#energy . but i LOVE the idea of this eldritch dude who’s still figuring out how mortal relationships work kinda just . being too possessive

[ahalliance]

qantoine’s coping mechanism to feeling left behind being both self-isolating and becoming possesive of those he cares for is so juicy as a concept . like yeah you go you funky creachure, manifest those complicated and sometimes contradictory emotions

[jq37]

Ok, a few Unsleeping City asks: 1-Thoughts on new ep? 2-CAMBRIDGE SANTALYTICA 3-The gang tries to meet up for drinks

**spoilers for mutant santa melee**

(I’ll respond to the other two parts of the ask in another post!)

We are back with our first battle episode of the season and our first chance to see the NY Crew really show their skills.

Ricky trying to keep Sophie's reckless ass safe because he has big golden retriever energy is great.

I can't decide if everyone taking this first fight more seriously than the first fight in FH is because they remember how badly they got womped last time and didn't want a repeat or because they were just playing older, more experienced characters.

I hate everything about these mutant Santas and I want it on the record. I mean, they're great from a game design perspective but I hate them.

"Mr. March, I'm gonna save you!"/"My name is Rick, by the way."

I thought it was funny that Ricky and Sophie both happened to hit the exact wrong type of Santa for their skillset for their first attack, back to back.  

Fig's Bardic Inspiration move was to do flirty winks at everyone. Misty's is to give big, theatrical compliments. I love it.  

Ricky dropping gun safety warnings mid MUTANT SANTA FIGHT.

"Fucking come out of your stupid cocoon! I know you're not a butterfly!"

I love it when rolls are happening at the table and Lou is loudly like, "This is terrible. I hate this." He did it all through the family rescue rolls in FH too.

"It's fine. It's fucking new York. What do you expect?"/"The NY that I live in and the NY that you live in are very different my friend." That's the real NY experience.

Sophie going, "F the minions, I'm going for the obvious boss Monster, I'll take the attacks," is such a good character defining moment. Also, the action-y music abruptly cutting off as the door shut was hilarious.

So Pete is hearing mysterious whispers and Sophie is hearing mysterious whispers and I'm Concerned, especially since it's the two newbies and it's not necessarily significant but it could be so I'm just mentioning it and tabling it until I have more info to speculate.

Misty turning to Kingston and saying, "Just like old times!" makes me want to know every single detail of their history together before the new kids showed up.

"Santa's my friend and he's fucking dead."

I like the homebrew rule for Pete's wild magic surge which makes the odds of one increase every time it doesn't happen because it ups the chaos factor and makes it inevitable rather than just a possibility which I bet has the potential to create some real tension in a long, drawn out fight.

The way Brennan kept describing Pete's arm as peeling like a banana when he used his magic grossed me out so much so, if that was the goal, you did it. Thanks, I hate it.

The, "Guess I'll just die," meme but it's Pete going, "Guess I'll just use this evil magic."

"Darling I love to be naughty. It's my favorite thing!" (Misty's chaos potential increases with every line she says).

"SANTA GETYCHO ASS UP." (Flawless bedside manner)

I forgot how fragile lower level characters can be! I'm glad so many of the party members have at least some healing spells (I think everyone but Pete and Sophie) as opposed to FH when it was basically just Kristen I think.

"He just gives us a PS4 and that's it."

Sophie monkey bars up Giant Eldritch Horror Santa's exposed ribcage and upercut-kick him because stripping Emily of her magic doesn't strip her of her creativity or flair.

"Darling, with me every day is a show. My life is a show!"

Sophie, upon being complimented by Misty: Oh my God. My new friends are awesome.

The idea of a dirty rat man summoning a unicorn is hilarious to me.

Pete's first Wild Magic surge just restores his sorcery points, which is great as a player but, as a viewer, I really hope we get to see some bombastic nonsense soon. Also, Brennan had the wild magic surge, in story, be the result of Pete's magic reacting to Kingston's, which I thought was a cool way to justify game mechanics.

"You're the opposite of Santa!"

Smites are GOOD you guys.

Sophie catches Santa and and Ricky (who has just killed the boss Santa) takes a selfie with them. Bless. Also, Sophie refuses to put down Santa for the rest of the fight.

Misty has an umbrella with a KNIFE inside of it which I LOVE.

The fight ends a little anticlimactically because, once you bum rush the boss, all that's left to do is clean up the minions.

Misty mentioned having Shoes of Titania and I wanna know if that's an actual item with a mechanical effect and what its stats are if so.

Ally realizing they only some of the Santas explode on impact basically at the end of the fight was classic DnD.

Santa sending people into his bag was giving me big Naddpod vibes.

"What the fuck happened?" --Santa, 2019

I don't like the implication of the gestating tadpoles with the Santa hats. Like, is Santa's hat organic? Is it just a part of his body? No thank you.

