#did I just list off a bunch of flaws?

[wraithlafitte]

crazy on you

pairing: soulless! sam x reader

CONTENT: smut RIGHT under the cut, porn what plot, dom/sub dynamic, s&m, unprotected p in v, usage of sir, bondage, marking, slapping/spanking, riding, dacryphilia, overstim, multiple organisms for both, light possessiveness, choking, pain kink? ig goes with s&m

word count: 2.9k

a/n: prompts used by @loveisanimaginarydagger3000 "Phrases/Actions that have my legs divorcing" @smaoineamhsalach "smutty dialogue prompts" @creativepromptsforwriting "smutty one-liners". all can be found in my master prompt list, linked in main masterlist. dividers by @cafekitsune

nothin' left to do at night / but go crazy on you

The door to the hotel room you were staying in slammed, making you fly bolt upright in bed. You relaxed when you saw that it was only Sam, the guy you had been hanging out with (and fucking) all week. His broad shoulders stretched beneath his worn flannel as he unloaded his pockets onto the side table, followed by a pistol from his waistband.

You didn't really know what it was that Sam did all day, sometimes night, or for a living. You had some inkling that it was violent, seeing as how he often came back bloodied (not always his own). But damn, gangster or not, he was good in bed, so you didn't ask questions.

Tonight he looked okay. The only flaws on his face were bruises from the week past, nothing fresh. His warm brown hair was messy, sure, and when he turned around, you saw that his t-shirt was dark with something that was probably blood, but if he had been fighting, the other guy lost.

"Hey," you called softly, voice thick with sleep. His head snapped towards you like he had forgotten you were there. "Welcome back. Kind of late."

Sam walked toward you slowly like a predator stalking its prey. His eyes glinted in the darkness. "It's only two."

Your heartbeat quickened, knowing what came next. This was the routine: Sam left for hours, came back beat up, then fucked you into tomorrow. You weren't sure when the man slept. You had resigned yourself to taking short naps while he was away.

"You're not how I left you," Sam observed.

Shit. He had told you to stay naked after your escapades last night and to be in bed when he came back. You had only fulfilled half of his requirements.

"I-I had to leave to get food," you offered lamely, knowing full well he had left you a credit card to get room service.

"Right," he said slowly, creeping closer. Butterflies fluttered through your stomach and down to your core.

"I'm sorry," you said, crawling backwards against the headboard. Sam tilted his head. "Sir," you added quickly.

The corners of Sam's mouth quirked up momentarily. "Strip."

"You first," you retorted, a rush of confidence emboldening you.

"Behave, I wouldn't want to punish you now." He looked at you warningly and finally touched down on the edge of the mattress.

You gulped and nodded, making quick work of your pajamas. You hadn't bothered to wear any underwear. "Make it even," you told him, shivering in the air-conditioned room.

Sam's head tilted in the other direction, almost like a dog. "Who do you think is in charge here?" he asked, voice dangerously calm.

You took a deep breath and shakily said, "I just wanna see you."

He chuckled, shaking his head, and peeled off his flannel, followed by the t-shirt that was damp with blood and sweat. "Better?" Sam asked, but the way he said it was almost mocking, like you were pathetic for asking.

His large hands gripped your knees where they were bunched up at your chest and spread your legs apart. He looked down at your pussy hungrily and ran a finger through your dampening folds. Your eyes closed at the sensation and you sucked your bottom lip between your teeth. After a week of being pounded into the mattress for hours at a time, you were more sensitive than you'd ever been in your life.

You felt him grip your wrists and shove them above your head. You opened your eyes to see him grab a blue tie that had been on the nightstand for days and use it to secure your wrists to the headboard.

You whined and pulled against your restraints. Sam just laughed triumphantly and got up from his seat on the edge of the bed.

"Not fair," you complained as he took the opportunity to remove the rest of his clothes. He disappeared into the adjoining bathroom for a minute, you heard water running, and then he was back, sans blood. He approached the bed slowly, lustfully. The look in his eyes was animalistic, and you had been around him enough to know that it pretty much was. You closed your legs instinctively, drawing back into yourself.

Sam kneeled over you and spread your legs again, more roughly this time. "Do I have to tie your legs down too?"

"No sir," you squeaked.

He grabbed your face and hummed, turning it side to side, fingers digging into your skin. You shivered at his touch, somehow giving you so much and so little at the same time. His head swooped down and he began kissing you aggressively, tongue invading your mouth. The taste of him had become so familiar, you relaxed in his hold.

Then Sam released you with a pop and started biting at the skin on your neck and chest, following the marks he had mapped out days before, darkening them. You arched your back into him, straining at your bonds.

"Sam," you moaned shamelessly.

He took your nipple into his mouth, rolling it gently between his teeth. You gasped and pitched your hips up into him. His hand came down to your stomach, holding you down firmly.

Sam took his mouth off your breast and blew cold air over the spit he left behind. "Come on baby, if you want something, use your words."

You shivered intensely. "Just fuck me already," you whined.

He delivered a sharp slap to the outside of your thigh. You jumped. "Language."

"Sorry, sir," you breathed. "Please."

Sam smirked approvingly, moving up to sit against the headboard beside you. He lifted you up and turned you around so that you were straddling him, twisting your bonds so your arms were around his neck. He dragged his wet mouth up your sternum, breath hot against your skin.

You ground against his hard cock with lips pursed, staring him in the eye, daring him to do something about it. Sam didn't care much about making you use your words in that moment, and lined his cock up with your entrance.

You sunk down gladly, feeling yourself stretch around his length. He swallowed a groan, gritting his teeth and giving you that look again. He was restraining himself. For the time being, you were thankful, because you definitely needed to cum at least once before letting him loose on your body.

Sam's hands fell on your hips, urging you to lift up and start moving. You started bouncing on his cock, hips slamming together, his tip hitting the deepest part of your pussy and still not fitting all the way. Your thighs started to burn and shake and you put more of your weight on your arms, using your bonds to pull yourself up. But you couldn't keep it up and started slowing down, whimpering.

The pain seared up your legs into your dripping core. You could come just like this, you thought. Just clenching around him, staying still. Pain sending shockwaves of pleasure through your body. You closed your eyes and focused on the knot forming in your stomach, willing it to come undone.

But of course, Sam wouldn't let you. He slapped your ass, bringing you back down to earth. "Come on," he growled. You protested, opening your eyes. "You have to work for it."

"Help me," you whispered, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes as you dragged yourself up and fell again.

"No," he said bluntly. He was smiling coldly, actually enjoying your suffering.

You let out something like a broken sob and began riding him again, slower than before as the muscles in your legs cried out for reprieve. Sam kept his hands on your hips, guiding you as minimally as possible, still making you do most of the work.

"Good," he growled. "Keep going."

He bit kisses into your jaw as you rode him, grinding your clit against his hips, head thrown back. Your breasts bounced as you heaved yourself up and down in a broken rhythm, feeling his cock drag through you unpredictably as your hips stuttered.

After minutes of slow building, the knot inside you suddenly snapped, and you were cumming around his cock before you knew what was happening. "Ah- fuck, fuck," you moaned. You couldn't find the strength to keep fucking yourself with him anymore and dropped.

"Fuck, baby," he groaned as you came fully seated on him, feeling the deepest parts of your walls gripping him like a vice.

You collapsed against his chest, exhausted, your arms suspended above you limply. You felt him tugging at your restraints and they came free, allowing your arms to drop to your sides. Then, he lifted you off his dick and let you fall to the mattress on your back.

Sam was back inside you almost instantly, allowing you little time to recover before he was pumping into you roughly. He propped up your legs, allowing them to fall open on either side of his hips as he fucked you into the mattress.

You could hardly catch your breath with the way he was on you, kissing and biting your lips and jaw. Another orgasm started building inside you, faster than you would've liked. Sam sure knew how to draw them out of you, thrusting at a pace that built the most friction and hit your g-spot with just the right amount of pressure to have you squirming beneath him in seconds. He had learned your body well over the past several days.

You came again with a cry, pleasure washing over you blindingly fast, but Sam showed no signs of stopping, instead doubling down. Tears streamed down your face as he pressed your wrists into the pillow by your head, a feral expression covering his face as he drilled into you.

"Yeah, keep fuckin' comin' for me baby," he growled. A whimper fell from your lips. He didn't even seem close. You had no idea how he had this kind of stamina, especially since you weren't sure if he slept.

Suddenly he released one of your wrists to reach down to the place you were connected, rubbing your clit vigorously. You moaned desperately, hand flying to his shoulder and clawing at his back. He threw his head back and moaned himself, pace faltering.

"Yeah? You like it when I do that, huh," he gritted out. Your nails dug into his shoulder, breaking skin as you came around his cock for the third time.

"Sam!" You practically screamed his name, restrained hand flexing into the air, desperate for something to grasp. Sam grunted and kept thrusting into you, fucking you through your high, and then you felt his warmth seep into you as he followed.

He pulled out and sat back on his knees, continuing to rub your clit as your hands grabbed the pillow behind your head in an effort to lighten the overwhelming sensation.

"Oh god Sam, fuck- stop, please, sir," you blabbered. You opened your eyes to see him stroking his cock to you in the same rhythm as he rubbed your clit; slow at first, but picking up speed in response to your moaning and writhing.

Sam smiled unfeelingly, showing no mercy. "Can't you handle it, baby?" he asked wickedly.

Your hips bucked of their own accord. "Yes, I can- fuck, I can handle it," you whined, eyes wide and shiny, staring desperately at him.

The look on his face alone was enough to send you careening over the edge again, thrashing in his grip as you chased more. More sensation, more of his touch, just more of him. You could feel your mascara melting down your face as involuntary tears flooded out.

You felt him spread your folds with two fingers, smearing your wetness around your pussy and thighs. You jolted as his fingers skated over your clit. "So fucking pretty," he growled. "If only you could see how your pretty pussy is leaking my cum. All pink and puffed up just for me."

Your breath came out in little moans as you struggled to think of a response. "Water," came your voice, barely recognizable to yourself. You tried to sit up and find the glass you'd set by the bed.

Sam grabbed you by the throat and threw you back down. "We're not done yet."

You whimpered, looking up at him to find that same cruel glimmer in his eyes. You felt another pang of arousal rush your body. The way he controlled you was toxic, you knew, but it also turned you on insanely to be thrown around and used like a limp rag doll.

Sam's smile was strangely devoid of emotion as he looked you over, his gaze ending on your face. He wiped your wet cheek with his palm. "Don't cry, sweetheart. I'll give you what you need."

His words were sweet but his expression was deadly. You suddenly found yourself wondering what would happen to you once Sam left. Would he just leave you behind, imprisoned by his memory?

Perhaps it would be your blood staining his shirt one day.

