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magical-girl-coral · 1 month ago

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I did the mistake of entering a blog that unironically reblogs confessional discourse posts and read a lot of stupid takes so here's me debunking them, I guess:

Why didn't the Bad Kids reach out to the Rat Grinders? - They did. Multiple times. The Rat Grinders were mean to them back so the Bad Kids dropped that plan. Ivy was racist about Mazey to hurt Fabian's feelings. Adaine called Oisin cool in one episode and then saw him murder Buddy the next. Fig and Kristen tried to recruit Mary Ann several times and she didn't give a fuck. Ruben fully tried to antagonize Fig when he first saw her because he could. They don't owe them to stick to people who were sucky to them.

From a mechanical standpoint, Brennan did this so they players won't waste time on them and move on to solve the mystery. From a story perspective, it was because the Rat Grinders refused to be saved. They were too brainwashed by rage and they refused to let it go. Even in the last fucking battle Fig tried to reach out as Wanda Childa and Ruben almost killed her with a ninth level spell. I'd say they were pretty fucking patient if you ask me.

The Bad Kids were too mean to the Rat Grinders in the final battle! - No, they were not. Oisin taunted Adaine about her greatest fears before trying to murder the entire student body. Ivy was racist in her last moments and called Mazey "objectively ugly." Ruben was an asshole to everyone he meets. Kipperlilly tried to get them all expelled since episode three. The Rat Grinders sucked as people when they were villains and the Bad Kids had every right to lose their shit.

Fig was too cruel to Ruben. Getting into his dreams was insane - One, Ruben was a villain NPC that won't stop threatening her party. She entered his dreams after he tried getting them kicked out of school by offering them drugs. Pete entered Kingston's dream palace after he threatened to take Pete if he gets out of line again. When PCs get threatened, they act out. Secondly, this is how the team finds out about devil's honey, one of the more important discoveries they've had yet. Her entering his dreams worked.

Thirdly, shatter star Ruben was a creep that dated his fans (an extremely uneven power dynamic) and then made songs out of being toxic in those relationships. Sandra Lynn, Fig's mother, had her life ruined by a man that tricked her into a toxic relationship with an uneven power dynamic. Insane that no one made this connection yet.

How could the Bad Kids kill them when they were forced into being Shatter Starred? - This one pisses me off the most because of how much this is based on hindsight. The Bad Kids didn't know the Rat Grinders were forced into the ritual. They canonically knew few things:

The Rat Grinders joined a rage ritual after their sophomore year spring break adventure

They almost definitely killed their cleric Lucy Frostblade

They famously hated the Bad Kids since forever.

They never went on real adventures and instead grind rats for their first year and then were power leveled by two teachers

Not once was it hinted none of them wanted to commit to the ritual. It was a popular fan theory but that's it. The only one who evidently didn't was Lucy and Yolanda and they found their bodies in the forest with runes written on their bones so they couldn't be brought back.

Isn't it weird how the Bad Kids did a 180 and asked the Rat Grinders to be brought back once the battle was done? - No. They only found out at the very last minute that the only one who did the ritual willingly was Kipperlilly after she died and her lack of a scar was revealed. This was at at the very end of the season finale. Of course the Bad Kids felt bad after they put 2 and 2 together and asked them to be brought back, they were the same way about Ragh and Awelyn when they found out more about their backstories.

It's so shitty of Brennan to not delve into any of the Rat Grinders' backstories - We still don't know if Jawbone is Tracker's biological uncle or not. We don't know if Sandra Lynn's family supported her after the scandal or not. We don't know the name of Ragh's father or any of the mothers' maiden names. A lot of NPCs in Fantasy High have a shit of information missing because only the plot relevant stuff comes up. Some NPCs are more relevant than others, that's just how it is.

I remember when people used to make forums to theorize about a character's past. We made OCs and new cities out of fun when the creators didn't. Where's the fucking joy, man? Where is the fucking whimsy?

