a bunch of Raph and Cassandra doodles bc I had done Casey jr. for day six but generally they would be SO chaotic.

I totally see Raph having to explain what bowling even is to Cass at first (bc yk I don’t see her knowing much bc of being in the foot clan that is literally just a cult with ninja skills- I do see her knowing hockey tho from her childhood bc I don’t think she was born into the cult but just been in it from a super young age like six or something? yk what I mean??) but once she gets it she will absolutely demolish!!!

Like as in the bowling ball won’t even touch the floor because she throws it just perfectly.

When I think of Raph bowling I instantly think of him using baby rails and it TAKES ME. But I do think he would be decent at it, not the best in the family but also not the worst. (no baby rails required)

They would be super loud the whole time though, like, 100% would be kicked out b4 they finish the game so every turn matters bc they go off whatever score they had before getting kicked out.

They would yell a bunch of catchphrases and trash talk basically but Cass probably would curse very loudly out of habit and that’s like, the main reason for them getting kicked out.

Raph wouldn’t mind the getting kicked out part (cause I totally see them doing this on the regular so he’s used to it) but the cursing will be only a slight annoyance. (Just cause of how LOUD Cass would be not anything against the girl honestly he just gets embarrassed)

I see Raph using curse words but ONLY when he’s alone with Cass just cause it feels normal with her but even then it’s still a rarity.

They would totally travel from place to place after getting kicked out though, then tally the points from every place and loser hosts the next outing.

DAY 11. Favorite novel

In cannon his favorite novel is obviously Jupiter Jim or something but I’ve seen so many people saying Percy Jackson and I find that hilarious.

I never read much Percy Jackson (my brother is trying very hard to get me to and I probably will… soon enough-) I did read the first book, the sun and the star, saw some of the movie aaaaand I think like two episodes of the new series ???

But as we know the guys LOVE sci-fi so the whole gist of Percy Jackson isn’t too far off from Raph’s liking me thinks.

But personally I think Raph would ADORE the Wings of Fire series (if we’re gonna get all projecting here, as per usual /pos)

Like think about it !!! Cool mystical creatures, mystery, cool diverse magic AND THE LORE ?!?!?! Also the fact that’s theirs like sixteen books (???) not Including the many spin-offs and side stories- (I have no idea what the average number is for a large series so that’s a lot for me :^) oh! And the graphic novels!!

He would so relate to Clay and think his fireproof scales are so cool. I see so many similarities. He would match his brothers with the MC’s (Mikey with Sunny, Donnie with Starflight, Leo with Tsunami) ((I am so not saying this bc I’ve done it myself-)) GOSH HE WOULD TOTALLY MAKE FAN FICTION AND HAVE LITTLE NOTEBOOKS DEDICATED TO HIS HEADCANNONS AAAAAAAAAAHHH !!!1!!1!1!!!111!

In conclusion he would be a huge geek about it all (he would rope Mikey in bc YALL-) and Mikey would make them cool cardboard wings. The end :]

DAY 12. Stir Crazy

I realllllllllyyyyyyy wanted to draw this one with Mikey and Raph in the kitchen but alas.. 😔

But yes Raph can coooook!!! 🔥🔥🔥

Not actually though. What I see in my very good vision is Raph helping Mikey out in the kitchen. Specifically, stirring.

I’d think that after the invasion Raphs motor skills in general would need improvement. This is not based on anything actually scientific I just have a ✨feeling✨ that after his whole kraang-ified ordeal he would have trouble with knowing he was in control (as most have headcannoned yes, but I like to think of mine as slightly different :p) his arm and eye and insert other places he was kraang-ified that I don’t remember here, would be significantly impacted from this worse than his not kraang infected side.

Like he would have a lazy eye, his arm would twitch/spasm and/or that whole side of his body would get pins and needles or just go numb at times.

But even then it would take a long and I mean LONG time for him to even get to that point. Before that it’s going to be even worse, like, being temporarily paralyzed and/or he would have to learn how to move that side of his body all over again.

This gives us Leo and Raph learning to move again bonding, your welcome.