Pete just lying to Santa's face for absolutely no reason. Incredible.

Santa and Misty talking shop, just because, was such a fun 30 seconds of RP. I love RP that exists just to exist (and, sidenote, I also love when it comes back around and becomes relevant like in Naddpod (14 seconds of absolute silence...chicken)).  

"Santa, don't give this boy an egg."

"A very fancy egg for a very not fancy boy. But a good boy nonetheless."

Ricky on Santa: It would be crazy if you weren't real because you're such a good person. (Zac struggling to get through that was his second best moment of the ep).

Pete gives Santa a bag of coke and tries to dip when she sees cops because, magic or not, that's Who He Is As A Person.

Santa: Pete, your soul is in jeopardy. (lol, Santa knew his name on sight which, of course he did. It's Santa. Duh.)

CENTAUR HORSE COP. I love that as much as I hate the mutant Santas.

Ricky, horrified: Am I on the bad list?/Santa, who is still processing that Ricky never stopped believing in Santa:Ricky, no. (That was my fave Ricky line of the ep, in case you were wondering)

So, in this world, Christian (Catholic specifically) figures explicitly exist, which is good to know. Also, in last episode and this one, the grey faced child mentioned Lazarus which I thought was just a stylistic name choice but that's a name w/ specific Biblical connotations (that's the dude Jesus brought back from the dead for those not up on your New Testament) and it still might be irrelevant, but it's one more thing for me to tack up on my conspiracy board.  

"Santa, are you Cambrdige Analytica?"

Anyway, Heaven and Hell use the naughty and nice list to figure out who goes where so they're not being redundant which is wild because that means Santa essentially gets to decide morality for the rest of the world and, as of now, Pete is super going to hell based on the look Santa gave him when they were talking about who's on the naughty list.

Santa's list has been stolen which is, como se dice, Bad. The specifics aren't clear, but it's super not good. Also, Santa lets the group know that they might wanna figure out what's going on with Pete before he chucks deuces and goes home. So it seems like we'll be seeing him again.

I wonder what the timeline for this season is gonna be. Like, Christmas seems like an obvious time for a big, climactic setpiece, but it'll have to be a really compressed timeline if that's what they're aiming for. Compressed compared to Fantasy High at least.

Sophie, illegally cracking a Mike's Hard in Central Park in front of a cop: Um, we're magic. (She gets a ticket immediately)

That's it for this week! Next week the mob (the pixie mob maybe?) and Siobahn has awesome hair!

[the-light-of-stars]

I'd love to hear the explanation for what Nyx is, you made me curious :D also it looks scary (cool, but scary haha)

Oh really? :D

(also thanks lol “cool but scary” is kind of what I was going for)

Well, then:

(I’d love to put a read more here but I’m not sure if it’ll work)

[[MORE]]

My story is supposed to be some kind of urban fantasy so of course there needs to be something supernatural going on. This is where the Nyx come into play.

I’d like to say they’re a ‘species’ of supernatural beings but the thing is - they’re actually not. Rather than that they’re a kind of hybrid.

So essentially what you have going on in the story’s universe is, that you have beings and things that exist very much in the actual world, but can’t be beheld (beholden?) by humans due to humans viewing things in space-time but the beings not being perceivable that way. Kind of like Anti-matter! (This btw also means that said beings don’t perceive things in space time. )

(I could explain what exactly metaphysics and , well, physics is like in the story universe in more detail but imagine it as a mix of ours with a bit more (wacky?) metaphysics, interdimensionalism and eldritch beings. I know a bunch of physicists, might want to run this by them for good measure. )

Anyways, there are multiple species of these kind of beings in the universe, the one who is ‘the cause’ of the Nyx being the most important to the story. Saying “the cause for” because a) I lack better English terms and b) the Nyx aren’t just the same as these beings. Nay! the Nyx are hybrids. Hybrids between these beings and humans to be exact.

The problem those beings had is that they need to feed on a very specific type of energy that’s pretty much only found in living beings and a special type of crystals (yes the type Charlotte , Em and our still unnamed Main Villain use) Unfortunately for the beings though, they started running low on this resource millennia ago so they had to go out of the underground layers and caves they were from and quite literally step into the light. Or maybe they’re from the ocean. But it has to be someplace dark.

Now even more unfortunate for them, the sun’s energy was too strong for their bodies to handle so they died like flies, until they figured out they could essentially go in a (more or less symbiotic with a side of parasitic) bond with another being’s ‘soul’ to stabilize themselves.

They’re not strong enough to actually take over bodies and living souls tho so they did the next best thing and made bonds with souls that are on the brink of death. (I could make a whole post about souls in that universe alone but that might be a bit much for now since this is already a really long post).