I bid you all adieu with this:

Get in the fucking transcripts, for the love of god.

#the worst part is that those same people who complain about the lack of backstory #will get pissed if brennans canon doesnt match perfectly with their theories #they just want to be right and where the fuck is the fun in that #Dimension 20 #Fantasy High #FHJY

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violetfaust · 2 years ago

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I posted 3,601 times in 2022

102 posts created (3%)

3,499 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@alwaysdearie

@whiteorangeflower

@lovesthedarkerone

@fuckyeahbelleandrumpelstiltskin

@ryik-the-writer

I tagged 2,096 of my posts in 2022

Only 42% of my posts had no tags

#spn - 235 posts

#rumbelle - 161 posts

#destiel - 146 posts

#castiel - 122 posts

#sambucky - 121 posts

#dean winchester - 109 posts

#rumplestiltskin - 79 posts

#sam wilson - 75 posts

#op - 74 posts

#belle french - 68 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#and the greeks built a gorgeous modern museum with slots for every one of the stolen items and little placards saying why they weren't ther

My Top Posts in 2022:

For my own sanity

I'm trying to put together a list of the various versions of Goncharov (1973) screened throughout the last fifty years.

The four-and-a-half-hour film festival cut that even Scorsese felt was a rough draft

The US theatrical release in 1973

The 1973 European theatrical release with its extra half hour of footage

The 1973 Latin American dub with its extra half hour of different footage

The so-called Secret Reels that producer Domenico Procacci the Elder (not to be confused with the unrelated Italian filmmaker Domenic Procacci the Younger, who has only been active since the late 80s) used to screen at his fantastic, legendary drug-fueled parties in the 70s--these seem to be (at least one of) the source(s) of the deleted Goronchov/Andrey sex scene

The 1980 director's cut

The 1980s Soviet bootleg (which became so popular that it led to the 1993 re-envisioning)

Matteo's own controversial "Writer's Cut" (particularly complicated because apparently he never stopped editing and re-editing to fully achieve his personal vision--every time he screened the movie after 1975, privately or publicly, it had at least some minor differences and often incredibly large ones, with entire character arcs added or lost). At least one of these, my own personal favorite with the deleted second epilogue, was copied and got into general circulation on college campuses and whatnot

Also probably based on one of Matteo's cuts, the "Underground" cuts that were the basis of the Queer improv parties dating back at least to 1982

The first VHS release

The rare Betamax release with the extra Patchka scene

The post-Soviet edit 1993 "modernization" re-envisioning Gonchorov/Katya's backstory that was most Millennials' introduction to the movie

The butchered 90s broadcast TV airings (both of which cut vital plot points--such as Ice Pick Joe's lobotomy backstory--and were likely the reason an entire generation lost interest in the film)

The 1998 25th-anniversary director's cut (the one that The New Yorker famously panned with "It seems that Scorsese has forgotten his own movie")

The 40th-anniversary DVD release with six hours of additional footage

The recent gorgeously digitized Blu-ray release that included the nine-hour supercut and "Making Of" documentary (and probably inspired the Gonchorov renaissance)

The eagerly awaited upcoming 50th-anniversary Criterion edition that's rumored to incorporate the "Lost Reels" that Matteo, Scorsese, Al Pacino, and second assistant editor Mariana Lyudmila Manuali had kept private, as well as the distinct four hours of Patchka footage that the cinematographer filmed whenever he got bored.

And, of course, the crowdsourced Internet project to recover the "definitive" Gonchorov, incorporating most of the known footage as well as new home-filmed snippets from the private collections of minor players like Lynda Carter (in her first screen role as Dancer #2) and Henry Winkler (the busboy)--currently running twelve hours

Am I missing anything?

(Note: This list intentionally excludes the probably apocryphal student project that reframed the entire film from Valery's point of view--even if it actually exists and uses original footage, it can only be considered an homage to the full film and not an actual variant.)