But I’m not that evil to actually make him forever paralyzed, even if it was just the arm. (I’m too much of a wuss 😔)

The other side of his body would also take time to move again but that’s like a few hours compared to the months of work Raphs gonna have to put into his other side.

I don’t care that he bounces back immediately in the movie that is going to be labeled adrenaline. Also that one scene where Mikey and Donnie get thrown and Leo’s all like “go for them!! 🥺” and Raph falls on his side for a second and his arm is limp before running to them.

That split second scene is basically the whole reason why this headcannon exists.

BUT BACK TO THE PROMPT !!! :D

During healing Raph would do motor skill practice with Mikey aka baking cause Raph loves to lick the batter of the spoon when their done and stirring helps his arm. He would also flip pancakes maybe but I don’t see him doing anything like measurements cause it’s Mikey’s whole thing to cook but he helps keep the place clean :]

———

Anywizle, my apologies for missing a few days and coming back with a messy rant- but it was fun so who cares!

So buh-bye! Have a good night and/or day! It may be possibly impossible but possibly I will see you tomorrow!

:>

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

Thank you for tag @searchforahero

rules: answer and tag nine people you want to get to know better and catch up with.

favorite color: Black, and I need there to be a ton of black surrounding any other color to enjoy it, but I'm also a fan of lilac and teal

last song: Uncle Sam Goddamn by Brother Ali

currently reading: Almost nothing tbh, though I am sifting through various comics off and on to try and get a handle on the characters I'm trying to write, so some 1900s Young Justice stuff, and I read a bunch of Robin Tim sorta recently.

currently watching: Helloween4545 playing Crow Country I really don't do TV shows at all these days, and my movie nights crew hasn't gotten together in a long while

currently craving: a nap with my boyfriend

coffee or tea: Tea. Specifically the kind of southern US tea that comes real cheap in gallon jugs or tea bags meant to steep a gallon of water at a time, like the red diamond kinda shit

hobby to try: Coding. The squiggly little lines that make the computer go intrigue me

current au: ooooohhh I got a million of these going at all times, here's the current crop:

Chained AU

Jason is set in front of a contract that will grant near omnipotence over every facet of reality. The catch is that it requires the person who actually gains the power to be permanently bound into the service of someone else. Afraid of what this could do in the wrong hands, Jason asks Tim to be his new Master.

This one has been on permanent rotation since I was like 16 tbh

Brothers In Blood Hive King AU

In which Jason was lying at the end of BiB and was not back to normal and is still some kind of alien tentacle monster and Jason and Tim and I get to be freaks about it

We Are One clone AU

So you know how most clone plots end up with the doppleganger trying to take over the other's life and someone has to choose the real one? What if the clone and the 'real one' decided they could share actually and were complete freaks about it?

In this one Jason dies and comes back to life as per usual, except he ALSO gets cloned by someone who doesn't want Bruce to go through the horrors of a dead son. Which then means that there is a very literal replacement Jason hanging around living the life Jason would have had if he didn't die. They fight for a while but then decide that actually, they both have equal claim to this life.

So they decide to get like insanely weird with it! They take turns carving their scars into each other and telling each other every last detail of their lives and memorizing each other's verbal ticks so that they can just... pretend they are one singular person. Forever. Every day they swap which of them is doing outside things and which is doing the indoor cooking/cleaning/resting. It's a drastic improvement in quality of life for both Jasons simply due to the fact that they now actually rest a lot, and get adequate time to heal from all their injuries. They take this as a sign that they were incomplete without each other and get Even Weirder About It.

A secondary fic would feature Dick's POV as it gets revealed that for the passed five years, his younger brother has been two different people who are continuing to insist that they are one singular person even now that they're both in the same room together, and Dick can't figure out if they're trying to gaslight him or if this is some kind of ritualistic mutual cult reinforcement thing that they've used to gaslight each other into genuinely believing it's true. They talk in unison for upwards of an hour without either flubbing anything, but there's no psychics involved so they have to have just practiced that shit which is actually a thousand times scarier than there being something supernatural about them. Also Dick's pretty sure they're gonna murder him if they realize he's taken blood samples and knows that one is a clone.