So this means that Nyx are a hybrid between these beings (that still need a name.) and dead human’s souls. (There’s also Nyx where the soul used is an animal’s tho). Their ‘natural’ state is the character design I’ve posted (though they come in 3 sub versions depending on the ratio of human to being in them) , but with enough concentration they can also make themselves appear like they did when they were still a living human. (And they can only make themselves appear as, well, themselves. However I’ve been toying with the idea of the way they see themselves influencing what exactly they look like to others). So they mostly show up in their shadowy Nyx form only if they need to fight and similar things. It also means they don’t have a standard moral alignment but it just depends on the specific person’s personality and. Well. Moral alignment.

Through the millennia of their existence they formed their own societies and figured out a way to not have to feed on the life energy of the living anymore (woohoo progress!) , but there’s still a bunch of problems there - for example the fact that their government is pretty restrictive in regards of personal freedom (I mean it has reason to be , due to the danger of the whole ‘involuntary soul bond with a life energy eating eldritch being’ thing, but is going too far). This leads to a lot of internal political shenanigans in this - quite literally - shadow society , which again causes the bureaucracy to fail at finding newly ‘reborn’ Nyx and instructing them on how to not accidentally give in to their new found eldritch shadow being side.

Which, again, is a huge problem for Jess, one of the stories protagonists, who has no clue that a) he has become a Nyx b) what a Nyx is and c) that he’s essentially dead.

Which is especially awkward since none of the other protagonists have any clue about what the Nyx are until way into the story either. They think they’re some sort of evil demon shapeshifters pretending to be human , so that’s what they also think Jess is until they figure out that he doesn’t have a clue about anything either , and just “always thought he was just a normal human” (which he was. Like, he really was just an ordinary dude who died and had the unfortunate luck of getting an inter dimensional being stuck to his soul) . So instead of figuring out that maybe the Nyx aren’t actually evil shapeshifter demons but something else the protagonists assume Jess is just like. A Nyx changeling of some sorts.

Imagine the fun times when they all finally figure out what Nyx actually are. :)

[sorry that this is so long btw, it’s just. A darn lot of lore. I still have way more I could write about this]

[falsebooles123]

Diary of a Horror Bufff 8.30.22

Ugh two days left bitches two days left.

Also I woke up at like 1 today (in the afternoon) so i feel riproaring to get some stuff done in the meantime what this means is that I'm gonna do a small chore between each of the movies we're watching and since I already sent off a work email I get a freebie ok les go.

Creepshow 2 (1987) dir. Michael Gornick

ok so I speant a bunch of time talking about this on letterboxd so check it out there but the main gist is that while its not as good as the original I still had fun.

Chicken of the Dead (2019) dir. Julien David

A beautiful story about a libertarian telling big goverment to go fuck themselves and they restrictive ideas of "how much food should be in foodstuff" and "not turning people into chicken zombies".

Irradiation (2021) dir. Sava Zivkovic

ok so this animation style is insane, like is this what console video games are like. I'm used to people looking like this.

homegirl with that bullet bra.

this is basically like a full ass video game teaser trailer where this russian scientist treks through a burnt irradiated forest to look at this eldritch anomily. I can't even explain further this is like AAA grade like sci-fi animation. this shit could have a whole ass TV show I am obsessed just fucking watch it.

Satan At Play (1907) dir. Segundo de Chomón

I mean we love a synopsis that starts with UWU "satan was bored"

so this is less narrative then the letterboxd discription implies. This is essentially more like a magic show Satan is bored and so in a revue style he pulls off a series of illisions more daring then the last which even like a hundred years later the effects are spectacular.

Bottom line is that Segudo is a bad bitch.

The Man with Wax Faces (1914) dir. Maurice Tourneur

ok so this would have proabbaly been a lot more impactful if I spoke french since this film uses a lot, and I mean a lot, of intertitles. Bonus points is that it really fun to read french in an absolutely awful french accent.

The plot for this is pretty basis some dude like you bro I double dog dare you to spend some time in the wax museum oh I'm sorry, *said in a horrible french accent* un musee de figures de cire. The dudes goes insane apparently and proceeds to murder his friend when he comes into the musee de figures de cire to play a silly little prank on him.

Vengeance (pomsta) (1968) dir. Jirí Brdecka

not to be confused with Vengeance(1968), the western staring Richard Harrison, (the 60s actor not the guy who runs pawn stars.)

ugh this bussy. fuck it up king

ok so this shit has the same vibe as one of those ted ed riddles videos. you know which ones I'm talking about.

this was the closest gif I could find.

basically some dude being a little beta male cuck and writing a poem to his girfriend when this CHAD comes over and is like you bitch ditch this looser I'm good at fighting and shes like bet. So he goes to his upstairs neighbor whose a witch or something and shenanigans, (faustian deals and idle hands) ensue.

also pretty much every chick in this just straight up got her titties out like shes lady freedom

Isabelle Aux Dombes (1951) dir Maurice Pialat

ok so it turns out "The Dombes" is a place in france thats basically pasture land that has a bunch of shallow ponds.

this movie is sort of non narrative or at least surreal. Essentially the character takes a trip to The Dombes, and just sort of gets lost. the imagedry gets more explicitly about death until the character literally dresses up as Chiron and crosses one of the ponds to look at a gravestone with Isabelle name on it.

gives me this energy.