292 notes - Posted November 24, 2022

Well, this may be controversial but

I don't care if Chris Rock knew that Jada Pinkett Smith was struggling with alopecia. I don't care if he didn't know his joke was ableist.

Maybe we shouldn't be making fun of how people look even if they don't have a medical reason? Maybe it's bad if you're in a seventh-grade cafeteria, or in a comedy club with a hundred people, or kind of especially in the middle of a huge glamorous production airing live to millions (or even hundreds of millions) of people.

Maybe it's not funny ever to single someone out and try to humiliate them for how they look.

Maybe you deserve a slap for that.

433 notes - Posted March 28, 2022

In the last two weeks alone, Trump's Supreme Court has:

Overturned Roe v. Wade.

Severely limited Miranda protections by ruling that citizens can't sue the cops who don't read them their Constitutional rights.

Expanded gun rights less than two months after schoolchildren were slaughtered and weeks after a racist shooting in a community supermarket, by striking down sensible New York gun control laws.

And now eviscerated the power of the EPA to do its job and try to protect against climate change by ruling it can't regulate emissions from power plants.

These "justices" are not only legislating from the bench and making decisions that are stripping human rights and WILL CAUSE DEATHS in opposition to decades of precedent (50 years for Roe, 60 for Miranda, 110 for the NY gun laws):

Many of them are unfit to serve.

Clarence Thomas's wife is an insurrectionist and election denier who is refusing to cooperate with the January 6 committee. Thomas has also not recused himself from decisions regarding the January 6 committee. He is married to a literal traitor to this country and has blatant conflict of interest. He MUST resign or be impeached and removed.

Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the bench was rammed through the Senate despite credible accusations that he is a rapist (as well as possibly guilty of financial misconduct or crimes). Investigators refused to consider evidence. This investigation must be reopened, and if more evidence is presented (as I suspect it will be), he should be impeached, removed, and prosecuted.

Neil Gorsuch perjured himself in his Senate confirmation hearings about Roe. He said he recognized and respected it as the law of the land, yet last week he cosigned Alito's reactionary brief that claimed not only that Roe was not law, but that it never had been. Thus Gorsuch should be impeached, removed, and if possible prosecuted for lying under oath.

While I don't know of evidence that Amy Coney Barrett is legally unfit to serve (despite being a far-right-wing reactionary), her appointment was illegitimate under the Republicans' own arbitrary rules: they refused to even consider Obama's candidate for the Court after Scalia's death because it was "in an election year" although that was MARCH, then forced through Barrett's a WEEK before the election (and less than a month after RBG's death). Senate Republicans need to acknowledge that either her appointment or Gorsuch's was illegitimate (and McConnell should be censured for it).

455 notes - Posted June 30, 2022

It’s the day after an election, it’s still not clear who won, and Misha Collins is trending at number 1 on Tumblr.

What year is it again?

917 notes - Posted November 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

16,005 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #i've been trying to up my percentage of original posts with a bunch of shitposts #since i've found from checking previous years that i have been slacking #by a lot #my very first semi-viral post and we have no confirmation on it yet #please forgive the most used tag #nothing to see here #op

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dankusner · 9 months ago

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Starck opening — invite [with Stevie Nicks...]

Some kind of mischief

The Starck Club: Memories of ecstasy, lifelong friendships and what went down in those famously large bathrooms

The Starck Club was a Studio 54 for a city still shaking off its reputation as the home of J.R. Ewing.

A warehouse in the West End designed by French architect Philippe Starck, the place came to define the decadent mid-’80s before AIDS struck and ecstasy became illegal.

In anticipation of the sold-out Starck Club 40th Anniversary Reunion today at the Kessler, we spoke to two people who were there, captured in this photo from 1987.

George Baum, 21 (now 58)

I was one of the few straight guys who worked the door.

I was dating a server there, but every night I was covered in lipstick.