Better to seize the moment while it's still here. You laced your fingers up Sam's neck, grabbing him by the hair, and pulled him down roughly to meet your lips in a messy kiss. He growled into your mouth and gripped your waist tightly. His body weight crushed down on you as he slowly thrust his half-hard cock back inside you. You gasped, the walls of your pussy fluttering at the sensation.

Sam hissed, nose and lips pressed into your neck. His long hair brushed against your cheek. You hooked your legs around him, wanting him closer than was humanly possible.

"Come on, Sammy, fu-uuck," you breathed, nipping his ear.

He jolted up, eyes narrowing on you. His hand was instantly back on your throat, and your own flew up to meet it.

"Don't call me that," he said sharply. His hand tightened below your jawline. You grasped weakly at his fingers. You were becoming lightheaded, but his bruising grip was all you wanted.

Your lips tried to form the words I'm sorry, but no sound would come out. Sam started driving into you, holding you where he wanted you by your neck. With each thrust, the pressure on your neck increased, then decreased. Increased, decreased. You gasped in air on the upstrokes and let yourself become dizzy on the down strokes.

Fire blazed in your core, and you weren't sure if you were cumming again or if you just never stopped. Sam hit deep inside you every time, and soon the pleasure was constant and the pain was fading away. Or maybe it was the opposite. You couldn't tell anymore. You could hardly think anymore, Sam the only thing on your mind.

His hand wrapped around your neck. The weight of him on top of you. The feeling of his cock splitting you open for... was it the fifth time tonight?

"Sam," you rasped, eyes rolling back. The hand squeezing your neck loosened for a moment.

"What?" Sam almost looked angry. He always looked angry, seeming like he had some pent-up rage about something to get out.

"Hurt me," you begged. "Do whatever you want, don't stop- ah!"

Sam squeezed your neck once harshly and let go, hand flying to your thigh, scooping your leg up and pressing it forward, calf resting on his shoulder. He slapped your ass sharply, followed by a slap to your face. You cried out in surprise.

"Such a fucking slut," he grunted, pounding into you harder than you thought possible, his tip bruising your cervix, causing a pleasant ache to rise in you. You couldn't even hope to respond, breath coming out in short pants and gasps.

Pain lit your core on fire, mirroring the blaze in Sam's eyes. You came faintly, feeling exhaustion set in and becoming aware of the layer of sweat that covered your body, dripping onto the sheets.

Sam's skin shone with sweat too, but he glowed. You could only lie there and take it, imagining how worn you looked compared to the god of a man above you.

"Good fuckin' girrrll," he said, sounding strained. His brow knitted together, eyes closed, as his rhythm began to falter once more.

"Give- give it to me," you stuttered, struggling to catch your breath. "Fuck, sir- please!"

Sam's arms scooped underneath you, holding you tightly against his body as he buried his cock deep inside you. His voice cracked as he groaned deeply, pressing into you as far as he could as he released inside you again, shuddering.

It was still for a moment. Sam held you caged in between his big arms, breathing heavily, your hips closely attached. Then he raised his head from where it had dropped into the crook of your neck and fell on your lips, kissing you roughly, letting out the last of his energy for now. You kissed him back with fervor, one hand still tangled in his hair, the other embedded in his bicep.

Sam pulled out, releasing your mouth with one last wet suck, and rolled to your side, pulling you with him to hold you tightly. You traced your fingers dazedly up and down his torso, blinking heavily as exhaustion threatened to take over.

Strangely, Sam didn't seem tired. At least, he didn't seem like he was going to fall asleep, like most men would after going that many rounds. He stared at the ceiling, thinking about something you would never learn. But you had come to expect this from him. He would hold you selfishly until morning, and then he would be gone again, leaving you weak and horny and unsure if he would return in one piece.

You supposed if he didn't sleep, there wouldn't be much else to do at night. You were sure this wouldn't last, he would move on and find another girl to pass the time inflicted by his insomnia. When he left, you would remember how he had made you feel, picturing his face with every other partner, always hoping he would come back and rock your world just once more.

[blushweddinggowns]

Eddie was dealing with a lot of firsts today. 

The biggest one being the first time he was getting married. Though, Eddie really hoped it wouldn’t be the last. If his fantasies about this day came true he was going to have to insist on a vow renewal somewhere down the line. Fuck it, if even a quarter of what he wanted came through he’d still insist on it. He was never not going to like showing Steve off, and this was the most ostentatious way he could get away with. 

Next, and most distressing, this was the first time Eddie had ever felt the lethal mixture of being incredibly happy and horrifyingly nauseous. He had no idea that a person could feel both things at once, and Eddie was starting to think the ability was just a flaw of the human condition. 

And last, he is a 100 percent sure he had never been this damn nervous in his entire life. Especially when the source of it was entirely self-made. It was an uncomfortable reminder of how he used to feel with Steve, back when he decided to be a fucking crazy person. 

But this was so much worse. 

“You really need to relax,” Chrissy said for the hundredth time, watching as Eddie fiddled in front of the mirror, “That anti-perspirant can only go so far.”

“I know,” Eddie sighed. He was on one today, he knew that. But knowing it wasn’t stopping any of his anxiety. Eddie was trying to fix his hair in the mirror, suddenly unpleased with how it was styled but unwilling to go bother the stylist that did it. She was busy enough with everyone else, let alone the fact that he didn’t even know why he didn’t like it. If anything he was just making it worse. But then again, Steve always said he liked his hair wild, right?

“Hon, I’m serious,” Chrissy sighed, grabbing for his hand to drag him away, “You are driving yourself crazy for nothing. Everything is going to be okay. He’s going to be there. Are you forgetting that it was Steve who asked you to marry him?”

Eddie couldn’t help but smile at the memory, even now. The little shit had beaten him to the punch by a matter of days, completely ruining Eddie’s elaborate proposal plans. No, instead Steve decided to do it in the dead of night, getting down on one knee in the middle of their living room after getting destroyed at an impromptu game of scrabble. 

Eddie should have seen it coming, he really should have. But he had been so caught up trying to plan his own proposal he had completely missed the signs. Like how Steve kept picking movies that involved proposals and weddings, and how he was always very interested in what Eddie thought of them. Eddie just hadn’t realized how many notes he’d been taking around his innocuous comments. Not until Steve showed him the scrawled out list he had made down the line:

Not public, he said he wouldn’t want to cry in front of a bunch of strangers. Not again (whoops, sorry babe but at least this one would have been happy tears?)

Close to a bed or a bed-like surface for “celebrating” (I should have seen that one coming)

Diamonds are apparently ~stupid~ so look at colored stones instead (maybe emerald for his birthstone? Stick with sliver tones.)

No where cold so he can focus on the moment instead of freezing

Make it a surprise (But not outside? I don’t want to wait till summer though. Maybe I can do it randomly? Like when his back is turned?)

Write. A. Speech.

Eddie had to give it to him, his notes weren’t in vain. It had been amazing. Tailor-made to him in a way he didn’t even fully get until it was over. Because he had started crying, right in the middle of their living room with no one but Steve to see him. And it had felt so fucking safe. There was no embarrassment, no worrying over someone he didn’t know taking their moment to share with more strangers, none of it. It was just them. 

He had fucking loved the ring, the colors, the style, all of it fit him perfectly. The only thing he loved more had been dragging Steve straight to their bedroom spoil him rotten for hours. The speech had been beautiful, for what he had managed to hear through his own excitement and tears. He had ended up asking Steve to write it down for him considering how he couldn’t trust his own memory. Now it sat on a cute index card he kept in his wallet, right alongside his cute scrawled out list, a constant reminder that Steve Harrington wanted him.

It had been perfect. Almost too perfect. Perfect enough for Eddie to be where he was right now, the doubt of how he ended up with Mr. Perfect. 

from the upcoming last chapter of this fic

[anotherfcknschlattsimp]

deep fried delights <3 chapter 1

schlatt meets someone (you) at the carnival in town

schlatt didn't want to go to the carnival: it was loud, everything was sticky, the games were rigged, the food was overpriced, the rides were basically held together by hopes and dreams … ugh.  he didn't want to go.

but ted did. ted wanted to go so badly that schlatt would’ve felt like a loser if he’d said no, like the worst friend ever; so, he said yes, much like when you share your food with a begging puppy.  when ted said that they could make a video out of it, schlatt was caught in an unrejectable deal!

he was right, though: loud, sticky, rigged, overpriced, dangerous- he listed the flaws to the camera as they appeared on his mental checklist as the two of them walked around, trying to decide what to do first.  should they risk their lives yet? play rigged games? play unrigged children’s games? get food so schlatt didn't get hangry? yeah. food sounded good. after all, what is a fifteen-dollar foot-long hotdog to a rich man?

they continued to walk on the uneven dirt of the park until… schlatt spotted a common, but intriguing, sight: an abandoned photobooth strip.

the people in the pictures looked so unhappy that it tugged at his heartstrings: a cocky man with obvious anger and control issues, and, next to him, the most beautiful person schlatt had ever seen, crying their heart out, and missing from the last picture…

ted snapped him out of his haze to continue the trek to the food trucks before he left schlatt alone in the crowd of people.

~~~

three years. you had been with that jackass for three years, and he had dumped you on your anniversary at the same carnival that you had gone to for your first date.  on top of that, there was then photographic evidence of the event that you were sure he was gonna go jerk off to for the rest of time.  oh, well, you still had a bunch of points to spend and you weren’t sure if you’d go next year, so you figured that you may as well hit everything you can; 

it was time to collect your thoughts in line for the ferris wheel. the thought alone sparked a feeling of dread at the memory of your parents playing a “prank” on you by shaking the car and telling you that it was gonna break under you. ugh.  and if worst had come to worst? if the wheel broke, you’d sue and use the money to start a bakery or something.  you could plan your tactical strategy for hitting every game on the way out in order to be as fast as possible in the long, long line. 

when you had gotten about halfway through the line, you noticed a man gawking at you.  thoughts raced through your mind: should I call security? maybe he’ll go away if i ignore him.  you took out your phone and continued deleting all of the pictures and videos of you and he-who-shall-not-be-named, so that you didn’t have to do it later when you’d break down at home.  

god, the man was too tall to just stare at people like that. slenderman-esque, you thought.