Ghost Town Frolics (1938) dir. Lester Kline

ok so this is a fun silly little cartoon. this was part of the New Universal and Walter Lantz productions cartoons. Yes Walter Lantz as the guy who did Woody Woodpecker. No Idea who Lester Kline is and the information I have on him is a bit limited. Also the characters for this are the simple simians, who are apparently chipanzee siblings. Normally I find monkeys to be kinda freaky but these ones are cute.

bitch I got good reason

this was cute though it had some fun gags and the characters were fun.

Krazy Spooks (1933) dir. Manny Gould, Ben Harrison

so apparently there are like four directors in this but I'm only including the first two.

so this one featues Krazy Kat who was made by Charles Mintz and produced by Columbia Pictures.

So this is kinda just another random ass huanted house cartoon. Theres some sight gags, some bedsheets ghosts and this one has a gorilla which is actually pretty new. some murder on rue morgue realness I guess.

The Binding Box CRYPT TV (2017) dir. Ramsey Attia

ok so this one was fun. Basically this girl gets a mysterious box in the mail and UWU its a creppy clown in a jack in the box. so yeah obvious spooky thing is spooky. This is just a fun time and we love the aestetic.

I think I have one more video left for today so lets vibe.

Pregnancy Test (2016) dir. Fergal Costello

ok I haven't seen this in years but I fucking love this. basically a women takes a Prenancy test and it comes back as "having the antichrist"??? oh also its a contraception PSA so I mean we have to stan.

anyway bitches thats pretty much it for today I think I won't be doing any blogging tomorrow but I will finish off the challenge.

anyway whores stay tuned cause your getting a full ass video next time.

[tumblunni]

Random sorta character idea that just came to me

TFW u invent a cool new character and have no idea what story to put them in

her name is angel and she is an angel by which of course i mean ‘an eldritch undead soul-eating monstrosity barely restrained in a human form’ angels and demons are basically the same thing in this universe, its just a label of which side you’re on, yknow?

So yeah she’s a very Spooky good guy! woo! one of many innocent angels brought into existance to judge sinners on earth she’s got no clue what she’s doing, total newbie in training here! very chipper and enthusiastic but also kinda Fangy sinful souls are delicious hey lemme go eat that one hey what is this thing you call “tact”? bouncy bouncy cutie boop who’ll also tear you apart with her bare hands~! but also her overenthusiasm and lack of experience means she’s a little naive, and doesn’t really understand the principle behind why her assignment targets are actually evil. I mean like.. how could an angel be expected to comprehend sin? Humans don’t experience the emotion of hamburger! So she’s easily tricked by villains and she also gets super sad when people are scared of her inhuman ways and mistake her for one of the bad people T_T

random other thoughts:

* she probably has some other angel friend characters who’re more traditionally angel-y? like.. stern and noble cliche gabriel lookin mentor dude who’s always like ‘ugh she’s ruining our reputation!’ ‘dammit kid, use a knife and fork when you eat souls!’ But whenever he’s pissed off he shows his eldritch side, so he’s not so different after all. Also he’s vain and gets super self concious about it, he’s got a bit of a ‘i wish i was human’ complex. * But even the most cliche holy angels are just putting on the effect for humans, they’re still just an illusionary shape for a monsterous being and they still have to eat soul energy to survive. The only difference is that demons murder innocents and angels take the souls of bad guys, but then again they’re blindly believing someone else’s defiinition of bad guys... * angel’s name is just Angel cos she’s a relatively newly created angel who’s visiting earth for the first time. She doesn’t quite understand why names are important. Only older angels who have a heavy attatchment to earth tend to give themselves names, and they’re often taken from human mythology. Was there ever really an original angel named gabriel, or just hundreds of copycats who liked the name humans made up? * Various different characters might have nicknames for her tho? I think maybe there’s some police officer human friend who calls her Rusty as a sign of affection. * also maybe a demon friend? like more of an anti-hero type demon who went rogue due to doubts about the true goodness of the mysterious anonymous mail the angels get every day telling them who’s evil. No angel has ever actually seen god, they just carry out his will in the hopes of being allowed into heaven one day, instead of just guarding it from the outside and being told ‘only humans have souls’. And then being blamed for messing up or getting manipulated by the devil, even though they’re created purposefully ignorant of the world. And just branded a demon and hunted down by their own kind, even if they were 100% blindly loyal and simply made a mistake... Well, we don’t know if this is true about this cynical opinion of how heaven works, but this is how antihero demon friend sees it and they’re trying to get Angel to at least open her mind and make her own opinion based on all the evidence, yknow? also probably it could be funny to have a guy who’s all *brood brood* and then Angel is like HELLO! HELLO! LETS BE FRIENDS!! Every time antihero is trying to seduce her to the dark side it goes completely over her head and she never even realizes this guy is a demon. And why would I want to do bad when i can do good! (..she says while beating a guy black and blue) * possible slightly more dark and serious plot idea: mr stern and serious perfectionist angel has a breakdown when he has to kill a demon and sees that they have souls inside. cos believing ‘oh i was born without a soul, thus it makes sense that I should serve this boss god forever and earn the right to a normal life that all humans get for free’ is kinda the lynchpin to his whole identity. and also its like.. but if angels really don’t have souls then does that mean demons GAIN souls, because they become closer to being human by losing their innocence? is the only choice being soulless or being condemned to hell? * also potential idea: an angel who went rogue and turned into a demon because they fell in love with a human and that’s Forbidden for Unexplained Reasons. so the human and the demon end up dying in each other’s arms and its all very sad and makes our heroes wonder whether obeying these Unexplained Reasons without question is really the best way to bring justice... * also maybe a kindly grandma human mentor figure or something. which could also raise questions about free will and stuff cos what if the angel crew’s been working in her tea shop for the last few years and they all love her and then they find out her death date is coming up and they try and break the rules to save her? * also i need a few more angels so i can justify calling it a crew. i think this would be cool with a slice of life ensemble cast sort of feel to it, rather than a big shonen action show