I’d get pocketfuls of paper with people’s names on it.

I’d gone to a boys school in New England, and I’d met girls working in record stores, but nothing like this.

It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

We had a downstairs room that opened up on Sundays when the club was slower, and people entered through steps on the outside.

The stairwell was covered, but the steps led to open air, so those drips on the wall are probably rain.

There were drugs in the club, and probably every club in the ’80s, but it wasn’t a free-for-all.

People would pour cocaine on a table, and they’d get kicked out.

But there were bathrooms with these massive stalls.

You could have a party in there.

Did people have sex in the bathrooms?

I mean, it was a very stimulating place, and we were all young and didn’t have any worries.

Sex was at the top of everyone’s mind.

I remember Cheryl.

She was part of a regular group I liked a lot.

I think this picture is a friendly greeting.

She’s clearly telling me something, but I have no idea what.

I heard all kinds of things.

I worked at Starck until it closed in 1989.

It wasn’t making the money it had, and it was replaced by a terrible nightclub called DV8.

I worked for them, but you had to ask to go to the bathroom.

We had these comp cards to give to women, and they’d grade women on a scale of 1-10 and pay you based on that, which was disgusting even then.

Luckily, they shut down soon after they opened.

Starck was just an exceptional club: the philosophy, the people, the music, the creativity of the people. I’ve never seen anything like it since.

Cheryl Sharp, 20 (now 57)

I remember George being sweet and sort of shy, and I always gave him a hug.

I’m probably telling him some big secret in this picture.

My hair looks like a crimped curling iron nightmare.

It probably cost more than my rent.

That’s not my natural color, I can tell you that.

My roommate Truett Pool and his mother had dressed me that night in a little tankini from Contempo Casuals with bike shorts and stockings.

I was like, OK!

It was a Sunday fun day.

Truett was the first person I met from Starck.

He was on the dance floor with his mom, a hot little number in all leather, just adorable.

He introduced me to some of his friends, and I’m still close with those people to this day.

My college in Arkansas had been very preppy, very sorority-oriented.

I moved to Dallas that year because the economy was better but also because of Starck.

From day one, it felt like a place I belonged.

My mom used to say it was a cult, because every time I came home, I was wearing a Starck Club shirt, but it wasn’t.

Although I did leave one Christmas Eve and drive six hours to go to the afterparty.

I think ecstasy should be in the water.

Wasn’t it originally for couples’ therapy?

It changed my life.

It made me more open, happy and accepting, and I think that’s where our deep friendships came from.

By 1987, I didn’t see anyone selling drugs at the bar, but I did tip the bartender Mike $20 for water so I could be on his guest list.

It was a wild time, yes, but an inclusive, fun time.

The regularly bootlegged design for a Grace Jones performance from July 1989. Hynds says you can tell which shirts are fake because they have “Grace Jones” in black lettering instead of clear.

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yibennianyaji · 1 year ago

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Tian’s Favorite Things: Movies (5 to 1)

The final stretch is upon us!

Something to note with these movies: while they’re technically in order just to keep the list convention afloat, I sort of think of these films as an amorphous blend of “First.” Each does a component of what I value in fiction incredibly well, or speaks eloquently on a personal level. It feels especially unfair to rank them. But! Here we go anyway.

5. Naked Lunch (1991)

Exterminator William Lee has been short on bug powder lately, and discovers his wife has been lifting it as part of her addiction. Not long after, Lee himself begins seeing strange things, including a monstrously sized bug from the “Interzone,” who tells him he’s been assigned to kill an enemy agent – his wife. Lee balks, but during a “William Tell” party trick, he accidentally shoots his wife in the head. He escapes to the Interzone himself, his mental state quickly deteriorating amongst drugs and further conspiracies.