~~~

fans.  everywhere.  they swarmed ted and schlatt like piranhas swarm to a drop of blood; it was utterly horrifying to experience, as always.  so, he slipped away as soon as he could, leaving the rest of the crowd he didn’t get to, to eat ted alive. he’d attend ted’s funeral if they found his remains. 

he had about ten to fifteen minutes until he had to reconnect with ted.  what should i do when i don’t even wanna be here? he thought. he walked around aimlessly for a minute before he noticed someone, someone familiar - you!

it was you, the beautiful person from the photo strip! he took the strip out of his pocket to compare: you were even prettier when you weren’t crying your heart out. schlatt felt something in his chest try to fly away, uncomfortable yet intriguing.

he weighed his options: either give you the pictures and get a chance to talk to you (but also risk you getting upset at the sight), or he could walk away then and there and hope that you hadn’t called security for the giant man that was staring at you for the past minute.

you had made eye contact, and his dumb fucking heart decided to take control, his feet carrying him forward.  he had felt way braver than he had any right being at the moment.

“hey, i, uh, found this…” he got lost in your eyes for a second before shaking his head and continuing, “thought you might want it back.”  he very quickly realized you probably didn’t want pictures of what looked like a horrible moment.  “i- i mean, i’m sorry, uhh�� you probably don’t-” 

he looked up from his shoes when he heard a sniffle.

tag list: @xoxoave @sonnyjune @jschladderall @manticore-fangs

reviewed by: @manticore-fangs and @jschladderall

edited by: @jschladderall

AAAAAAAA I HOPE YOU ALL LIKE IT

[boy-gender]

How do you deal with guilt around being a man, and like generally feeling like you're "betraying women" or choosing to be something bad by transitioning? It's something I've really been struggling with..

I sort of have two answers for you.

The first is a bit glib, but I think you've got some bioessentialism to unlearn, anon. I know that it's probably not a belief you arrived at yourself- rather, a bunch of hateful radfem douschebags have so often repeatedly said shit like that, that you're a traitor, you're failing feminism, youre just trying to escape the patriarchy, you're mocking what women are, men are evil and youll become evil especially with testosterone. That kind of crap.

Genuinely I do not give it any thought. It's ridiculous on the surface, so I write it off as misguided and inane. There is no logical way to justify grouping an entire half of the population together, deciding that the one thing they have in common (being men) is somehow the defining trait about them (because nothing else is being taken into account, like their sexuality, ethnicity, trans or intersex status, poverty level, where they live, whatever) and then also deciding that one common trait is the root of all evil. I've personally had a lot of experience with people doing this with certain mental illnesses- particularly cluster B personality disorders- and deciding like "yes this one thing about you makes you evil. You have Evil Person Disorder," and seeing how stupid that was, I just applied it elsewhere. Humans are far too diverse, nuanced, and contradictory for any flat rule like "all X people are bad" to ever be accurate. If it's not accurate, it's not useful, so I don't judge myself by it. I literally just block the people spewing that shit and let it slide off like water on a duck. I have enough warped internalized beliefs from my upbringing- I'm not adding more when I can immediately and obviously see their flaws.

So my advice is to block anyone you see saying that shit. You might be beginning to internalize it because of just how often you see it- so you need to cut that off at the source. Radfems are not and never will be allies; they do not have "some good points." Their movement was specifically designed by conservatives to uphold white supremacist capitalism, and nothing that comes from that is ethically correct. I'd suggest picking up Mothers of Conservatism by Michelle Nickerson. A lot about the origins of the radfem/female separatism movements are detailed there, created by fundamentally conservative women. With this new 4B movement shit on the rise, it's helpful to understand how fucked up and wrong they've always been from the beginning. My second answer to you is to look at what manhood means to you. If you don't think you can be objective about this, ask a friend to help. List the traits you associate with what *you* personally want to be as a man, what you hope you transition towards. Do you want to be a financial provider? Do you want to defend your community? Do you want to be generous? Brave? Do you want to be an expert in a special interest? Do you want to make lots of friends?

Make a list of those traits. Then look at them, divorced from the idea of gender. Is being a financial provider "bad?" Is being generous bad? Or brave? Or having lots of friends? Are any of these things bad in isolation, or does your guilt about them come from their association with manhood? Is that /your/ association, or did other people cause you to think there is an association?

For me, I had two formative male relationships as a child. My father, and my maternal grandfather. My father was an abusive piece of shit who liked to pick me up by the throat and slam me into walls, threaten our pet cats, scream at me until I dissociated, called me slurs, hated my opinions on anything, belittled me, believed only in capitalism, is a social darwinist capitalist schill, hates my mom, treated me like a servant and punching bag, and is a miserable fuck with no friends.

My grandpa was an old man who loved scotland and tartan and scottish terriers even though he never had one, loved each of his cats which he had all the time. He collected coins and read about history, he made model planes. He watched judge judy with me and talked about the cases and if we agreed with her rulings; he watched the news from multiple different outlets a day and taught me to weigh them against one another. He loved sitting on the porch and watching neighborhood kids play, and he drank a lot of lemonade. He was a brilliant chemist, provider, raised 4 kids in near poverty, then raised 8 grandkids after that. He would sneak me chocolate malt balls as a "vitamin" and he would tease my grandma by pretending to pick up and lick his plate after dinner. He taught my uncle to garden who then taught my cousin, so all my life gardening has been "mens work" to me. He was soft spoken, curious, patient, and mischevious. He loved my grandma for 60 years until he died.

These men have nothing in common except that they were men. Being a man didnt make my grandpa evil because he chose not to be. Being a man didnt make my dad evil either; he's an evil fuck because he made that choice. They are both sentient beings, who can use logic and emotions alike. One chose poorly. It never made sense to me as a child to assume all men would be like my dad or like my grandpa, because they were both men and they weren't at all like each other. Some categories are just so broadly diverse that they aren't really helpful- if I ask you to picture a mammal, do I mean a monkey or a mouse? Does "sea creature" mean a giant ass blue whale or a tiny piece of plankton? "Man" as a category is too broad to make assumptions about. I know it sounds circular and reductive, but the only thing that makes someone a man is...being a man. Nothing else.

I find it helps to look at a diverse array of men, to see all that men can be, especially men not like myself or the men I know. What does it mean to be a man in rural Yunnan farm country? What did it mean to be a man in medieval europe? What is it like being a gay black man from california, or a hunter living off the grid in appalachia? What does it mean to be a man in a culture where long hair is masculine, or where harvesting plants is masculine, where being a doctor is masculine? What about cultures where adornment is masculine? Hell, what about animals? What's it like to be a male lion vs a male house cat? What do I think about male cardinals, who are the bright lovely red ones, whose color is meant to draw a predators eye to them and away from the female cardinals and their nests?

To me, gender is an all you can eat buffet. It's customizeable. You can pick up or ignore or throw away any traits you want or don't want. Grab things that are feminine in your culture and incorporate them into your manhood in a subversive, gender nonconforming way. Take things that are masculine that make you happy, that you're reclaiming in a way because you may not have been allowed to do/be them before. Fill your gender with the ideals and aesthetics you like. You are fundamentally changing manhood by being a man, by being a different kind of man than any other man. If there are 4 billion men on the planet, there are 4 billion different 'microgenders' of man.

Seems silly to write off an entire 4 billion people as inherently evil and incapable of either goodness or change. It's just illogical. For me, that's enough to discard the idea wholecloth. If it doesn't make sense, I'm not wasting my time with it. That's not an ability everyone else has easily though, so you take the time you need. Try to look at yourself as objectively as possible, as an outsider. As you transition, have your actions become more evil? Are you committing sexist acts? Have you literally betrayed all the women you know somehow? Do you feel yourself becoming less kind, less patient, less interested in equality or the preservation of life? I'm betting, since you're nervous about it enough to ask, that none of those things are happening to you. Do not let yourself be gaslit into believing you are becoming something you're not. Look at your actions, your words. Look at your values and how you live up to them. If you don't see any sudden discrepancy, then you know anyone who tells you you're becoming evil by becoming a man is straight up lying to you. They're projecting an idea onto you that doesnt fit reality; trying to put a round peg in the square hole. Be curious, be objective. Do not be misled, and for those who try to mislead you, hit them with a chunky block button.

[cellarspider]

7/30 germs.

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

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We return to a movie that disrespects the archaeological importance of roads, Prometheus.

I am still not over that. I will never be over that.

This time, content warnings for continuing frat boy archaeology, cringeful application of racist terms to lily-white androids, me screeching about site contamination some more, and Apollo’s dodgeball striking this movie with a glancing blow about masking.

So, back in the theater in 2012, I had already lost sympathy for the cast. They were being set up as stock horror movie characters, they were doing their jobs in a way with a certain flair for the incompetent.

And one of them, I suspect, the movie intends to make into a “flawed but you feel for him” kind of guy. Or, I hope they intended to make him “the guy in the slasher movie who you hate and want to see die”. That’s Holloway, one of the two archaeologists. He’s robot racist.

Like, seriously robot racist. The whole crew is, David literally gets referred to as “boy” here, which isn’t so much a dogwhistle as a tornado siren. No wonder David is quietly starting to show his disdain for the human crew.

“They're making you guys pretty close [to human now], huh?”

“Not too close, I hope.”

One of the few themes the movie handles halfway competently is the parallel between the humans stumbling all over themselves as they rush to go meet their makers, while David is already experiencing the disappointment of actually meeting his, and finding out they’re a bunch of clueless assholes. Are we supposed to believe the same of the Engineers? I don’t know. They definitely think of humans as lesser, though. More to come on that later.

Because right now, an expedition is barrelling toward the alien structure–again, driving all over the FCKING ALIEN ROAD–and they’re doing it with only six hours of daylight left, because Holloway literally says “It's Christmas [...] and I want to open my presents.”

I cannot communicate how heinous this character felt. The actor did a perfectly fine job playing him, but if Charlie Holloway was real, his name would be said with the same venom as that of the man pictured below: Heinrich Schliemann, the man who found the real, actual city of Troy, and immediately dynamited a trench through the royal palace, destroying who knows how many artifacts from the period the Iliad was based off of. Yes, I picked out the most assholish-looking photo of him I could find on purpose.

Also, Holloway’s an anti-masker, apparently.

I’m going to step back for just one second and list the one practical, movie budget reason why characters might take their helmets off. The costume designers did an admirable job coming up with something that fits the general requirement of a helmet in major studio releases, prior to The Mandalorian: make the actor’s faces completely visible, because without actors with a strong sense of physical presence and voice acting, you’ll lose connection with the audience.

They did a great job with that. Unfortunately, shiny helmets are a bastard to digitally edit film crew out of. 

It’s not impossible to place lights and crew so that the audience won’t notice them. Alien certainly pulled it off. Clear plastic elements in helmets also mean other logistical challenges, though: fogging being the main one. This, and cooking your actors in a fishbowl under studio lights.

Both problems can be simultaneously combated by installing A/C fans within the helmets, but because these helmets are entirely clear, you’re limited to hiding them down near the neck, and anybody who’s done similar for a cosplay or suit will know that it’s potentially noisy and not always effective. You can actually see condensate on the helmets in the movie, though whether that’s from the actor’s breath or a deliberate choice, I don’t know.