so yeh i have a bunch of ideas but i probably won’t do anything with this cos i don’t have a coherant plot or any sort of idea for an ending. or a middle even. so like most of my ideas I just wanted to show u guys cos mayb you would find it interesting and mayb someone more talented would take inspiration and make something better? who knows!

[rogue-rook]

some highlights from Story and Song from an all-caught-up-now TAZ listener (spoilers abound)

hot damn yall

i gotta feeling everybody’s coming back for this finale

oh god taako just realized he found his sister’s fucking SKELETAL REMAINS

griffin: “taako and merle, make a dexterity saving throw" justin: “hell yeah, dungeons and dragons is back!” griffin: “we’re back and we’re rolling dice that have 20 sides on them. it’s got 20 sides and 20 numbers, its great”

griffin: “the third figure is a fucking rhinoceros” magnus: “DIBS!”

the fact that angus is an 11 year old child and totally DOWN TO FIGHT just reinforces that i was right to make him my favorite npc

hell yeah we’re back to DND fights! they like rolled for initiative and everything

justin, after talking about taako’s leveling up: “should i talk slower so everybody who’s been complaining about us not playing dnd has time to nut. how’s everyone enjoying this GREAT COMPELLING AUDIO”

griffin: “this hand is gonna attack you, taako, cuz you just set it on fire”

magnus: “i jump on the back of the rhinoceros” griffin: “of COURSE you do”

taako: "hey magnus that was the coolest thing ive ever seen…HANDS DOWN!“ get it cuz they found a giant magical hand…GETIT?!

ango used the umbra staff to cast a fireball way above what ango should be able to do and im like hot damn i love this fucking umbrella

taako: “i snap the umbra staff over my knee” HOLY SHIT YALL!! ITS HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LUP LUP LUP LUP ITS LUP ITS LUP ITS MY DAUGHTER SHE’S HERRREEEEEEE

“lup grits her teeth and says ‘I’m going to fucking kill you now’“ MY GIRL!!!!! THATS MY GIRL!!!”

PHANTASMAL AND RESPLENDENT

“YOU’RE DATING THE GRIM REAPER???” I LOVE HER SO GODDAMN MUCH

lup: “why didn’t you let me out sooner, dingus?” taako: “i didn’t remember you existed, goofus” THEY’RE SO ADORABLE

taako: “don’t worry, I’ve got MAGIC POWERS” magnus: “is that supposed to be a big reveal?”

the love between magnus and fisher is one of my favorite bonds of this whole show

everyone banding together to fight the big bad is one of my favorite tropes ever (what’s up pacific rim) so that everyone is doing that here is INCREDIBLE

magnus: “i use my levitation magic” griffin: “oh im sorry, did you say you take the elevator? the skype call broke up for a second there”

griffin: “magnus, something falls from the sky” magnus: “i catch it” griffin: “no you don’t, it’s pretty big”

i’m so glad that griffin is committed to calling killian, carey fangbattle, and noelle “Team Sweet Flipz”

lup: “here’s my idea, are you ready for it? it’s a banger”

griffin: “you remember that, taako, because your memory’s so good!”

griffin: “its upsy, your lifting friend” wait what. im sorry, what?????????

oh its lucas okay, cool. that moment got wayyyy too much Gravitas for it just to be the worst brand mascot EVER