Both this one and the BiB Hive King AU originally started out as Chained chapters, with Jason from Chained having been the one to ensure Hive King Jason got to stay a tentacle monster and the one to convince clone Jason and birth Jason that they both had equal right to their life. (And that since both of them already knew who the clone was, the only thing they were really fighting over was the affection of their family - something neither of them had any control over and which neither of them was ever going to get. Might as well each focus on loving themself.) I'm def keeping the Hive King one as a Chained cameo thing, not so sure about keeping this one.

Jason marries Orcus, Demon Lord of Undeath, from D&D AU???

idk man my two special interests are Jason and Demons, it was bound to happen eventually, but this one is probably staying firmly locked up in my noggin forever tbh

Uhhhhh let's see, nine whole people...

@laufire @lazaruspiss @zeroducks-2 @deepwithintheabyss @acaffeinefiend

@cologona @kittykatninja321 @swamp-spirit @cleromancy

feel free to do this thingy if you want :3

[stillness-in-green]

On Heteromorphs and Heteromorphobia (Arc XIX - XXI-a, Star & Stripe to Final War-a)

Okay, so, I had intended to make one last post to cover through the hospital attack, but as my work week kept me very busy, the write-up on the hospital stuff itself is not finished yet. However, when I checked the word count on the S&S arc up through the end of what I had on the hospital--somewhat shorthanded notes on the first two chapters that would need considerable fleshing out, and bupkis on the second two chapters--I found it was already at seven thousand words, far over the four to five thousand mark I've been aiming for per post in this series. So, this week's somewhat shorter post covers from where we left off up through Chapter 369, the last chapter before the hospital material starts. Hit the jump!

The Star and Stripe Arc (Chapters 329-334)

Chapter 329: 

AFO explicitly pins the blame for Spinner’s difficult life on his being a heteromorph and notes that many in the shadows empathize with his cause, leading to an explanation for the Spinner fanboys from 318: Spinner is becoming the face of a movement!     

Much of this stirring up of heteromorphs around the country is being done by the remnants of the PLF, particularly Spinner’s PLF advisors, who have been putting up posters about Spinner being the voice of discontented and mistreated heteromorphs, posters that also suggest a coming reckoning in grand language steeped in cult mentality: gather soon, liberation, fruition, neutrality is a sin.      (And not just Spinner!  The line about neutrality being a sin is from a set of posters about the tragedy of Toga Himiko, picking back up the tack Curious had wanted to take in using Toga’s story to realize Liberation.[1] It’s unclear whether Spinner’s advisors are also putting up the Togaganda or whether that’s being handled by some of the other remnants we’ll see later.)      The beauty of this is that once heteromorphs are stirred up enough, they’ll be gathering comrades and spreading the word of their own volition, even to those with no contact with the PLF.  Of course, the people ultimately behind this are Skeptic and AFO, neither of them heteromorphs, and both with transparent ulterior motivations, though Skeptic at least is still holding to Re-Destro’s ideology of Liberation and likely does view the subsequent mob activity as helpful to heteromorphs themselves, as opposed to the mere means to his own end of becoming the Demon King AFO has in mind.      [1] And which Skeptic had once scoffed at, feeling Toga a poorly suited choice for that sort of mythologizing.  I wonder if he’s just gotten more desperate or if he’s acceded that Toga’s just fine for bringing about Liberation provided that it’s Liberation à la Shigaraki Tomura?     

But how about Spinner himself?  Well, he looks unconvinced, to say the least.  More on this later, when he gets more context on what the reader is already seeing.     

Chapter 333: 

There’s one lone heteromorph outside of Agpar in Star’s crew.  He’s not a very extreme one—tall but not inhumanly so, with a snouty facial structure and long, upward-pointing ears—but he is still the only heteromorph I’ve yet seen in the default masses of a uniformed group of military-types.  Like, BNHA’s masses of riot squad type cops are all baseline, the guards at Tartarus were all baseline, the probably-JSDF guys in the movie are baseline, and so forth.  These folks are often wearing helmets, of course, so there might be some minor divergences scattered amongst them, but there’s only so much divergence that a helmet and full-coverage uniform will hide!  Odd skin tones, yes, unusual eyes, sure, but not protruding facial features or anything other than very small horns, and divergent body plans are right out.     