All this adds up to increased time resetting actors (i.e. cleaning sweat off of them without disrupting their makeup), more exhaustion from said actors, and the worry that the highest-paid, plot-critical actors may decide they don’t want to do a sequel if the shooting experience is too physically unhealthy.

And then there’s also more time spent carefully arranging crew and lights to hide their reflections, or more time making some poor VFX artist erase a transparent, curved reflection from frame and replace it with something else, or make the actors more comfortable by adding the glass in later with CGI, at the potential loss of some realism. The average modern movie studio would choose one of these VFX-driven options and demand it done in a week, which is why VFX artists need to unionize.

So. I understand at least a few logistical reasons why you don’t tend to make actors wear helmets for too many shooting days. But it has to be balanced with the story. It has to feel believable. It has to fit the story. It has to not make your characters look like mud-witted morons.

As soon as they find liquid water and the oh-so-deadly CO2 levels start to drop, Holloway takes his helmet off.

“Don't be an idiot.”

“Don't be a skeptic.”

Flames on the side of my goddamn face.

Now, this is the moment a lot of people lost sympathy for the human characters, even back in 2012. It was a dumbass idea even then, in the pre-’rona years. Sadly, Millburn the biologist isn’t written smart enough to punch Holloway in the nuts over even thinking of doing this, because we have two problems with what Holloway’s doing here: Biology, and biology.

First, biology.

(https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/13-viruses-virus-3d-model/1071200)

Obviously, they don’t know if anything’s in the air. He could find out that humans are deathly allergic to alien dust mites. He could have just caught himself a case of space covid, which he and the lemmings that follow him can then transmit to the entire crew if he’s not kept in quarantine. They can sterilize the sealed suits, but they can’t sterilize the inside of his lungs. Yet.

Second, biology. 

Specifically, Earth biology. Do you know how carefully modern space agencies sterilize anything that’s headed for Mars, or anywhere else that might have a biosphere of its own? A lot! They sterilize everything a lot! Because microbes are hardy little bastards. We’ve never found extraterrestrial life, only precursor molecules that show the capacity for life to develop in other places. How are you going to verify you’ve found alien life, or even those precursors, if you can’t prove that your samples are uncontaminated? What happens if microbes from Earth manage to survive the trip and establish a foothold somewhere? What if they destroy native life?

This movie’s characters treat this with only a fraction of the gravitas that the cinematography does, which is part of why this remains so jarring throughout. The practical sets, the art direction, and the camerawork are all excellent. The editing continues to do its best, though it almost feels like things were cut very tight through this to speed things along and to give more time, unfortunately, to what the characters are doing. 

their crimes against my sanity are not done yet

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(Previous) | (Index) | ⛬

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As a side note, rounding up some discussion from a previous entry: The most excellent artist @noordzee pointed out that the clashing artistic style of the moon and stars slapped onto the carving of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I. In the previous post, I focused on the link between that carving and its use in ancient aliens conspiracy theories. But let's dig a bit into actual Maya iconography around celestial bodies instead.

Now, I am not an expert on Classical Maya stuff. Not in the slightest. And there is a lot of information on their art that is linguistically inaccessible to me, as a non-Spanish speaker. But out of the Maya art and writing that survived the book-burning conquistadors, we have some iconography for the moon and stars, and they don’t look like what’s in the movie.

I wasn’t able to find any specific pieces of art that contained stars, but I did find the glyph for star, ek’. 

I was only able to find depictions of a crescent moon in the context of the moon goddess, where she tends to be sitting on the crescent like a chair, or one part of it is shown behind her, almost like a tail (though I can’t be certain whether that’s due to chipped paint).

The moon by itself was somewhat harder to find. I couldn’t find any Maya depictions of it with my limited poking around of the spanish internet, but I did find a (much later) Mixtec depiction of the moon, complete with a lunar rabbit! Much like East Asian cultures, the darker markings on the moon are culturally interpreted as a rabbit shape.

Thanks again to nordzee for pointing out the dissonant art style, because the real mesoamerican art on this subject is phenomenal.

Next time, the movie will hurt me more, so if anybody else has fun facts to share or details to point out. PLEASE. Ease my pain.

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(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

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Alt text citations:

None this time. Many ramblings, though.

[on-partiality]

Okay, so I'm absolutely curious:

I don't know if you've been asked this already, but how would you rank the Founding Fathers (from the ones you like the most to the ones you really don't)?

Sorry for taking forever I got sick and then I had school camp but here's how I'd rank them:

1, Alexander Hamilton: I've studied him the most out of the main founding fathers so I've grown rather attached to him. I still acknowlege his flaws like the fact that the trading charter he worked for when he was younger also sold slaves, the fact that he was sexist just like the typical 18th century man and that he did cheat on his wife. But even with all of those, he's my favourite of the bunch.

2. James Madison: when creating this tier list type thing I realised that I really don't know much about Madison that's why he's higher in the list (because I've studied him so little compared to the others, I don't know as much about his flaws and problematic actions as I do the rest of the bunch) I've read a lot about him doing silly things and supposedly being a good husband but the fact that he got along so well with Jefferson throws me off because I really don't like Jefferson. So yeah, I'd say I'm pretty neutral with Madison.

3. John Adams: I haven't studied him as much as the other founders (still more than Madison though) so I find it difficult to have too strong an opinion on him. I like his stance on slavery and the fact that he never owned any, however, I don't like his thoughts on women and men without property (and just generally the requirements he wanted to make on who should and shouldn't be allowed to vote) and I don't believe he was a very good father from what I've read about how he treated his oldest son, I also don't like his personality.

4. Benjamin Franklin: I know that no one is going to agree with me on this one but something about him just grosses me out, probably because I'm semi-sex-repulsed and hearing about the way he was with so many women makes me want to gag. Additionally, the comment he made about old women being the same in the dark grossed me out heaps. I get that he technically wasn't that bad and he freed his slaves and invented so many things but his personal life throws m

5. George Washington: Look, he did some HORRIBLE things, he owned many slaves, his treatment of Native Americans was terrible and I completely disagree with most of his political views... But I really like him as a military commander and a soldier and I like his personality a lot and that's why he ranks higher than the next person on this tier list, I don't agree with most of his actions. I don't support racism or genocide. But also I have far more fun studying Washington than I do the next founding father on this list.

6. Thomas Jefferson: child rapist, owned more slaves than any of the other people on this list (I think) and was really weird with his pets. He advocated for religious freedom and he was smart, I'll give him that but I don't like his personality, I don't like his political views and he was very hypocritical. Really, with his views, he wouldn't have even liked himself and he didn't do enough to make me like him. He's still interesting to study but I find it far harder to empathise with him than I do the men listed above because I really just can't see him as anything but vile.

Bonus!: I would put Aaron Burr between Adams and Madison because while I agree with most of his views and he's really fun to study, I like Hamilton a little bit too much to rank the man that killed him higher than 3rd.

(note: I wrote this on like an hour of sleep, this may be the worst amrev take ever)

Edited, 24th of February: Got reminded of this post's existence thanks to a comment by @c0ckmuncher pointing out how inaccurate one of these takes was and checked it again and safe to say I'm never posting anything late night ever again, the rankings have now been changed to better suit what I actually think of these men

[l0thcat]

I keep thinking about TBB and how it ended. Or the whole season i should say, the ending was pretty good with a few flaws ( in my opinion ).

And you know, I'm not surprised, as much as i LOVE this show, I'm used to cartoons getting shit. Its been going on for far too long.

Its Disney AND Netflix. And here is a list of shows that were doing good, got told mid season its getting canceled, and a rushed ending.

Amphibia

The Owl House

She Ra and The Princesses Of Power ( 2018 )

Centaurworld*

My Little Pony G4* and G5

Steven Universe*

OK KO lets be heroes.*

Star Trek Prodigy*

Kipo and the age of the wonderbeasts.

The Mandalorian ( i know its not a cartoon but it has the same vibes as TBB ).

And probably many more. It sucks, so bad, for animation. And I'm saying this because i fully believe Disney or whoever was going to cancel TBB if it already isn't. They just didn't want to announce that.

Other notes:

*Centaurworld ; Was meant to be an ADULT cartoon and very much has left overs from that, however Netflix decided it was too MLP-esc so they made it for kids instead which ended up just being a bunch of fart and butt jokes. And then got canceled anyways so everything had to rush and wrap up in season 2. Which SUCKS because it is so beautiful when it can be and has beautiful music.

*MLP G4 is not Netflix nor Disney and while it did get multiple seasons and an ending, it had new writers during, i don't know, s6 or s7. And things slowly went backwards. And the end felt rushed imo. It wasn't a bad one but it didn't feel.. satisfying.

*Steven Universe ; i love Steven Universe, it was canceled because the creator got an Sapphic wedding AND kiss scene on screen, on a kids cartoon. But they compromised by after the finale they would get a spin off and a movie. The finale is good. Whats rushed here to me, was the spin off. And again, this is not Disney or Netflix, but Cartoon Network.

OK KO and Star Trek prodigy are also not Disney or Netflix ( which apparently Netflix is trying to save Star Trek Prodigy ) but also kicked the bucket.

All this to say ; there is a huge problem within the animation area and I'm tired of CEOs or whoever forcing creators and writers to cancel or shorten their stories.

The Bad Batch s3 is no better in my opinion. I loved a lot of scenes of it and I'm grateful for a lot of it and I'm not honestly sure if this is Disney or Jennifer or someone else but it really hurts.

Here is why it bothers me:

I'll just get this one out of the way first. Tech. Tech COULD have been sacrificed. He COULD have died. In a way that was actually meaningful. Omega got captured anyway, she was probably going to whether Tech went home with them or not. His death IS sad and i DO see them trying to honor it, i do. But its bad to me because it really does feel like "gotta kill the autistic person". Its really annoying when shows try to have an autistic character and then mistreat them ( She Ra 2018 as well but Entrapta didn't die but she does get mistreated a lot ). Its annoying and hurtful. Especially with the writers and such teasing his fans so strongly. There was no reason to. Its not a spoiler.

The TALKS in between that we missed. Tech talking to Phee about Crosshair. Crosshair learning about Tech's Death from Omega. Omega talking to Emerie about her brothers. Crosshair coming back with Omega, we don't even see them just silently watching him walk into the ship. Its just nothing. I'm sure i am forgetting some because it happened, SO much during this season.

What happened to Cody. Like its fine if he's being saved for another series but then perhaps say that.

Creators do not have to be extremely secretive about everything. Fans who don't want spoilers don't go looking for it. I'm not implying they need to spoil the ENTIRE plot, but saying Tech is dead-dead is not something to be secretive about, An hour long finale is not something to be secretive about, etc.

