#except Daniel

[qwerty019283ytrewq]

Okay, let's try it...again.

Let's remember Max Verstappen: Off The Beaten Track? Of course, we can not forget Max's beautiful waist,

his wonderful profile,

and his legs...

BUT!!!

Max Verstappen, three-time world champion!!! he sits in the car, hugging his favorite backpack and lament that he will be very bad at virtual racing competitions...

SO CUTE, SO YOUNG!!! (sorry for the quality)

✨️Imagine✨️

Raymond Vermeulen and his sons, the younger Thierry and the older Max, move to a new city because of his job.

Max loves geography and engineering. As a child, he taked apart so many toys and appliances that spare parts could still be found all over their old house. He has a lot of friends on the Internet, but in real life, there are not many of them, and they stay in his hometown. He's nervous about his first day at a new school, they're driving in the car, and Max is sulking. Raymond is surprised. As the youngest, Thierry, took it all so easily (he was more sociable, he had more friends, he attended sports clubs, which were also left behind), and Max still can't get over it.

All the time it took to move, Max grumbled and wailed. Raymond understands that it will not be easy for his sons to join a new team and start life anew, but stress and fatigue make themselves felt. He just wanted a quiet morning, an easy way to school and work. He'll have to make new connections, too.

"Max, if we get comfortable here, I'll let you have a cat."

Max is even more outraged. Bribe him, and even with a cat!?!?!? How could his father think that his life could just be settled by a cat when this is happening all around!?!?! They are approaching the school. It doesn't seem to be anything from the outside. The noise around it doesn't seem to cause any inconvenience. That's where guys his age play PSP. Max sighs heavily.

"Two."

"What?"

"Two cats." - Max says and gets out of the car first.

"Dad? Can I have a parrot?"

[blossoms-phan]

there’s not a mfer in this world I’ve ever respected more than 2009 dan. that was a mastermind. a man on a mission. he had one shot and he knew he had to take it. now he walks into the kitchen of the forever home he shares with the subject of “did you ever doubt your dream would come true” and gets greeted with “hello you stupid bitch”

[divorceblogger]

this is my favourite daniel molloy-ism by the way

[twyllodrus]

You see, you were nimble-minded, even back then. I was a moron.

[theangelofbrahma]

something about characters who are not necessarily doomed by the narrative but definitely doomed by their jobs

[hummingbee-o0o]

same energy, frankly

[peoplesprincessgeorge]

formula 1 + txt posts 4.0

[cnsrs]

why is there so much tension

[cecoeur]

Daniel: Max is my good boy...usually

[strategicjazzhands]

[spacedace]

It was the final hour. Doomsday at their door, with only hours left before the world was consumed entirely and every last living thing was devoured right along with it.

Summoning the High King of the Infinite Realms was the only option left, and even then felt more like choosing a firing squad rather than a noose at the end of the day. Pariah Dark might - might - accept the task of destroying the foe they faced, but tmit would come at a cost that was near equal to doing nothing at all. Provided the tyrannical ruler simply didn't let them all die, an entire planet dead was an entire planet to add to his endless armies.

They had to try. Stupid and suicidal as it was.

Zantanna and John worked in silence as they created the summoning circle, hands shaking and stomachs cramping as they worked under the apprehensive eyes of the rest of the League. They all understood that no matter what happened, they would all likely end up dead by the end of it. That the best case scenario meant that death was only the beginning of their problems.

Candles were lit. Insense burned. Blood spilled. Words spoken.

Nothing.

Nothing.

It failed, not so much as a flicker of magic. Which was impossible, they'd checked and confirmed a dozen times that they had the right ritual, that they were following the steps, they had done everything right way wasn't it working? What had they done wr-

"Ugh, gross is that blood?"

Elle Phantom, fifteen minuted late to the site of the ritual with both the boys Super, the most murderous Robin and a sugary abomination of an iced coffee from Starbucks, scrunched her nose in disgust as she looked at the summoning circle.

"This ritual is so out of date, where did you even find it? Wait is that Latin? Who tries to summon someone from the Ghost Zone in Latin?"

John had burned through every drop of alcohol and cigarette he owned hours ago while trying to find this bloody damn ritual and was very much not in the mood for the little hellspawn's color commentary on the process.

"I don't bloody well seeing you providing with any alternatives for summoning the Ghost King." He swore, turning away from the gremlin to tear through the ancient book he and Zantanna had discovered with the ritual inside.

There was a loud slurping noise as the undead hero sucked the last remnants of her drink through the straw. John's brow twitched, even Zantanna - who usually seemed endeared by the chaos goblin - looked at the end of her rope.

Then - "Oh, is that who you wanted to summon? Why didn't you say so?" She drifted over, handing her empty drink off to a disgruntled looking Batman, and began rummaging through the unused magival supplies left over from the - failed - summoning circle. "Here, give me like, five minutes."

John was fairly certain his head was about to explode.

"You know how to summon the Ghost King? You?"

Phantom rolled her eyes at him. "Duh, obviously."

"Obviously." Zantanna repeated, looking like she was half a moment away from having a breakdown. She didn't try to stop the ghostly girl, though, and to be fair neither was John. They were already fucked, might as well let the gremlin try her hand at it.

It took less than the five minutes Phantom had claimed she needed.