Having sat through Perfect Blue, End of Evangelion, and Green Vs Red, I can cheerfully confirm that this is the weirdest movie I have ever seen in my life. And I kind of love it for that. I’d call this film the hinge of David Cronenberg’s career: the point at which he started shifting completely away from overt horror and warping of the human form as an examination of inner flaws and into the sort of fishbowl observation of dysfunctional human behavior that makes up his later films. To do that he had to expunge his love of bug motifs, which are everywhere throughout this film. Alien typewriter bugs, bugs under threat of extermination, bugs that bleed and blend with human forms with and without the aid of powerful hallucinogens. You could have a field day with the symbolism (particularly the Kafka-esque elements), but let that not stand in the way of how breathtakingly grotesque it all is. This is often a film one watches with eyebrows firmly in hairline, under assault from the intense dream logic and visual panache and layers of story and satire from the novel famously said to be unfilmable.

And that’s the other thing (or one of) that I admire so much about this film – it understands the different needs of its medium compared to the source material, and opted to create an adaptation that was true to the book in spirit rather than trying to pound out an onscreen version of the plot occurrences of the book. Not that you could – Naked Lunch doesn’t really have a narrative in the traditional sense. It’s more a collection of short sketches, anecdotes, and prose poetry (William S. Burroughs, the author, was quite an influential figure on the beat poets of the 1960s). A lot of the stories are dripping in sex and other fluids (as well as some pretty cringey 50s racial epithets), and the power of the book as a whole is in that sense (that later works like Howl would share) of capturing the screaming voice of a trod-upon group. There’s a lot of downright acidic satire of America’s treatment of the queer community in there, some of which we’re not so far removed from as we’d like to think.

But for all its value, a direct translation would beat out Caligula for how purely impossible it would be to market. So instead they made a meta story that wove in aspects of Burroughs’ life with the hallucinogenic visions found in the novel. The shooting that begins main character William Lee’s downward spiral really happened, and there are fictional stand-ins for more than a few people Burroughs knew. And as he stumbles through all of the Interzone intrigue, the “case notes” he’s writing become the novel Naked Lunch. So it’s a cyclical commentary on itself, on the experience of writing, on emotional breakdowns and loss of self (and on the relationship of Famous Dude Authors to women and queerness, but that’s an essay for another day). There’s so much to unpack thematically and visually that you could watch it a dozen times and always find something new. And mmmmm, that is good surrealism.

4. Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Three transients – middle aged drifter Gin, former lounge singer and trans woman Hana, an 16 year old runaway Miyuki – find a baby abandoned in the trash on Christmas Eve. At Hana’s insistence, they set out to find the child’s parents.

There isn’t a single work in Satoshi Kon’s tragically small oeuvre that doesn’t fascinate me in some capacity, so to an extent this is the Kon Movie Slot on the countdown. But at the same time, there’s something special about this film – undeniably the most gentle and grounded of Kon’s films without sacrificing any of his pet themes or the auteur elements that made him who he was (eh, maybe not so much the “self as fractured through presentation in media,” but all the other ones).

It’s rare for movies, especially movies taking place at Christmas, to find a balance of being earnest without falling into cloying (the film does have a field day with the holiday, mixing soup kitchen bartered proselytizing, secular sentimentality, Japanese folklore and Christian imagery into its hearty humanist stew). The cast of the film are rough around the edges, but they’re almost universally good deep down, and we’re given the privilege of seeing at least a glimpse of their humanity. Hana particularly might be my favorite character in all of Kon’s work: she’s allowed to encompass both dignity and overexaggerated animation, selfishness and unfathomably deep compassion, and she unflaggingly caries the film’s heart and its better nature (which, given anime’s track record with explicitly trans characters, is refreshing).

The fact that this is (for lack of a better term) the grounded Kon film also means that his usual vein of surreal visuals morphs into something more akin to magical realism, with the characters existing in a world that conforms to basic reality and yet running into coincidence after coincidence or “miracle.” Its subtlety ends up making it feel like a creative stretch for Kon, forcing him to suggest what he normally paints boldly across the screen in the name of keeping this a character rather than theme/visual-driven story. And such characters, lovable one and all in the full breadth of their flawed, pained humanity. It’s not missed a holiday airing at my house since the day I saw it.