The other Clone X's, while they are very very cool and supposed to mirror CF99... they weren't overly needed honestly. It felt so rushed. Like I'm not saying they needed to be someome either, they don't need to. But i wasn't fearful or full of impact when i saw them my genuine reaction was "this is too much now". It was like if they DID decide to put Darth Vader in it at last second. Like i fully believe Omega was supposed to be home with Crosshair for a little longer and help Echo and Rex with the clones. And then these new CX clones were supposed to show up in s4 and be the ones to get her again.

The fans.. would have wanted.. season 4?...... i don't know why its so bad to want that. And honestly atp, i don't get why its so bad to have plot filler. Its BAD for series that got canceled or shortened, but its not bad for a series that you want more of, because then you get more time with them or more lore if you're lucky.

It occured to me there was not one flash back. Not one about the past. The most was Omega talking about how she watched CF99 be made and that it implied shes older ( and is ) than them. Could you imagine the emotional impact on us and for Omega, watching her, watch them grow up. I don't think Rebels or TCW really had flash backs either but they usually did it in other ways.

I'm not like.. a good writer, so maybe writers on here will disagree and thats okay, I'm open to that.

TLDR: I'm tired of Cartoons kicking the bucket too soon for far too long. I feel like The Bad Batch s3 also had this treatment and it isn't fair to the fans.

[melanieryssel]

Genshin's characters as your tour guide | P1

Character: Scaramouche, Venti, Alhaitham

Setting: Basically, now you're in Teyvat. It doesn't matter how you got here, it's totally up to your imagination. You could be a Vision wielder, born in Teyvat, or you could be a God!Creator who got shifted to this land. Anh on your journey to seven nations, you will meet up with other characters who will be your traveling companion.

A/n: I'm a new writer so I would love it if you guys leave me comments on how I can improve my writing. Also, this is a series so I plan on doing a lot of other characters too, let me know who you want me to do next. Finally, sorry in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Scaramouche/Wanderer

He somewhat reluctantly agreed to go with you. He thinks this whole situation is just so annoying. In fact, it's only because of the God of Wisdom who had actively and persistently encouraged him to make new friends that Scaramouche is now tagging along with you.

Your travel doesn't have a specific destination. He just takes you anywhere you want to and if you don't have a list of places you want to visit, you guys would probably end up wandering around Sumeru.

Your relationship gradually improves as he finds your presence comforting and calming. He would introduce the scenery to you with such a sarcastic voice like pointing out the landscape flaws or assuming you're boring or weird to enjoy what you see. However, you only laugh it off when Scaramouche is being Scaramouche because you know he secretly likes the scenery as well.

Would intentionally use his skill and makes you struggle to catch up with him. Especially when you have to move from mountain to mountain, he would definitely pretend to forget you and fly off alone until you loudly call his name out of frustration. He might shame you a bit or maybe a lot for being slow but he would still come back and pick you up then carry you in bridal style while flying.

Let's hope it's not going to rain because your intention to touch his hat is clear on your face on the whole journey from the beginning, so Scaramouche won't lend you his hat if it rains. Maybe he will find a leaf for you to use instead. 

Venti

Unlike Scaramouche, Venti seems immensely enthusiastic about the idea right when you ask him to be your tour guide. This man loves Mondstat to his bones and can't wait any more minutes to show you all the beauty of his nation and people.

You and Venti would ride on the strongest yet calming wind to travel on the sky of Mondstat. He would randomly speed up or make you guys freely fall for a moment only to tease you. Venti will give you a bunch of Celilia as an apology after.

Venti will definitely bring you to Starnatch Cliff. 

Then, he walks you to Mondstat City and eagerly introduces you to his acquaintances. Venti takes his responsibility as your tour guide very seriously. He would tell you the history of this land, the folktale behind a flower, and recite a poet to you. He would also take you to Good Hunter shop when it's time to eat something. You guys enjoy the food thoroughly, ordering a variety of dishes, and only stop when you find out he doesn't have any mora...

"I thought you treat me?" You say

"Ehe" 

Unfortunately, you have no mora as well. You feel deeply guilty but Venti is way faster than you so he just grabs your hand and escapes. Before you can say anything, Venti already comes up with a plan that could help you have enough mora to pay for the meal.

And that's the reason why you two end up performing on the street right now. Luckily, Master Diluc passes by so he did offer to help pay for you, you only, and not Venti.

Alhaitham

Alhaitham is not the type to easily display his feelings so you are not sure what he thinks of this idea. He asks you where you want to visit and because you don't have any specific places in your mind so you say he can decide where to go. Hardly did you know, this won't lead to anything good.

Undoubtedly, he will take you to Sumeru Akademia. First, you really enjoy visiting such a majestic building. However, he starts to talk about different Darshans in the Akademia, the history of Sumeru, the well-known or impactful research in the library... As much as you love how passionate he looks while talking, it slowly becomes too much for you.

So you think you should ask him to bring you somewhere else. Surprisingly to Alhaitham, you say you want to visit his house. He doesn't get why you want to go there but doesn't oppose the idea at all since he finds you actually charming and kind. When you guys arrive, you see Kaveh there working on his thesis. Kaveh takes your visiting as a sign from the Universe to have a break from his work, but right after when Kaveh and you greet each other, Alhaitham says "It's enough, let's go somewhere else."

For the rest of the day, you two go to many gorgeous locations. Before saying good night, as he walks you to your hostel in Sumeru city, he says to you: "You aren't interested in what I talked in the Akademia right? Maybe Kaveh could be a more suitable tour guide since you guys' personalities share similarities." You freak out for real and then try to reassure him that it's not true and you actually really like the academic research he introduced.

"Really? Okay, then let's come back to Akademia library tomorrow, I can explain that research to you."

[mcyt-rep]

hello beloved mcyt rep blog may I ask for a clip or sometjing or where you heard skizz has ADHD because I have it too and it'd be like. cool and stuff (<- parasocial) but I can't find anything anywhere that says it bsjdhsjjf not attacking you for lack of sources /gen okay thank you

hooooooookay so i've been busy w/ school and haven't had the chance to update this blog lately. as of right now i don't have exact clips of him talking about it (though i know he Has talked about it) but i do have a uh. transcript description thingymabobber from memory. of imp n skizz podcast episode vacation stories.

important to note that actually, skizz refers to it as ADD, but since this was the original term when he was growing up, i'm not sure if he has ADHD and is just calling it ADD, or if he has just ADD without the H.

impulse starts talking about uh. idr man it's been months GOD this is so unprofessional what's important is he notices he got off-track and skizz jokingly says, "Since when did you have ADD?" [implication here as he's the one in the duo with it]

honorable mention goes to episode 23 where they both list a bunch of quote unquote Flaws they have and it's literally all just ND traits

[gyllenhaalstories]

WORKS LIKE A CHARM — JERRY BRINSON

summary: there’s nothing like a lazy evening with jerry, nothing like it.

warnings: i tried to keep the story in the 1960s setting but there is probably a bunch of anachronisms, alcohol, smut (hickeys, masturbation, handjob, blowjob, thigh riding, cockwarming) 18+ NO MINORS.

word count: 2060

gifs credits: me @gyllenhaalstories / divider credit: @/firefly-graphics

notes: this one goes in the nsfw tumblr text posts that live in my mind rent free category. there is no spoiler of significance for the movie wildlife, you’re good to read even if you’re just here for the dilf vibes! thank you for reading & REMEMBER TO REBLOG!

You tapped your pen on your pouting lips, wrinkles forming on your forehead.

Jerry moved slowly, as to not disturb you. He paid so little attention to the radio to the point he did not notice that whatever sports game he was listening to had ended and music was filling the silence.

You did not know what he was focusing on, you could not see him that well from your position anyway. With your head resting comfortably on his thigh and your head titled in direction of the newspaper you were holding in your hands, you could only see the maze of words in front of you.

Jerry brought you newspapers on his way back from work. He was not interested by the content of them, but he knew you liked the word puzzles in them. He got them from free, the young boy that distributed the newspapers always left one at the store on accident, but he would buy them for you anyway. He could not put a price on that bright smile of yours when you completed one of those games.

More taps on your lips, more humming of concentration. “Do you think they can make mistakes in those games? They’re new and all, maybe someone needs to call and inform them the puzzles are flawed — nevermind.”

“Y’got it?” Jerry mumbled before taking a sip of beer from the bottle that he rested on his other thigh.

“Yeah.” You chuckled softly and circled the letters of the newly found word.

“Gotta be patient, sweetheart. You know you always finish them.”

You moved your head so you could tilt it back and look up at Jerry. Your eyes met with a small, playful but sincere grin. You squinted and tried to fake annoyance, but when he reached to stroke your cheek, your expression softened.

Jerry was not a man of many words, he kept most of them to himself at least.

You were learning to search his face to find an answer like you searched your puzzles. The answer you found in his eyes made you smirk. He was not looking back at you, his eyes were staring at other parts of your body.

At this angle, your neck was exposed and taunted him. It looked perfect, he wanted to wrap his hand around it in a gentle yet possessive manner and feel a breath getting caught in your throat. Further down, the hem of your shirt teased him. The fabric was old, worn out and he could see there was nothing underneath it to cover your skin. The soft curve of your breasts sent a wave of arousal through his body.

You chose to let him be. He was a man of few words, indeed. But if he wanted to see more than a peek of skin under your clothes, he would need to use his words.

He set his now empty bottle of beer on the table next to the couch. The back of his hand caressed your skin, simultaneously spreading goosebumps over both yours and his body.

You circled a word, crossed it off the list.

He shifted in his seat, rested his free hand next to the zipper of his pants.

You moved slightly along with him, Jerry started to palm at his growing bulge.

His eyes were undressing you. There was something about a peaceful and quiet moment with you that made him comfortable. He could relax his tense shoulders, let out a deep and content sigh. There was also something about you — your cute frown when you were struggling with a part of the puzzle, how you just looked so beautiful and irresistible. It worked like a charm for him. It made everything else disappear until there was only you and him that mattered in the world at that very moment.

You tried to progress in your work, but it was useless. Jerry was squirming on the couch and made it hard for you to simply lay down and pretend you did not need to touch him as much as he needed to touch you too.

You folded the newspaper in half, squeezed your pen in the middle of it and tossed the items on the coffee table.

Meanwhile, Jerry undid the zipper of his pants and freed his cock from his underwear.

You sat up next to him, turning towards him. You kissed him, softly at first.

He wrapped his hand around his length and moaned against your lips when he stroked himself slowly.

You pulled away from the kiss, a thin strand of spit linked your lips together.

“I —” Jerry spoke, thumb stroking over the tip of his cock when you interrupted him with another kiss. “I want you.”