The U.A. Traitor Arc (Chapters 335-342)

Chapter 335: 

All Might very conspicuously omits Spinner from the list of threats facing the hero side.  In the moment, it reads like All Might doesn’t view Spinner as a threat.  And sure, why would one random, weak-quirked lizard guy constitute a threat worth mentioning, right?  Later on, we’ll find out that the heroes were trying to keep Kurogiri’s location on the down-low, so this omission may simply be an effort to avoid having to discuss the target of the mob that’s brewing by not bringing up the mob to begin with.     

While I assume that’s Horikoshi’s reasoning for this scene playing the way it does, I do think there are some questions raised by later chapters that imply that heroes are underestimating the situation quite severely.  To wit, it’s already known that the obfuscation has failed and an attack on the hospital is coming—even someone as removed from villain goings-on as the Ordinary Woman had heard about it, news which she relayed to Shouji.  I can’t believe that Hawks and company wouldn’t have intel to match that, if only via also learning of the attack from Josei-san.          If the heroes already know the hospital assault is coming, though, why on earth is it so under-defended?  They can’t possibly be running the risk that an attack set to be led by a member of the League of Villains (as they might presume to be the case thanks to all the posters everywhere!) would choose to target the hospital at random, or that it’s just some kind of generic protest that won’t be trying to breach the walls—surely they must know the mob is coming for Kurogiri?  But then why such paltry numbers of defenders?       I can only assume that the heroes badly, badly underestimated how deep heteromorphic anger and pain ran, and thus equally badly underestimated how many people would show up for the attack.  All Might, being part of that central group of planners, is also one of the people being proven deeply ignorant about, and dismissive of, both the suffering endured and the danger presented by the heteromorphs he knows are coming.     

Shouji immediately picks up on the omission and indirectly challenges it when he says, “It’s safe to assume the list goes on,” which All Might deflects with, “Yes.  They will likely amass more allies,” still not talking about who those allies are going to be.  May I say, then, that if there’s any extent to which All Might doesn’t want to talk about this because he doesn’t want to field questions about why a mob of civilian heteromorphs might choose to ally themselves with the League of Villains, it doesn’t reflect particularly well on him.     

Chapter 341: 

Skeptic gives us the line that ties together every single crowd scene demographic we’ve seen over the course of the entire manga:

My vindication, let me show you it.

There are a few subtly different ways you could read this, so I checked with my translator sis-in-law about her take on it.  She said that what Skeptic’s implying here in the Japanese is that, taken as a whole, a telling proportion of criminals designated as “Villains” are heteromorphs.  That is, by inference, heteromorphs are overrepresented in Villain-level criminality.      So why might that be?  Well, look back at everything I’ve said through this whole essay to date: o Discrimination runs rampant in this society, from minor microaggressions perpetrated by otherwise heroic characters all the way up through dedicated, violent hate groups.  Those facing discrimination may have reduced opportunity, thereby pushing them into harder choices, which may make criminality more difficult to avoid.      o Heteromorphs make up a larger proportion of the population in seedy, rougher areas, suggesting they’re probably lower income, proportionally, than non-heteromorphs.  Lower income means the necessity of facing harder choices, as above.      o The very nature of heteromorphism leading to the laws being applied to them more strictly—for example, if a heteromorph gets into a fist fight with an emitter, the heteromorph’s very body being a part of their quirk may make it more likely for them to be charged as Villains for illegal quirk use than the emitter.  (Think of something like Mandalay not thinking of Spinner as having used his quirk during the training camp, but him being categorized as a villain regardless.)          o Bias against heteromorphs leading to the laws being applied to them more strictly.  If the person in charge of deciding how prosecutors are going to handle an accusation against you, and they just reflexively don’t like the look of your face, or are even openly heteromorphobic, of course you’re more likely to get treated like a Villain than someone a baseline prosecutor more readily sees the humanity in.  This problem in particular will self-perpetuate—more heteromorphs being prosecuted as villains means more cops begin to perceive them as inherently more prone to villainy.      Skeptic doesn’t say outright that criminals who are designated as Villains are more frequently heteromorphs compared to baseline types who committed equivalent crimes, but it sure is easy to read as an implication!  After all, why else would he need to specify “Villain-designated criminals” as opposed to simply one or the other?  If all he meant is that heteromorphs make up a larger demographic percentage of criminals and/or of Villains than they do a demographic percentage in the general population, he could just say that.  It would still imply that there’s some unjust reason for that, but “villain-designated criminals” means that he’s suggesting that the numbers are out-of-whack specifically at that intersection, the place where “criminal” gets modified to “Villain.”     