YOOOOOO istus’s gift to taako, the item he could retrieve when he needed it most, has RETURNED TO THE STORY AND IM SO EXCITED BY THAT!!!

wait wait. is this RANDO the “man wreathed in flame”? THIS LITERAL RANDO??? THIS LITERAL RANDOM CHARACTER GRIFFIN HAS JUST INTRODUCED TO US NOW????

griffin has really genuinely lost track of the correct timeline of the events of this story and im like shit my dude, you and me both. ive only got most of it down

this john motherfucker is like almost tugging at my heartstrings but also im the embodiment of “cool motive still murder” bc im pretty sure this dude’s to blame

clint doesn’t remember jack shit about merle’s kids right now and in context, its like merle doesn’t even know how old his kids are. that’s BAD

griffin: “although this bear is in like Furious Nonsensical Monster Mode, you see, just faintly, you see it retract its claws as if to say ‘alright motherfucker, lets wrestle’”

magnus: “they’re not strong enough, I have to be” damn, talk about a Magnus Burnsides Thesis Statement

the fact that magnus is refusing to kill this monster mode Power Bear even though it’s being controlled by an eldritch nightmare is like. proof that magnus has a goddamn heart of gold. what a hero

magnus finds it in him to ask for help and avi comes crashing through the walls like “sup dude, need some help from Captain Handsome Hero?”

“no dogs on the moon!” AAHHHHHH IM SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT

taako: “i don’t know what tacos are. I’ve gotten hints, if you wanna call them taco prophecies. that’s a crazy thing to say out loud, but I just said it, so here we are, I guess, I’m talking at you through a frying pan, try to keep up Joaquin”

taako: “I’ll take one taco, extra destiny”

taako: “yeah, like I’m going to let myself be seen being taught how to cook anything, nice try”

taako: “so, a toast” joaquin: “no, its a taco….just a little food joke” taako: “very little”

istus: “huh, didn’t see that one coming” griffin: “across two universes, two food trucks explode” damn griffin

joaquin: “EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY! I’VE GOT MAGIC POWERS!” DAMN! THAT’S A GOOD FUNNY PARALLEL

griffin: “kneeling at the center of town, is kravitz” OH GOOD! NOW WE’RE COOKING! NOW WE’VE GOT THE GOOD SHIT GOING!

i just gotta mention here that I love eldritch nightmares and cthulu-esque monsters, so this story’s eldritch nightmare that consumes everything in its path contrasted with a slowly-more-corrupted human avatar is MY JAM

merle: “i cast zone of truth!” travis: “TO WHAT END??”

griffin: “it is the most powerful holy spell you have ever cast” THAT’S A GOOD FINALE CALLBACK!!!!

HURLEY! AND SLOANE!!! THEY’RE BACK AND THEY’RE DRYADS!!!!!! THAT’S SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!! GRIFFIN!!! YOU BROUGHT THEM BACK!!!!!!!!!

griffin: “she turns back to lucas’s lab and she says ‘hero time’” NOELLE!!!!! NOELLE THAT WAS SO GOOD!!!

THIS TAAKO/KRAVITZ KISS IS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!! THEY’RE KISSING!!!! I LOVE THEM!!

kravitz: “i wanna warm up my face so it’s not weird” AWWWWW

THEY’RE SO IN LOVE! I LOVE THEM! THIS EPISODE IS SO GAY

lup: “what’s up ghost rider?” kravitz: “you know we’re going to have to talk about the fact that your sister’s a lich, right?” taako: “yeah…i assumed”

lup: “taako just summoned all the energy in our reality to come help us fight” magnus: “mmhmm. I fought a bear…when I say it like that, it doesn’t sound as good, does it?”

davenport: “lup did you find the starblaster?” lup: “oh i sorta… forgot we were supposed to be doing that”

taako: “we have basically been trolling it for 100 years..[..]..and i don’t know about you, but TAAKO’S GOOD OUT HERE”

lup: “lucretia, dear, I’ve already forgotten about the whole thing. OH! OH! bad choice of words!” lup you adorable asshole

lup: “please don’t die” taako: “i’d say the same but that ship done sailed, hasn’t it?”

MAGNUS GAVE ANGUS HIS KNIFE!!!!! THAT SHIT IS SOO GOOD!!!!!!!

taako: “i walk over to angus and say ‘hey cool knife, you know he’s got a sword that’s on fire, right? he did just give you a KNIFE’”

lup: “hear that, babe? we’re legends”

“there’s magic in a bard’s song” OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

“YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGHT! AND YOU’RE GOING TO WIN!”