You pressed your forehead against his and nodded ever so lightly, ready to give him whatever he needed. Your body was impossibly closer to his, it was uncomfortable, but you did not even mind.

When your hand reached down, Jerry locked yours immobile on his thigh. He looked at you while he stroked his cock faster, tighter. He twisted his fist around his hard-on.The more your jaw was dropping, the faster he was stroking himself and filling the silence with small grunts.

The grunts echoed in your mind, empty at the exception of the thought of needing him so badly. You wanted to whine, to let him know you did not like that lesson of patience.

He brought his hand up to your mouth, you spit on it, and before he could let one drop go to waste, he continued to jerk himself off while he watched you, watching him.

You wiggled your hand that was forced down by his own, his grip surprisingly firm and stubborn. You sighed and busied yourself with his neck when he gave you access to it, dropping his head back when your lips dragged around the skin over his Adam’s apple.

When you began sucking on a small spot of his neck, he let out a few whispered curse words from the feeling. His chest rose and fell faster and faster. The more hickeys you left on his skin, the closer he was getting. No biting the inside of his cheek, no closing his eyes to focus on the feeling of your mouth rather than his cock throbbing in his hand — nothing would help slowing down the imminent release.

You moved your hand again, only now earning the permission to touch him. You wasted no time and replaced his hand, slick with spit and precum, by yours. You stroked him slow, then you were reaching down to his balls and back up to his sensitive tip.

Jerry needed you more than words could say and this slow pace he usually loved was making him grow frustrated. He placed his hand on top of yours, wrapping yours so he could set the rhythm he needed. “Yeah.”

“Feels good?” You murmured, cheek pressed against his own while you both looked down to his crotch surrounded by the beige clothed thighs you loved so much.

He groaned in response. “Feels too damn good.”

You noticed how the muscles of his thighs clenched and how the steady strokes of your hands together became more erratic. It was now or never.

“What are ya doing? Goddamn.” Jerry moaned even louder when you replaced both of your hands with your mouth, now leaning down in front of him to suck him off. He moved a hand on top of your head and bopped your head up, and down and up and...

Your mouth was filled with him. You closed your eyes and moaned, the vibrations made his hips jerk up and thrust further into your mouth. You gagged and fought the urge to pull back, you would not let any drop go to waste either.

Jerry kept you in place for a few more seconds, until he could not handle the overwhelming feeling of your tongue swiping over his slit to lick him clean. “That’s my good girl.”

You sat up again, he swiped his thumb over your lips and pushed it in your open mouth so you could clean it up. You swallowed all of him and erased the distance between the two of you to kiss him deeply.

The kiss worked like a charm, it was like he read your mind. He helped you move on the couch so one knee rested between his open legs and the second was on the other side.

You lowered yourself, lower and lower and...

He raised his leg to press it against your covered core. Jerry’s hands squeezed your face, another kiss. They dropped to your neck, wrapping his hands around it until they dropped down to grope your breasts and pinch your nipples between his fingers — another kiss.

You started to ride his thigh, slow and hesitant at first. You could feel the fabric against your folds, it was wet from your own arousal.

Just like he did with your hand when you were jerking him off, Jerry was in charge of the pace. His grip on your hips was firm, fingers digging into the soft flesh. Back and forth, he made you hump his thigh to his heart’s content.

And cock too — you looked down between your bodies to notice how it started twitching. You needed him inside you so bad, it was like you craved the familiar stretch of his cock.

Again, just like he did earlier, he was not going to let you have what you wanted so easily. He wanted to make you wait, he wanted to keep you needy and desperate. He meant no harm at all, he simply adored the look of your face where all that you could express was your desire and pleasure.

Eyes closed, alternating between biting your lips or pressing them together before you failed to silence another moan. He loved it, and you enjoyed the rough friction of his pants and your pyjama bottoms as you kept riding.

Jerry looked up at you with big, dark eyes. He could feel it on his own skin, your wetness pooling under you and on his thigh. More, more, more, that was all he was thinking about — that and the soft, higher-pitched tone of your voice when you started to beg.

It felt good, then better, then even better, but it was not enough. But you did not want to stop humping his thigh. But you wanted him buried deep inside you. But you had to fight with this dilemma of wanting to stop to sink down on his cock instead or giving in and staying in this exact position.

Jerry made the decision for you. “Not gonna get off me until you cum, sweetheart.” His nails, although short, left marks into your skin. He admired your reactions, studying them to catch the first signs of your orgasm.

And they came. A single tear fell from the corner of your eye, a breath got stuck in your throat and interrupted another series of pretty pleases.

Jerry helped you ride out your orgasm, only slowing down when you were too sensitive to handle one more harsh, wet drag of your swollen clit against his pants. He wiped the tear off your cheek and gave your lips a loving peck.

Your legs were on fire, and the fact Jerry helped you straddle both of his legs was not helping. Mind foggy, empty, it took some time for it to be your turn of reading his mind. Your eyes widened in surprise, waves of pain and pleasure battled through your core when you felt him press the tip of his cock to your leaking entrance. Finally.

“Told ya, all you needed was a little patience.” Finally. Only, Jerry had no interest in moving. He wanted to enjoy the feeling of you, the relaxing and the clenching of your walls while you adjusted to his length as you fully calmed down from your high.

His mind was like a puzzle, near impossible to put two pieces together. It bothered you, you wanted to know him like the back of your hand. But at that very moment, all that mattered was how the rest of the world seemed to have vanished. The puzzles could wait, whether they were metaphorical or in the newspapers.

[artist-issues]

What do you think about Disney's Wish?

Predictions:

The movie will be an eye-candy with beautiful 2D and 3D. (But going by the trailer it's not as impressive as the Puss in Boots the Last Wish or Spiderverse. We need a better name for that animation style. How about 2/3D? ZED? I don't know.)

The music will be great. (But after listening to the song from the trailer that is supposed to be the ''I want song'', oh my God the lyrics are so generic and bland they can fit practically any main character ever. And it's just a lot of singing about nothing.)

The Star character, Valentino or both will be annoying.

Valentino will be funny and marketable but the movie could've worked without him.

The world will be huge, beautiful, and interesting and we explore none of it.

The protagonist will be bland with one obvious flaw or a dream which will be related to the message of the movie.

The message will have all the subtlety of the hammer in the face.

Inconsistencies, contradictions, and random stuff happening because funny/the plot.

References to older classics that you wish you would be watching. (You saw how many references they cram now into their other movies? And now it's one of the things they talked about the most!)

Death is funny until we have the fake-out death then you need to care.

No love interest because love makes women weak apparently. Or no love interest because the actress is a lesbian and she talked about how Asha ''looks like her'' because modern acting isn't about pretending to be something you're not, it's about showing who you are every chance you get. And for those who think they might make a lesbian love interest, I would like you to take a look at the gay ''romance'' in the Strange World. But if by some chance they do I doubt it will be any good. When was the last romance in Disney, Frozen 2 (2018) and that's a holdover from the first movie (2013) and the last good romance was Tangled (2010).

Lame villain! It's supposed to be a throwback to the older Disney movies and that includes its villains but Disney is so incompetent with their IPs I wouldn't be surprised if they get their own villain ''formula'' wrong. I swear if they try to make him a twist after spoiling that Chris Pine will be voicing the villain and his evil laugh in the teaser trailer, or ''redeem'' him after he did unspeakable evils. And no villain song. Can Chris Pine sing? Please no terrible auto-tune!

Making jabs at old Disney tropes even tho this movie isn't even half as good as the movies that came before it, uses a bunch of other modern tropes or straight up the same ones that it mocked earlier and completely misinterprets them and uses them even worse! Modern Disney seems to hate its past and does everything to show how ''better'' they are now. Which is untrue in most cases and just smug and annoying!

I'm sorry for being so pessimistic but that's how jaded I become and only towards Disney. It might be their greatest hit that will make people think ''Disney is back''. But Disney needs to change. One good movie will not save them if they keep making remakes that lose money.

I don't know; some of the things you've listed are likely, but I doubt all of them will be true!

I think the animation looks...unfinished. Isn't that odd? It looks like there's not a lot to fill in the scene, and what is there didn't get done rendering.

See these are pretty, but there just isn't a lot going on in the backgrounds--it's very icon-y. Maybe they're going for a storybook-look, but...a very minimalist, simple storybook? Not like Snow White:

Or Pinocchio

I can see that there are 2D textures on the trees and grass and stuff, but I wish there was just more there. Like all these pots and all the stonework in the background, in the screenshots from classic Disney above. Where’s the stuff; it would look even better if there was stuff. You know usually when Disney tries a new technique or look, they show it off. In Moana, they’re like we animated water, and as a result, we are going to show you SO MUCH WATER. In Tangled, they were like, we nailed the hair, and as a result you get to see Rapunzel’s hair do SO MUCH. In Wish it looks like the artists were shy about showing off the painterly stuff. But I’m no expert.

I really agree about the music. Like I really agree. I have only heard snippets. But I remember seeing the trailers for Frozen when a little bit of the music would play and immediately wanting to hear more. Looking it up like “Frozen trailer music” because just the snippet was enough. In this movie, I like the trailer until she starts singing, and then for some reason my whole brain rolls it’s eyes. Why does it do that for this movie? I love Disney music. I listen to Disney Princess Christmas album every season even though it’s not amazing, because I just like hearing characters sing. So why should I be exasperated by new feature-film Disney music, even if it does sound just like the others? I don’t know. I am not a music expert, either; I’m just telling you who I am (a Disney lover) and how inexplicably I reacted to Wish’s little music thing. Chris Pine can sing, but just like everything he does: he sounds like Chris Pine singing.

I think you’re right about Valentino; I don’t know if that’s a fair criticism, though. The Little Mermaid could’ve worked without Flounder. Mulan could’ve worked without Cri-Kee. Cinderella could’ve worked without Jacques. Moana absolutely did work without Pua. But in the new movie’s trailer I did feel like, “this feels like a pointless character.” Don’t know why.

The world actually looks empty to me. See points about the art style above. I don’t want to explore what I’ve seen of it, because it looks like an unfinished Open-World game that someone wants me to stream walkthroughs of on YouTube, and I’m like “no thank you, that looks boring.” But maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe in the story, the Wishing Star deepens and fills up every piece of scenery it interacts with! That would be cool. Maybe there’s a story-reason for the world.

