#go watch the passenger

[helloitsbees]

hi just watched passenger. i like the boys. whats up with bensons sweater? doesnt seem to match his vibe

SO!!!!!! in an interview with PopHorror, Kyle Gallner said that the sweater is almost Benson’s way of daring the world to mess with him:

it seems to me to be a deliberate visual reference to Kurt Cobain, who often challenged gender norms through his clothing (including cardigans that are extremely similar to Benson’s):

in my opinion, Benson knew that his life was essentially over the second he pulled the trigger on Chris, Hardy, and Jess. when he changed at his mother’s house, he either chose clothing that would either deliberately draw attention to him, or that expressed his actual personality, or for any other reason. the tragedy is that we don’t really know, because he was already doomed to be gone from the world by the end of that day. we don’t know if it was in character or if it was deliberately meant to provoke the public by its sheer audacity because he was never going to survive long enough to tell us. and he certainly didn’t trust Randy enough to tell him– he focused on Randy’s emotional closure more than his own, because a near-stranger’s trauma was easier to stomach and solve than his own.

[sob-dylan]

i got to have a totally organic moment of insanity this morning. my desk mate was humming a song and said, “i’ve hand that song stuck in my head all week.” i said, “what song?” she said, “steal away.” i said, “oh, by enya?” and she said, “no, i don’t know who…” and i said, “oh shit! i was thinking of sail away. that’s that robbie dupree song! i know it! in fact, it was in this movie…” and then i got to make my pitch for the passenger (2023) dir. carter smith for maybe the 70th time in the past 3 months. the universe delivers!

[redgoldblue]

so assuming Avery is actually pregnant / doesn't early-trimester miscarry (which is not a given), there's two reasonable ways this can go, right. number one is she gets an abortion, the plotline is used to pull them all back together again, and they all have some collective hurt/comfort about it. number two, the one i would write - don't get me wrong, i'm all for women getting career-driven abortions, but hear me out - is the one where she does have the baby. under the cut bc it got long.

she goes to med school at first while pregnant - Max is right, it can be done, people in my cohort did it - and either gets lucky with the timing of the actual birth being during holidays, or just works her way to getting time off for a few weeks around it. And then... there's a baby. And you know what else there is? There's two dads (because we're 100% Mamma Mia-ing this bitch. they never find out who the bio dad is and they never seriously try. Baby comes out with Avery's exact skin tone so that's no clue.), and an entire cruise ship worth of backup babysitters. So Avery goes back to med school, and leaves the baby with Tristan and Max.

And, yes, raising a baby while also running an infirmary with a rotating cast of temporary substitute nurses filling Avery's role isn't the easiest thing they've ever done, but Robert loves fulfilling grandparent duties any time he's not on duty; Rosie gets one of those strap-on baby carriers and walks her (i don't know why i've decided the baby is a her but i have now) around the engine room pointing out parts and explaining concepts and hey, the baby never complains about her Michigan stories; Corey gets a cart and a bundle of clean sheets and pushes her down the corridors until the smell of laundry powder automatically makes her start laughing.

Max and Tristan make a pact to send Avery at least two photos a day - which ends up getting supplemented by everyone else who's with Baby - and FaceTime her most days, and whenever she gets a few days off she meets them in port. (The most expensive part of baby-raising ends up being her flights to wherever the Odyssey happens to be at the time, at least until Robert finds out and figures out a way to start paying her 'maternity leave', despite her insistence that the whole point of this is that she isn't maternity-leaving and he should probably be paying himself that and anyway, isn't she technically not an employee right now?)

And the thing is, during this time, Max and Tristan start... realising some things. Like how neither of them feel like they've lost their only partner, because they.. haven't. Like how the co-parenting's been working out better than either of them expected, because they fell instantly (minus a few minor bumps) into a shared rhythm. Like how sometimes they look at the other one holding Baby and feel like their heart's about to explode.

Also, they've both started sleeping in Max's bed. Because Baby's spent so much time sleeping in the corner of the infirmary that now if she wakes up at night and can't see both of them, she starts crying inconsolably. And obviously Max's suite is more suited to multiple inhabitants, and they're usually too damn exhausted to even remember the first time they were in this bed together.

(usually. most of the time. and when they're not, they don't make it the other's problem)

So at the end of the first year of this, the last two days of the year's last cruise have been packed with crisis after crisis after demanding patient after crisis, and as soon as they finally wave the last passenger off they hand Baby gratefully over to Robert and go crash out in Max's bed.

Avery was supposed to be meeting them on board tomorrow, but her last exam gets unexpectedly moved up by a day (believe me, med school loves to pull that kind of shit on you), so a couple hours after the passengers have gone, she shows up to surprise them. And finds Robert (a known ody3 shipper) first, who lets her take Baby with minimal captainly sulking about it, and while she rocks and kisses Baby, tells her (as a known ody3 shipper) that the two dads will be on the Pelican deck, but they're probably asleep.