He goes on to say, “No matter how hard heroes and the government have tried to illuminate our society, the light can’t reach every dark corner.  Plenty of heteromorphs hold deep grudges against the so-called heroes,” referencing ideas of light and illumination that will come up again in the hospital attack.      Most literally, we could say this refers to rural discrimination, far away from the advanced, “integrated” cities, and the way heroes cluster around those urban areas because that’s where the money and fame are at.  But I think it can cover my points above, as well—think back to the purse snatcher from the first chapter, who got run down by a whole passel of heroes and then paraded around in front of cameras in a muzzle, like an animal, for—stealing a purse.  Called “pure evil” by Kamui Woods for—blocking traffic?  Gosh, I wonder if that guy might hold a grudge against heroes?     

Spinner articulates what he was almost certainly feeling back when AFO was first talking him up in 329: that he’s average dude, not some messiah, that he’s only here for Shigaraki, not to serve a great cause.  Still, Skeptic says, the common people are waiting for him; he’ll be the one to pull a trigger Re-Destro no longer can.  The very perception that he’s someone average, Just Another Heteromorph Like Us That Got Tired Of It, is what makes him such an inspiring figure.     

Chapter 342: 

All the students in the little montage bidding farewell to people at U.A. are those whose parents we’ve met, all also there in the scene, with one conspicuous exception: Shouji is talking to the Ordinary Woman, who is most certainly not any relative of his.  I grow more annoyed by her lack of a name by the chapter.     

This chapter features one of the manga’s starkest examples of the dehumanization of villains: Uraraka’s dialogue about how it had never even crossed her mind to consider Toga Himiko’s circumstances and beliefs.  Toga is, of course, a seventeen-year-old girl, only a year and a half older than Uraraka herself, and one who first went on the run at fifteen.  They’re so close in age, even met over the summer, yet Uraraka only realized—truly understood—that Toga was “a person too” when she saw Toga crying.      Further, when confronted when this realization, Uraraka’s instinct is to try to quash it, to assume that even thinking this way makes her some kind of villain-apologist freak, so she has to banish those thoughts by going out and staring at scenes of immensely traumatic destruction to remind herself of what Toga had a hand in and thereby banish her human compassion.      This is not framed as being about heteromorphs, but just last chapter, it was laid out for the reader in black and white that heteromorphs make up an outsized proportion of “Villain-designated criminals.”  Thus, in turn, they’re proportionally more likely than any other group to be subject to the dehumanization faced by villains, and here we see just how extreme that social conditioning is even in a nice, empathetic, thoughtful girl like Uraraka.     

The Final War Arc (Chapters 343-369, for now)

Chapter 345: 