I don’t know about the protagonist being bland. To make a good character (particularly in a kid’s movie) you need one big flaw (to make the character believable) and one big strength (to make the character compelling) and then little flaws and strengths surrounding that. For example, Aladdin’s one big flaw is his insecurity, and his one big strength is his compassion. You can file smaller traits like “trust issues, impulsivity, defensiveness, dishonesty” under the Insecurity flaw, and you can file “generous, insightful,” under the Compassion strength. His compassion makes him help and connect with Jasmine in the marketplace even though his Insecurity leads him to think he needs to be a Prince to re-connect with her after she turns out to be the Princess, etc. So it’s fine if she has one obvious flaw. She just really needs it to be relatable. All Disney characters wish for something. But every single one of them typically learns that the thing they were wishing for isn’t what they thought it would be, and to have what’s worth wishing for (love, usually) requires sacrifice. It’s a formula, but it’s a tried-and-true formula. It’s a multi-faceted formula. If they pick a new facet but remember the good, plain, common sense in the same formula, everything will be fine.

Their messages have been less and less subtle. In general I don’t mind when messages are obvious, because (you know me) I think that’s what movies are for. But! I will admit that movies like The Little Mermaid or Beauty & the Beast or Lilo & Stitch, where the messages are wrapped in layers of compelling character arcs and feel more character-driven, are better than movies like Raya and the Last Dragon. No shade, Raya, but how many times can you say “trust” in the same movie? Aladdin did it in two.

I don’t mind references in movies. Worked for Frozen. But there’s a difference between having Anna excitedly see the sails of a ship entering the harbor as a callback to Pocahontas, and having Rapunzel ask Vanellope if people assume all her problems were solved because a big strong man showed up. One is respectful (hey, let’s parallel Anna seeing the start of a new chapter in her life the same way Pocahontas did with sails!) and the other is sort of poking fun at the audience for ever liking what Disney made. Basically I’m very tired of meta-references.

I think this movie has potential to treat death with the weight it’ll need. After all, if it’s about wishes, one of the very easiest but most emotionally-engaging things they could do is have the main character (or the villain) be wishing to bring someone who’s died back. Then the message could go hard.

I totally agree about romance. The thing about romance is, it is a great way for one character to self-examine and confront their issues, as well as move into a place where they’re willing to sacrifice for others. Having a young, naive character set out to get their dreams, and then run into another character and start to care about that character? It forces conflict and tension, and again, it’s a formula, but it’s a formula that makes sense and shouldn’t be fixed because it’s not broke.

What I really don’t like about this villain is that he just feels bland, like a rockstar character who turns out to be a jerk. Surprise, surprise. And Chris Pine plays Chris Pine in everything he’s in, so I’m not thrilled by that either. But whatever.

Yeah, this last point goes back to meta-humor. #NotMyDisney thinks it needs to acknowledge what’s being mocked in order to trick the mocking audiences into watching their new stuff. “If we just own up to our formulas with a joke, they’ll see we’re self-aware and they’ll come along for the ride!” No, actually, you’ll just take them out of the movie mentally and emotionally to hit them with a fourth-wall slap. And then they’ll mock you because that’s cringe. The truth of the matter is, Disney responded to their haters best with Mary Poppins, and then again with Enchanted, and should’ve left it at that. Don’t say “yeah I know we have princesses and cute animals in our movies, aren’t we silly.” Say, “yeah I know we have Princesses and cute animals in our movies, but that’s because life is dark and hard, and hopeful young women with lowly but loveable creatures are inspiring & important. Kids need a spoonful of sugar to HELP the MEDICINE GO DOWN. But it's still MEDICINE that we're making, you're telling us we shouldn't give kids medicine that tastes good?" That’s what they used to say. Now they just…agree with the haters? Because it's a popularity contest, not a responsibility, anymore. Like that’s going to help.

Anyway, I don’t have set-in-stone thoughts about Wish, because Wish hasn’t come out yet. I agree that actors and actresses can give you some idea of where a movie’s headed and sometimes that’s disheartening, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me worry about Wish—except that it looks bland.

[ninadove]

Opening line patterns 📝

List the first line of your last 10 posted fics and see if there's a pattern.

Thank you for the tag, @bittersweetresilience!

Let’s proceed by order of updates (skipping Shadow Strike because my beloved @paracosmicat wrote the incipit)!

God Games ⚡️

If anyone could fend off an akuma, then surely, it had to be Felix.

So proud of this one. The entire premise is here: Felix just doesn’t get akumatised, so what’s the deal?

It’s also a testament to how strong he is in his cousin’s eyes. Fitting, as this entire fic is about Adrien learning how much Felix actually needs him.

Blueberry passion fruit 🫐🍪

Felix prayed this was not another false lead.

He loves his cousin! He’s been searching for him for so long!! He double-checks even the most improbable hints because Adrien’s absence is a gaping wound in his chest!!! I’m so normal about them.

True to Your Heart ⚔️

The wall had been Fu’s idea.

(So you know it’s a terrible one right away.)

I think there's a flaw in my code (Gasoline/Spy AU) 🔥

“You duped me.”

With this one, we begin in medias res! (That’s actually the title of the first chapter.) This entire first part focuses on the confrontation between Argos and Ryuko, and how we got to that point. Emotions are boiling over, as you can see.

Here’s to Never Growing Up 🧸

“Your niece was uncharacteristically excited tonight.”

You can immediately tell this one is going to be pure fluff! You can also infer Felix and Kagami don’t have children of their own, and they’re perfectly happy with it. Emilie could never.

All the shine of a thousand spotlights 🎼

“Did you know waltzing was once considered indecent?”

It’s about the hypocrisy of ever-changing social expectations. It’s about defiance as a form of love. It’s about holding each other tight and gently all at once. It’s about Felix infodumping, because I do it too!

Turntable 💍

“So, you like to be onstage.”

This one… The torture of your abuser holding and using your very nature against you. This first chapter is one of the darkest things I’ve ever written, but it’s always darkest before the dawn.

Escape from the city and follow the sun 🌅

Kagami only wanted one thing from that evening: to not get akumatised.

This poor sweetheart is heartbroken but trying to put up a brave face… She’s convinced her emotions are inherently monstrous… If only someone swooped in to sweep her off her feet… 🥺

Change targets 💐

“No one can know.”

This one is best explained in context:

“No one can know.”

That ship had sailed already. Knuckles white against the pedestal table, careful not to crease the napkin as another coughing fit broke her, Kagami cursed her own lack of discretion.

What she really meant was:

“My mother cannot know.”

Brave, Truthful, and Unselfish 🧸

“… And they lived happily ever after. The end.”

My favourite of the bunch! 💚💜 Fitting that it would be saved for the end.

Storyteller Felix is so dear to me, because we get to see him breaking narrative rules in his quest for freedom, love and happiness. Here, this is manifested by his starting at the end of the tale, ergo flipping the structure entirely. Iconic.

And of course, it’s foreshadowing for Emotion… All he’s ever wanted was to live happily ever after with Adrien. He’s just a child…

OK now let’s talk ✨ statistics ✨

6 of these fics start with dialogue

5+ begin in medias res (it really depends on your definition of the term)

POVs: 5 for Kagami, 3 for Felix, 1 for Adrien and 1 for Fu randomly

All of these tell us something about the characters’ psychology and emotional state. Yes even the stupid Fu one. He’s so proud of himself and does not imagine for a second this world’s Shan Yu is about to breach through his beloved wall. Pathetic.

No false modesty here: I’m really happy with all of these. I used to struggle so badly with incipits, yet here we are! 💜📝

@paracosmicat @jay--hawk @yardikins @capricious-lily @piromina you should do this too!

[macgyvertape]

Venture Bros series finale thoughts (spoilers)

Watching the final work in a long running series (I started watching around 2012) is always a bit bitter-sweet, especially as a Venture Bros fans where there have been two or three year gaps between seasons, and after season 7 there was a lot of uncertainty of whether there would be another season or movie special. It was also extremely frustrating that hours after the movie came out, before most people had gotten to watch it, it was announced that Warner Bros who owns the rights would be delisting the show, WITHOUT telling the creators beforehand.

I reframed a lot of my initial thoughts after reading the Mashable interviews with the creators. “'The Venture Bros.' creators on saying goodbye to their show: 'It sucks'” where they discuss “kill you darlings” editing, and why some characters like Brock had less screen time and others like Sirena didn’t appear at all:

“"We put on our list — these are the things we want to include," Hammer recalled of the process. "These are the things that aren't important. These are the things that are funny. These are the things we care about. And we wrote out [a] way too long script and did a few rewrites."

"We wrote our most detailed outline ever," Publick said. "And we started writing the script. And when we got to the halfway point of the outline, we were already at the, like, seven-eighths point of what our page count should be. So we went, 'Oh, we gotta cut five scenes we wrote already and pare down the second act — like, way down.'" …

But it wasn't all bad news. Hammer found some joy in the process of paring down, telling Mashable, "It was also a treat because when we get to that point where we've overwritten, we can read it and go, 'Well, now I understand you.' We're good at looking at something and going, 'I know why this is broken. And I can fix it.' Jackson and I are both real good at repairing things."

And “Doc Hammer reveals the 'Venture Bros.' scene he regrets losing” which discusses Sirena specifically:

“Hammer began to explain, "I don't want people walking away going —"

"She's [Sirena] a bitch," Publick said, finishing the thought.

"Yeah," Hammer continued. "She's not a bad person. And we understood what happened (between her and Dean). And we wanted to tell people like, 'This is just a part of growing up. These terrible things just happen.'”

"The Monarch is a jackass, and he says terrible things," Hammer continued. "And Doc is a horrible narcissist, raised by toxic masculinity. I recognize this pantheon because they're in my life as well. But, I love all of them — as flawed as they are. And [Publick and I, in making the series] constantly walk that line of going, 'This is terrible. But look at the love in here.'"

The Sirena cut scene was meant to walk that line as well. The duo declined to reveal what would have happened in the scrapped Sirena scene. (Maybe they go into it on the DVD's commentary track?) But Hammer did share what he hopes fans realize about Sirena.

"We wanted people to walk away understanding her and understanding what happened," Hammer said. "Obviously, she's not in love with Dean. And hers is a very complicated relationship with Hank because it's his first relationship. And that's the age where we mess up."

I think the series finale is excellent within the way it works in that very strict time limit; it balances some fun new plots and characters with wrapping up a bunch of plot threads and speculation. Sure I would have loved to see more of Mantilla/Debra’s “stalker with a crush” interest in Dr. Mrs. The Monarch as the resolution was very quick but it still was my favorite plotline in the movie. It’s been amazing watching the quality of the animation increase over the course of 20 years, and I’m grateful the show got a high movie budget send off. There were a number of scenes like the Ven-tech tower liftoff where the animators really got to flex and make the moment spectacular and it was great to see.

It felt nice to end the series getting answers to some of the long running show mysteries and fan speculation; how are The Monarch and Rusty Venture related, what’s the deal with Hank and Dean’s parentage. This show has never done the sudden twist because fans figure things out and it wanted to “subvert expectations”, it instead rewards careful watching, and it was fun spotting old callbacks or visual Easter eggs (Dermott has a Deathklok poster). There were also a lot of emotional moments that landed for me, such as the rescue of Ven-Tech tower, just seeing these characters work together and succeed after all these years watching them.