Avery kinda frowns at him, but doesn't question it, and takes Baby up with her to Max's suite to find them. And they are both fast asleep, on either side of Max's bed with a space carefully preserved between them (because it's usually where Baby would be and they're both terrified of accidentally rolling onto her in the middle of the night). She's also exhausted after exams, so she crawls into it, lies on her back with Baby on top of her chest, and goes straight to sleep.

Tristan and Max wake up before her, and when they look across at each other, at Avery and Baby between them, they both simultaneously realise, oh. oh. oh, this - this three, two-and-half, four people, all together - this is it. this is the love, this is the children, this might even be the home - the second, third, fourth bucket list items to happen in this bed.

[baddingtonbitch]

my current favourite youtube channel is this guy that just gets high as fuck and loses his goddamn mind reacting to various divas for the first time. he understands.

[crumb]

The Passenger: Behind The Passenger — Part 1/6

[peppereedan]

i haven't moved on from this i'm afraid 😔

[downtilts]

i do think it’s essential to their relationship that benson really does “fix” randy, at least in the way he wants to, which is to rid him of his shame/self-hatred so he can live life on his own terms. when they're in the diner at the end and randy looks at benson saying “i called the cops” he does it with such an insane expression of gratitude on his face, like he can’t believe it’s possible he did that, and he knows it's only thanks to benson. like he’s saying “benson, we did it” and he’s completely bought in to benson’s plan to fix him, and it just so happens that the natural conclusion of that plan was for randy to betray him, because the way benson made it all possible was by doing something unforgivable. but that’s the central tension of benson’s character for me… this tension between him being capable of doing these really horrific unforgivable things and then simultaneously capable of facilitating a truly profound and beautiful, permanent change within randy. and having the beautiful change only be possible because of the unforgivable things. in interviews johnny and kyle talk about “benson there were other ways to do this!!” but i think the story is the most interesting if you approach it with the premise that there actually were no other ways to do this. the only thing that could have possibly convinced randy to change is something this extreme. and randy realizes that and so develops this genuine gratitude toward benson. and so im sure randy has an inexplicable and difficult grief that haunts him now but he no longer believes in his own inherent unworthiness and he considers that a gift benson gave him and will never disrespect himself again because it would be equivalent to disrespecting benson's sacrifice. so he is able to live a good life

[helloitsbees]

[helloitsbees]

i am holding him so gently thankyou

Happy Two Trembling Randys Tuesday !!

[ollyollyaxe]

they couldn't catch you (with me) and they never will (ya see) sometimes i hold you closer just to know you're real

ooh, honey, honey, i can be your bodyguard

[youredreamingofroo]

reading this makes Benson beating up sheppard sooo much rawer(? idk if that's even close to the right word)- no wonder the acting on that scene felt sooo real, especially the "LETS GO. RANDY" screams and the pacing as he thinks about whether or not to shoot sheppard...

[thiefnforger]

the look of a man who when death looks him in the eye, face to face; he realizes for once in his life he's afraid to die.

[rowanisawriter]

week before christmas in corporate office will have you feeling emotions that haven’t been felt since the fall of the Roman empire

[m4gp13]

[arolesbianism]

I wish So Bad that I could confidently recommend lob corp and library of ruina to people because they're both genuinely rly good games and I also need ppl I know to understand the insanity that is project moon but like godddd they are a fucking Investment. Both in time and in brainpower. I generally think ppl exaggerate how hard lob corp is but it's certainly not easy and when it does get hard it gets HARD. Also it literally requires at least one day 1 reset (basically a new game+) to fully beat the game and at this point I've done at least 10. And for lor I'm not nearly as far in and I'm just scratching the surface of the real game but it's a beast of its own. Also 100+ hours and also hard as hell. Like this game does not fuck around with its difficulty spikes it will make you use your brain and it will give you a damn headache in the process. It's also one of my favorite card combat games I've ever played with mechanics that just so beautifully complement each other to create a dynamic and interesting battle system that gives it a completely different vibe and feeling than any other deck builder games I've played to the point where it almost feels wrong to me to categorize them together. But also I am not even slightly joking abt the headache thing every time I play this damn game I close it with a horrible headache and have to take a multi day break. I think everyone should experience this with me <3

[moonsidesong]

every time people post nickel's death scene from act 1 of the ii2 finale to talk about how sad it is in any capacity im looking up at the screen like its a movie theatre and wearing comically large red and blue 3d glasses and holding a big bucket of popcorn and laughing so hard theres tears streaming down my face and im banging my fist on the little armrest with a cupholder