Geten’s #3, a heteromorph right on the border between resembling an animal and just being weird-shaped (if anything, he looks more like a heteromorph based on a Pokémon), calls the heroes Mammonists, a term referring to followers of Mammon, a personification of wealth/lust for wealth.[2]  Professional Heroism as HeroAca’s Japan practices it is an inherently capitalistic endeavor.  It’s wildly commercialized, rewards competition before cooperation, and dehumanizes the human assets that keep it going, hero and villain alike.  Calling heroes Mammonists, therefore, echoes Stain’s accusations, and recalls Mount Lady’s grin way back in the first chapter when she stole the “kill” from Kamui Woods, all in the interest of fame, benefits, and government pay.      [2] In the Japanese, haikin shugisha, literally “money-worshipper”; jisho even gives Mammonist as a direct translation.      I want to reiterate a few points I’ve talked about before, as well as add a few new considerations, to get at what I think is telling about not!Greninja’s Mammonist accusation as it relates to heteromorphobia:     o Mount Lady’s bonus chapter established that more rural areas see less heroism.  This impacts heteromorphs like Shouji and Spinner both because there’s no one around who’s both willing and able to save them from the abuses they suffer[3] and because there are no heteromorphic heroes around to serve as role models.      o Tomura’s Chapter 237 flashback established that rougher areas are slower to see hero agencies established in them—the men shortly to be murdered by Tenko complain about a bunch of new hero agencies being built in the area lately.  That’s over a decade prior to canon, sure, but many long years more since the establishment of professional heroism!      o I’ve demonstrated that higher concentrations of heteromorphs in an area can serve as a visual shorthand for it being a poorer, rougher place to live.      o A hero’s ranking depends on incident resolution, public approval, and social contribution—all things that disadvantage those who work in rural areas.      o Two characters in Class 1-A were admitted as “recommendation” students, i.e. those who can take smaller-group versions of the exams, as well as getting the benefit of an interview portion.  Those two characters are Momo and Shouto—both baseline, both powerful, both wealthy.  Does U.A. offer scholarships?  Any financial aid for underprivileged students?  Any programs to seek out promising youth who may not have the connections to get recommendations?  Who knows!  But, we sure do have a telling window on who gets small-batch exam privileges.[4]      [3] Of course, if you take Vigilantes as canon, there’s no guarantee heroes would have helped them anyway—the people attacking them were doing so with pitchforks and pesticides, after all, not quirks.  That firmly puts those attacks in the category of “not a hero’s job.”  But let’s give Heroes enough benefit of the doubt to assume that even a pretty materialistic one would probably not have stood by while a crowd of adults attacked a ten-year-old with farming tools unless they themselves had already been raised to such violent heteromorphobia—which, if they’re content to be working in such rural areas, odds are they were.      [4]    This particular argument is, I admit, much weaker when you factor in Juzo, Tokage and Inasa, but if Horikoshi didn’t want to make some unfortunate implications about who benefits from the recommendation program, he shouldn’t have made 100% of the recommendation students in the Main Character Class baseline, powerful and wealthy.     

Taken all together, it’s easy to understand why someone might accuse Heroes—especially Heroes who bust out the kind of exorbitantly expensive, last-minute constructs the heroes have just busted out—of being money-obsessed.  Successful heroes live and die on commercialism, on public recognition, on their “brand,” and that structure keeps the money flowing—from the government to heroes, from civilians into the Hero industry, from heroes to the vast array of production companies supporting them on all fronts.  The whole industry is a prayer wheel that turns on money.      Now, Geten’s #3 is a pretty flashy dresser himself—those pinstripes!—so whenceforth this “Mammonist” accusation?  Well, I would point out that he is a heteromorph, and reiterate the story’s frequent utilization of heteromorphs to visually communicate lower income brackets.  Perhaps he himself has experience with poverty, even if he’s clearly doing better for himself these days.  If so, then it’s very likely that the beef that drives his embrace of Liberation ideology is that the Hero System first criminalizes public quirk use for non-heroes and then monetarily disincentivizes getting help where it’s truly needed, all while pouring money into Heroics elsewhere like a busted oil tanker spewing crude into the Gulf.     

Chapter 349: 

Spinner is visually suspended between the desire to change the world he lives in and the desire to destroy “the warped imbalances (…) that we all just came to accept.”  He embodies both—he’s someone who once resigned himself to his warped lot in life, who came to the League because he wanted so desperately to change, because he wanted to believe that change could be brought about by only a single man, and who fell in love with the promise of destruction.  Hero Society never promised him either, so he came to the only people who could.     

Chapter 353:

This chapter places Spinner firmly at Central Hospital, here to retrieve Kurogiri.  The group he’s leading is entirely composed of heteromorphs, including two of his three PLF advisors; this, combined with the set-up about heteromorphs looking to him and Mezo “I want to feature him in the story” Shouji’s conspicuous presence, hints at what’s about to go down at this location.     

Chapter 355: 

AFO’s got a snappish “fowl duo” thought about Hawks and Tokoyami—just “two birds” in the Japanese, but still dismissal of them as animals.     