This finale does one of my favorite things for a series finale to do, show a world where the characters have grown and changed but the world live on in a positive way, akin to riding off into the sunset where a new adventure is always possible. Things like Ven-tech tower settling in the old Venture Compound, the Monarch finds out the truth of his biological relationship to Rusty Venture but just adds a layer in the in the way he’ll continue to arch.

[technicolorfamiliar]

Technicolor Familiar Watches Too Many Conrad Veidt Movies Part 2 of ?

(More on what this is all about in Part 1)

Disclaimer: I think I get into more plot spoilers here than I did in my last post, incase that matters to any interested parties reading this.

We're getting into the titles where I mostly went in cold, no expectations or even general ideas of what these movies were about beyond brief descriptions on IMDB or Letterboxd.

Oh and, Disclaimer #2: If the creators/editors/scanners of any images used see their work here, please let me know so I can give you proper credit! 🖤

The Thief of Bagdad, 1940 Dir. Ludwig Berger, Zoltan Korda, Tim Whelan, Michael Powell, William Cameron Menzies ⭐2/5 Watched Oct 24, Max Ehhh, I don't know. A lot of people really love this movie. I did not particularly enjoy really anything about it. Sure, it's a groundbreaking technological marvel that set the standard for a lot of future fantasy films. But the story is messy in a way that couldn't be rectified by Movie Magic. All those directors probably account for some of the problems there, but I haven't done a ton of research into the making of the film (what is it with large scale, big budget movies made around this time all having multiple directors?). And, I have to say, putting white actors in brown face is always a tough sell. The third act was partially saved by Sabu and Rex Ingram, two actors of color, having some extended screen time, but only just barely. And frankly, I think Connie, although absolutely glorious in Technicolor, was largely wasted on this one.

Der Student von Prague (The Student of Prague), 1926 Dir. Henrik Galeen ⭐4/5 Watched Oct 29, Archive.org Poor Balduin. All he wanted was a hot, rich girlfriend and what did he get? His evil double chasing him around Prague like Michael Myers. I really loved the old school mirror effects and filming tricks. The updated score in the version I watched was pretty good, too. The final act was excellent. The suspense, the build up -- it's all so well-crafted. And an excellent bridge between high German Expressionism and dramatic period romance. We love to see Connie as the tormented romantic hero. Especially when he's giving face, he's giving eyes, he's giving shapes. I'm having a hard time finding anything negative to say about this one. My only gripe is that it's just a little long, could have had maybe 20 - 30 minutes chopped off (but which 20 - 30 min I could not say).

The Passing of the Third Floor Back, 1935 Dir. Berthold Viertel ⭐4/5 Watched Nov 1, Archive.org This film... it's timeless, actually. I may be a grumpy old so-and-so, but stories where one kind and gentle character comes in and leaves a lasting influence on a bunch of deeply flawed or even outright awful people always get me. For some reason, this is the first of Connie's films from the 1930s on my watch list. Not sure what took me so long, but I was really pleasantly taken aback by his delicately nuanced and subdued performance here. His measured gestures and restraint are so great in this film, and so appropriate for the character. I really appreciate the way the Stranger takes time to consider and see the folks at the boarding house in a way they're clearly not seeing each other. I also love that there's not a lot of exposition or explanation like there usually is in similar pictures: Why is the Stranger there? Who/what is he? Where did he come from? The audience kind of gets an answer at the end, but ultimately nothing more than what we're given matters and wouldn't affect the story anyway.

The Last Performance, 1929 Dir. Paul Fejos ⭐4/5 Watched Nov 4, Youtube Gooped and gagged! Somehow we go from adding a fourth to Erik's polycule to MURDER? I'm so mad so much footage (and a voiceover??) was lost. Can we please talk about the big bisexual energy Connie has in this movie, maybe more than any other film on my list so far? From how he physically handles his costars to how he's styled with the heavy makeup, the tails, the dressing gown, it was a lot to take in, and I am living for it. I'm realizing that, as a performer, he really is a master technician, somehow without anything he's doing on screen coming off as inauthentic or too studied, without "showing the work." Erik's face journey when he kisses Julie's hand and wishes her all the best with Mark is worth watching the whole movie for.

Dark Journey, 1937 Dir. Victor Saville ⭐3/5 Watched Nov 12, Youtube Please believe me when I say I really tried very hard to pay attention to the plot of this movie. But it was extremely difficult as I nearly swallowed my tongue because of how stupidly attractive Connie is as Von Marwitz. He's charming, intense, vulnerable. He really has the range, darling. He's kind of using his lower vocal register a bit which apparently does things to me. (Sorry for all the parentheses in this post, but I was shocked years ago when I saw Casablanca and heard that voice come out of that person. It… it does not go. He's like a early 20th century German Jeremy Irons and I guess I half expected him to sound like that too.) Also, I wasn't into monocles before. I am now. So I have to apologize, I know I said I was going to keep the thirst posts to a minimum but can you blame me? Really? But uh, the movie itself? The story is fine, the script is just ok. There's lots of eye candy with the production design. Vivienne Leigh is doing Vivienne Leigh. And she got that man, so good for her I guess.

Part 3 is going to be all over the place in terms of genre and tone, so we'll see how that goes as I piece together all the stuff I wrote.

[the-tubort]

1, 2, and 5 for the toku asks!

1. How did I get into Toku?

I watched a lot of Power Rangers as a kid and just in general a lot of shows that were made first in Japan and then came to America which I think was super common for people my age and older to do given the general boom in anime and Japanese shows being translated and brought over to expand markets. But like a lot of people I imagine, found a bunch of toy review channels with cool toys that weren't brought to America yet with music and songs and even full episodes and movies that were subbed by TVN and just available super easily. I watched a lot of episode previews and the boukenger sentai history sections like an addict and even watched the Boukenger vs movies with like no context just because it was awesome and in a way I think toku helped me to read. I dont remember how I learned how to read but I remember toku being the reason I ended up reading more and could read faster cause I needed to be in time with the subtitles. I still remember sitting down and basically drawing out a terrible comic strip explaining everything that happened in Geki vs Bouken for a first grade assignment or something. I watched Shinkenger and Goseiger week to week in elementary school along with stuff like Digimon Xros Wars and Hunters. Definitely a ridiculously long answer but I don't think the last time I answered this I was as thorough as I wanted to be. I can still remember waiting ages for shinken vs go on and gosei vs shinken and even the shinken summer movie even if I didn't fully understand it then, it was definitely something that I think I dont want to forget

2. First show I watched

This is a bit of a hard answer cause I can't fully remember what show was technically first for me. Excluding Power Rangers, I think Shinkenger was the season I watched first that was week to week but I can't remember if I watched all of it week to week or if I forgot and dropped it. I know I did start goseiger from the beginning but stopped halfway through. It was the episode Eri was making her own cards as a wish I believe. Then I took a break and then Toqger was the first sentai I do truly remember watching front to back week to week with no stops. There were a lot of seasons I also watched in between and overall its kind of all over the place for me but yeah. Anything from bouken-gosei is a fairly good answer tbh. I remember watching clips from those the most.

5. Favorite main hero

THIS IS SOOOO HARD FOR MEEEEE UUHHHHHHHH..... HMMM......

I'll give three for sentai and rider

Sentai:

Toqgers cast is impeccable and strike a chord deep inside of me that I haven't been able to ever shake off which has made me so happy.

King Ohger for all its flaws made a cast of six that made me so sick in the head that I actually could not stop crying the last three episodes of the show and for that I need to put them on this list

There's a lot of teams so it's hard to choose a third when SO MANY mean a lot to me and this does not mean I love any team I didn't mention any less its just hard for me to choose. But megarangers leads are all so sweet and genuine to me and I want to see more of them so bad and usually think a lot about them in my own silly little headcannons

Rider:

This is kind of easier I think so yeah

EIJI MY BOY HAPPY BIRTHDAY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH EIJIIIIIII

EMUUUUUU MY BOYYYYYY I LOVE YOUUUUUU. GASHATOO AND ETC I LOVE YOU AND YOURE STUPID REPRESSED COWORKERSSSSSSS

Finding a third is once again difficult cause I love so many of them but most likely my goat my king my absolute bestie who reminds me to follow my dreams and keep dreaming ICHINOSE HOUTAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOO MUCHHHHH

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 57

Chapter 57: “A Deal, Part 2”

I dunno why but the way she’s being so polite and does whatever she wants regardless of the awkward silence makes me laugh so much.

Our girl is trying to make a good second impression on this man (“trying” might not be the right word since I’m sure she’s being completely sincere) and yet Yuugo decides to be a whole mood instead.

These two are so darn observant. I might not have noticed the the shoes but I would’ve definitely noticed the abs aahaha. Is this why the anime decided to cut him out? So idiots like myself don’t go nuts over him?

It’s weird.. because in the anime the letter was completely sealed (or at least it looked like it was) when Gilda pointed it out, which would of course imply it was unread, yet when Anna & others found the abandoned room, there was still all the writing was on the walls. Yuugo only did that after he returned from Goldy Pond, so whether the anime letter mentioned A08-63 or not, it’s not like his family would’ve known to go there in the first place if they never read the letter.. right? I dunno, the anime makes everything a mess.

Sorry, I know this is something stupid, but how does his coat always manage to stay on his shoulders like this? Why does it never slip off??

Best girl once again not flinching in the slightest when this man threatens her life. "If I try” is the main flaw in that statement because there’s a bunch of adults in this series that would not even hesitate at the chance to kill off our adorable family, unlike Yuugo who definitely has a hidden soft side.

I know Ray just gives Yuugo his gun back right after, but no doubt this panel caught me off guard at first too, like where were you hiding this gun on your person my boy?? Even Rossi & Chris are surprised, as well as Don who questioned if it had bullets (though Ray had removed them). Did no one (but Emma probably) know Ray has this planned?

I know I gave praise for Ray reactivating the self-destruct switch in that long list of mine, but the fact he managed to figure that out on top of search & read through all the books mentioned last chapter and cook up a huge meal for his family in just one day is just all around amazing. No wonder this dude is sleep deprived.

His internal panic is great. “It’s a threat!” Pfftt, as if you haven’t been threatening them all this whole time! He certainly underestimated them and the lengths they’ll go in order to chase a better life.

Previous arcs reignited my love for Isabella and now these arcs are making me fall in love with Chris all over again.

Favorite panel/moment:

She says this with such a huge smile on her face and I love it with all my heart.

ALSO the very start of the nicknames! I especially love how amused Ray is at Emma’s. He’s trying so hard not to bust out laughing.