magnus: “this is it? it’s just a guy!” taako: “yeah it’s one guy, shouldn’t be a problem”

clint: “you heal up to 700 hit points!” griffin: “BULLSHIT! WHAT???” clint: “divided evenly” justin: “okay well but you don’t have any 9th level spell slots…” clint: “then I will use Mathias the Living Grimoire!�� awesome I’m so glad clint learned how to actually properly play dnd on this LAST EP

griffin: “I will say, you’re on a ship, there’s probably a mast or something for you to swing down from” wait what this is an actual ship??? i was picturing like the entreprise or something

griffin: “we’re playing a little calvinball with the design of the starblaster” oh okay cool yeah its like a spaceship, not a fucking 17th century pirate ship

my dudes you never leave your weapons buried in the dying bodies of your enemies bc if they bounce back, they got your weapon now

griffin: “john is up first” justin: “fuck” clint: “he’s still just john? he’s not Demi-john????” travis: “final john” more cross-mcelroy-product jokes!!!!

the grubby heroes healed by godly love, i bet some people are feeling some Stuff right now

taako: “hey i want everyone to meet a new friend of mine, this is Joaquin” griffin: “OH FUCK! YES YES YES YES!!!”

joaquin: “thanks for the wizard powers, I’ve killed like a hundred of these things!”

griffin: “oh fuck I thought you were going to summon ME!!!”

hot damn clint REMEMBERED his gift from istus and fucking used it!!!!!!!!!

taako used the immovable rod!!!!! im so proud of them for remembering AND using all their items!!!!

taako: “i gotta be with lup” oh that’s so fucking sweet

angus: “hey everybody, johann was right! WE WON!” cool im crying a little bit, no big deal

LUP GOT HER BODY BACK! LUP GOT HER BODY BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

griffin: “how does magnus die?” hey fuck off griffy i don’t want this

magnus being reunited with julia is making me cry significantly now

they got their happy endings, everybody got their happy endings, and I’m so happy

I am SO glad and grateful I got caught up in time for this fucking heartwrenching sweet finale

[aheartofwood]

the king arthur movie is SO BAD, guys.

imagine a baby and a kitten got together and tried to edit a movie with only the vaguest idea of arthurian legend based on the backs of the VHS of the disney version and also the lion king for some reason, and also the barest idea of how human brains can accept and understand editing and narrative. imagine a pretty good video game opening for 2001, but watched thru the haze of a really strenuous flu and it’s rented and ancient and was chewed up by at least two dogs so it’s glitching a lot. imagine a knight’s tale……………Reimagined™ (needlessly) by a team of randos who only speak italian and their ideas are being translated by jen from the IT crowd in that one episode where she pretends she can speak italian. imagine a movie with a budget of four dollars (except the budget was HUGE). imagine an opium dream within a dream of robert downey jr’s 2009 sherlock holmes where jude law becomes a boring, leathery king who has a bad habit of constantly sacrificing the silent women he supposedly loves to an undulating pile of lovecraftian horror water ladies that live in his shame toilet in his penis tower basement ONLY to super saiyan into a really bad DnD dude with a motorcycle-insignia-metal skull head and the torso of two The Rocks smashed together (sorry, The Rock) instead of (a much better) watson. imagine eragon, but somehow exceedingly, fremdschamenly, schadenfreudingly worse. not many things get both german expressions, in a gleefully terrible adverb form at that, but this movie——oh, THIS movie——-deserves them. 

the letters of the opening credits roll (or creep?) across the screen. the kerning is bad. all the T’s have a phallic, buffylike, sword motif going on and it renders the names unreadable. the colors and the blurry shots look like something out of monty python. again, who hired this editor? who watched this movie, kissed their fingertips like an italian grandma, and gently set this eldritch horror adrift on the tides of eternity to be received with fear and loathing by millions of human eyes? the elephants from lord of the rings attack the bridge from legend of zelda, and that red flamey eye guy from eragon (mordred, for some reason, in a shake n bake wig) ?? or possibly from inkheart?? is defeated. remember, we know nothing about these characters. feel nothing for them. and the trend continues. katie mcgrath appears, of course, in her standard and splendid emerald green, and then immediately dies. none of the shots in the first 20 minutes of the movie match up, we go from scenes with several people to ultra close ups of faces—-it’s like the “mmmm whatcha say” SNL skit, but serious. the movie continues to not know if it’s playing itself seriously or if it knows how bad it truly is (how bad me be?)