When she was done there was a significantly smaller circle on the ground. At the cardinal directions of the circle, written clockwise she'd drawn not any magical runes but instead what appeared to be the Roman Numerals for one, then two, then something akin to a sideways T with an additional mark rising upward from the long horizontal bar, then the letter L.

It had to have some kind of ancient magical significance John didn't know as Shazam made a noise like a dying goose and squeaked out the word Loss like it was a question. Phantom gave the Champion of Magic a sharp toothed grin before adding some words in a language John didn't know before she finally allowed gravity to pull her back to earth and plant her feet on the ground.

She wiped her hands together a bit dramatically, looking pleased with herself, but at that point John didn't care. He could feel the building magic, heavy and oppressive as she had begun her task. Unlike the circle he and Zantanna had attempted, this one was working.

He couldn't help thr nervous swallow he gave as Phantom then declared, with a strange amount of seriousness. "All that’s left are the words."

She took a deep breath, eyes closing for a moment, and the world went utterly silent around them. This, John could feel, this was the real deal. Fuck him sideways the hellspawn was actually doing it.

Phantom's eyes opened, glowing with that bright eerie green light of her power. Another deep breath and then -

"You are my dad! You're my dad!" He watched, any scraps of hope she'd instilled in him dying an undignified death as she gave a terrible little wiggle dance while she sang(?) Off key, "Boogie woogie woogie!"

Every last person on Earth was going to die and one of John's last moments was going to be spent watching the little undead shit do the Macarena. Well fuck him, he guessed.

Then there was the sound of the veil between the world's tearing in two and the fucking Ghost King was standing in Phantom's summoning circle screaming in a screeching falsetto:

"When will you learn? When will you learn that your actions have consequences!"

You know what actually at this point John would rather the apocalypse kill him.

[leclercskiesahead]

A very tiny throwback pic

[deqncas]

this video was just dan and phil rubbing in our faces that they have the type of relationship that none of us will ever have. they know each other inside and out. they know every face, every up and every down. they've trusted each other with every thought and every feeling.

[mirrorhouse]

i guess that last post is also one of the reasons i find armand/daniel compelling (referring to the books mostly right now but it also applies to the show in a way) because daniel never really seems 'seduced' right away just by armand's looks like so many others are. he's afraid of him, but drawn to him. and it's the horror of him that he becomes attracted to, it's the first thing he sees. he does still find him physically attractive and i suppose he's still 'seduced', but the way it happens is very different; it's not his innocence or vulnerability or sweet face that makes daniel drop his guard. armand purposefully acts as terrifying and strange as he can for four years, constantly following him, being off putting and haunting and demanding and oddly caring at times and excited and annoying and confusing and scary, and that's who daniel falls in love with, who he stops running to be with. it's an unconventional kind of seduction and one armand is an active participant in. daniel is someone who comes to love him because of his nature, not in spite of it; who knows armand may look like a gentle, thoughtful young man, but to daniel, that's hardly relevant.

[cryptocism]

one of many compelling devils minion things 2 me is how it starts out as a horror story from daniel's pov and a romance from armands. like daniel gets tortured and stalked and deals with every possible moral & ethical inner conflict Especially wrt his own desires and self disgust, meanwhile armand has decided to cast himself in the role of manic pixie dream girl. (emphasis on manic)

and then as soon as armand realizes his remaining choices are to turn daniel into a vampire or let him die, there is a Hard Reversal and suddenly armand is living his worst nightmare while daniel is granted his greatest wish.

tvc is full of almosts and parallels but i do love the specific brand of tragedy inherent in the genre disconnect of the dm relationship. theyre perfect for each other and horrible for each other and they can never and will never be on the same page. any change you could make to their stories to make the relationship actually function healthily would necessitate an irrevocable & irreconcilable change in character. their love cant fix or change the people that they are. they keep loving each other anyway. it kills them both but sustains them like a curse. do u see??? do u see.

[grymorfinon]

I just realized something about Glass Onion and the way it’s structured, and like everything else in the movie it was told to us in the start:

(GLASS ONION SPOILERS AHEAD)

… it’s a fugue. The movie is a Fugue.

During the puzzle box sequence when the music box puzzle opens, Yo Yo Ma tells Peg that the music they’re hearing is Bach’s “Little Fugue in G Minor” he explains:

“A fugue is a beautiful musical puzzle based on just one tune. And when you layer this tune on top of itself, it starts to change and turn into a beautiful new structure.”

Right in front of our eyes, Rian Johnson just told us how the movie was going to go. It starts out with a simple tune, your classic murder mystery setup much like the Clue movie and half of the mysteries Agatha Christie was famous for writing. We meet the eccentric characters, a murder happens, everyone runs around for a while, and the detective seems ready to tell us whodunit…

And then the movie starts over again. The tune is the same, but layered on top of itself with new context and a different point of view. Every new scene from Helen or Benoit’s perspective changes our perspective on the previous half of the movie, scene by scene. This new layer of the film adds to it and forms a beautiful new structure itself.

Addendum: the opening shots of each act also parallel each other. The first half begins with the start of Bach’s Little Fugue as we are introduced to Claire at her home when her puzzle box is delivered, and then we hear the fugue again but further on in the piece when Helen delivers her box to Benoit Blanc in the second half.

UPDATE: Having seen Rian Johnson’s audio commentary of the film, he confirmed that it was intentional! VINDICATION!!!