Of the ones we can see, AFO has exactly one vestige with tiny little horns; every other one attacking him is baseline in their general appearance and build.  Not exactly beating my heteromorphobic accusations there, big guy.     

Chapter 358: 

ShigAFO brings up appearance and form in his monologue about how the post-Advent world is a world beyond hope of a status quo, full of disparities that lead to a lack of understanding, and thence to fear and rejection.  It touches on similar themes as Nedzu’s speech back in 323, but with an ultimately fatalistic bent.     

Bakugou relates this all to Deku—their past relationship, as well as Deku being brought back to U.A.—but, as we will see, the arc’s got some heavier hitting stuff in mind for talking about disparities giving rise to fear and rejection.     

Chapter 363: 

Mirko’s gets another self-referential animal quip that only exists in Caleb Cook’s colorful localization.  The line rendered as, “If only I’d been one hop faster!” only references being one step faster in Japanese.

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Next time, I will finally actually cover the hospital! Hopefully it will be in a week, but it's only half-written and is, I suspect, going to require a lot more editing to strike the right balance on discussing what I think is relevant and simply complaining about how egregiously bad it is as a resolution to this whole aspect of the worldbuilding. Followers who read my posts on those chapters will likely find my bitching familiar, but this is piece is bound for AO3 eventually, so it needs to be able to stand on its own without too much reference to other posts.

In any case, it should be up in one or two weeks, depending on how busy work keeps me.

On the topic of work, and with a number of new followers around, this is probably a good time for me to point out again that I'm in a pretty tight financial situation, so if you've been enjoying this series of posts and are of a mind to throw a few bucks my way, I do have a ko-fi you can use to do so!

Thanks for reading, all!

[cosmokyrin]

"loving penny polendia is suffering" yeah this is true

Also, this is coming from someone who is an avid Penny 3.0 Theorist: Do you think Penny will be resurrected once more in V10 (if it gets greenlit), and if so, how do you think they'll go about it?

lmao my blog title remaining relevant 2 years after I changed it is something I'd never expect out of V9 honestly

and HELLO fellow Penny 3.0 theorist!!

I know I will sound crazy and mad and insane for this probably but yes, I do highly believe that Penny will actually come back. No matter how many times I read why she won't, I have to disagree simply from the reading of her overall arc as a character. What I'm not certain is whether she will be fully resurrected in a body in V10, or just given hints (or something like, where she can talk with RWBY, Pietro and co. but still shares a body with Winter, like the Oscar/Ozma situation). AND HERE'S TO HOPING V10 DOES GET GREENLIT, WE NEED CONCLUSIONS TO THE ENTIRETY OF RWBY.

And to answer your question as to how they'll go about it? Idk really. There are many ways that the fandom (particularly the nnd and Penny cult fandom) have come up regarding Penny's third return. The most popular and arguably the most backed theory would be the Aura Transfer Machine theory, because from the two times it was relevant in the show (V3 and V7), it was never fully nor successfully used. And funny enough, the ATM was always about transferring Maiden powers, and it was always somehow connected to Atlas technology, so you can see where the narrative connects Winter, Penny and the ATM.

With V9's ending and showing no signs of Penny's body being around, that's where I'm personally kinda in the dark regarding of what they're going to do with her now. With Pietro around they could be going for another Penny robo body, but they'd have to address issues again of the possibility of Penny getting hacked, etc. Narratively speaking, I've always been on the idea that Penny will return not as human nor robot, but a mix of both (yeah, a cyborg!). Penny's weaknesses (and strengths / benefits??) as both human and robot have been expounded in the show that I feel like the most sensible conclusion is to give her the best of both worlds --- an enhanced human per se (like in the recent Terminator movies). But how they'll do that without Penny's human body, unless Ambrosius and the Staff of Creation gets involved again, kinda points me back to Penny being put back in a robot body (and from there they could probably just cover it up with some in-world explanation on why Penny is no longer hackable lmao). I like the idea that Winter will be heavily involved in it especially when it's been pointed out how Winter could allude to Pinocchio's Blue Fairy (who gave the boy his wishes). I could try to come up with any other way but it will always come back to Winter, Pietro and Ruby lmao