finally we get ONE establishing shot of a sweeping wall (maybe? the camera never stays still enough to tell) and the audience (five people) grounds ourselves, sort of. we get a whip-fast, but not whip-smart, super evolution of arthur’s childhood, in which he shoves coins into a wall (see kids!!! if u just put YR COINS IN YR WALLS instead of BUYING GODDAMN AVOCADOS, U COULD HAVE A CASTLE!!!!) and hearkens back to his character in pacific rim, bc he’s just a scrappy, vaguely appropriative white guy that loves 2 fight stuff. oh, his mom is killed when he’s young ofc. charlie hunnam eventually fucks off to the island w the sword in the sort-of stone (none of the physics makes sense in this movie?? the sword in the stone dropped into a lake, but is now in a chasm on a different island which shows no sign of the ruins of arthur’s childhood town?? in the final fight scene, charlie hunnam is several floors up from scythe-y jude law, but then suddenly they’re fighting on the top of saruman’s tower  scuse me at the whipping sea-level, then suddenly BACK IN THE TOWER bc i guess it wasn’t destroyed????? bc then it gets destroyed again??) of course, charlie hunnam is the One Man who can Grip the penis sword, even though in an interesting turn of events, They are Testing Everyone by shipping them in boats to the island (this seems like an egregious waste of resources). charlie hunnam got in this unfortch sitch bc i forgot, but the guy who put him on the boat chuckled darkly and said he was “”””getting on a different boat””””, but like, doesn’t everyone end up there?? it had the air of the DMV, on purpose, so why was this a threat? how did he avoid it for so long? are there that many people in the kingdom??? also, if i was him i’d straight up pretend i couldn’t lift it tbh and come back for it when They were getting donuts. oh, another inkheart thing—the BLONDE MOM SURVIVES (!!!??? somehow???? unexplained? she had a HOLE THRU HER BODY??) and maybe has memory loss or something and spends her days being somehow indispensable to jude law despite doing nothing but moving a plate. 

i cannot explain the rest of the plot, because i do not understand it. charlie hunnam just EXPERIENCES things with a world-weary, almost kingly worldliness, despite flashing in between being an innocent farm boy who doesn’t wanna do anything and a self-assured wisecracking hustler. there are some good jokes about boring white dude names in a medieval setting, and no more humor forever is allowed in this movie or any movies ever again. a chris parnell lookalike with a hat says he can shoot 75 yards but not 175, then shoots 175 with absolutely no introduction/buildup/continuance/jokes and spends the rest of the film as robin hood. there are some other dudes?????? more women (the brothel ladies that rescue arthur from the river ((not unlike….the prince of egypt…..)) are killed to further manpain, including lucy, who is Special for an unexplained reason. jude law murders his daughter (i guess???), who has a russian name and a tendency to sit around and stroke birds and stare sappily out the window (i feel u, johanna). everyone is wearing medieval versions of suits. there are many iterations of snake, ranging from economy-sized snake to a Giant Fuckmaster Snake Mother. at least five cloaks are cast off. eric bana becomes a literal rock. everything has the vague, shuddering feeling of an improv show where everyone wants the final word/bit. there is grit, there is dirt, there is snake blood, and there is clanking. so much clanking. charlie hunnam is bravely hurling one-liners but no one is listening. what is the sound of only one hand on excalibur???? apparently not as powerful as…………T W O hands on excalibur. 

the editing continues to be bizarre. they keep trying to do the inception thing where they talk about the plan while showing the plan, therefore (in inception, correctly) allowing us to get to the good parts, but there ARE NO GOOD PARTS or even parts at all and they don’t fully commit to the dang method anyway. the shining light of the film, an unnamed mage woman with good bone structure and sweet harem pants (and who COULD have at least been set up as morwen but was not) who can possess animals and also make a lot of dust fly around behind her, becomes charlie hunnam’s spiritual guide?? sort of?? maybe love interest??? she seems to have no interest in him or inhabiting the worldly narrative/plane of this movie. i do not blame her. anyway, she’s got the eagles from LOTR on her side. she dopes the shit out of charlie hunnam (again, why) with a literal snake and he solves his daddy/uncle issues (line @ jude law: “”””you created me”””””) in an incomprehensible nonlinear part of the narrative (she was captured, but i guess jude law let her go before hunnam got to the castle???? bc he’s Not So Bad After All? bc he was bored? eating a sandwich? fuck idk so she could have met him in the middle of fuck knows? i mean if they have medieval lyft or medieval twitter DMing or something??)  also, he may or may not have gone to a ””””””DARK””””””””island, but he did NOT solve his daddy issues there. he did, however, fight some rodents of unusual size from the princess bride. 

ok that is all the energy i have; this movie has sapped me, i am nothing in the great maw of its terribleness. other stuff happens. we have a happy ending, with 4/6ths of the Round Table built (literally and figuratively), and some Vikings conceding to charlie hunnam for no other reason than he’s a bro, i guess. line: how do u scam money out of a viking? u talk to them. SEE MILLENNIALS ALL U HAVE TO DO IS TALK AND PPL GIVE U MONEY or be born the true heir to the throne of (fake england). 

the worst part is that i don’t understand how jude law, who is 44, looks the same the entire movie and watches as charlie hunnam, who is 37, grows up and eventually challenges him. eric bana, who is 48, doubtlessly had fictional charlie hunnam arthur at like 27-35, making jude law the same age in that fiction. i guess men can just ???? play any age????????? forever??????? honorable mentions: the soundtrack, jude law’s eyeshadow, and the preview for atomic blonde.