3. Cabaret (1972)

Englishman Brian Roberts comes to live in Berlin in 1931, the final days of the Weimar Republic. He finds lodging at a boarding house also populated by the effervescent Sally Bowles, a dancer at a hole in the wall cabaret called the Kit Kat Club who’s convinced she’ll be on her way to stardom any day. The two begin a relationship as society falls apart around them. Cause, y’know, Nazis.

Okay, despite the summary this is not actually a Film About Nazis. I mean it is, but…how to explain this. Most film that take place directly before or during World War II are About Nazis: soldiers from various nations are signing up to fight Those Dirty Nazis, families are torn asunder by them, countries are invaded by them, and that stuff is almost always at the forefront of the characters’, if not the narrative’s, concerns. Which is fine, but it’s rare to find a film where Hitler’s rise of power is just kind of happening in the background, occasionally surfacing to pierce ugliness into life but not consuming every waking moment of it. Because that too is an experience of life, and there are many who are affected by Important Historical Events who aren’t at the center of the famous, recognizable thing. I love stories that assume you’re smart enough to glean the clues of whatever’s happening historically, and then go on telling stories of individual lives.

It’s a good story too, if a painful one. Sally (the role for which Liza Minelli won an extremely deserved Oscar) is a wonderful deconstruction of what more modernly became known as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl – quirky, waifish young women with charming eccentricities who live life to the fullest, and have decided to sweep the milquetoast male protagonist into their worlds. Sally is quirky alright, but she’s also incapable of commitment or serious responsibility, willing to drop or do anything in the name of her dreams of stardom and running at top speed from weighty emotional problems. Sally and Brian’s relationship is a story of two people who had multiple chances to be happy together, but whose mutual flaws and poor communication dragged them down into stabbing one another in the heart.

And for the record: I do, quite unashamedly, prefer the film to the stage version. The excising of the book songs, locking the film’s musical numbers within the cabaret, strengthen their position as commentaries on the actions of the plot and as a funhouse mirror of the societal changes going on in Germany (no matter how much the Emcee might claim that troubles stay “outside”). I enjoy the rewriting of Franz’s subplot, which isn’t necessarily better than the musical’s but makes an effective mirrored counterpoint to Brian and Sally’s story (internal versus external strife and secret keeping). I like the Baron subplot for obvious reasons (writing Brian’s queerness from the source novel back into the story! Huzzah!). It’s a stellar example of the film musical, paving the way for all sorts of experiments in presentation and form. And the painful emotions at its core endure, despite the double whammy of being a period piece released in the 1970s (that most easily dated of film decades).

2. Chasing Amy (1997)

Comic artist Holden meets fellow artist Alyssa Jones and is instantly smitten, in spite of the fact that Alyssa openly and comfortably identifies as gay. When the two eventually do start dating, his fuzzy bubble of being The Progressive Guy doesn’t last so long when he learns more about Alyssa’s past dating history – and jealousy starts creeping in.

I’ve talked about this film before in some detail, mostly regarding how impressed I am with the subtlety of its exploration of identity politics and the careful sincerity with which it looks at its grey spectrum of characters. After all of that it feels a bit redundant to point to all of that and say “but for personal, though.” But here we are, and it’s true. Kevin Smith made a movie that challenged the permanence of identity, and as someone who lives firmly wedged in the center of a number of spectrums, it continues to speak to me even as the film dates itself with a bunch of flannel and a deep seated terror of the word bi/pansexual.

It isn’t afraid of poking at exclusionary mindsets in both gay and straight communities (not just for Alyssa, but in the wonderfully light touch Dwight Ewell brings to Hooper’s balancing act as a black gay man putting on a traditionally hyper-masculine face to market his comic), but it also knows better than to speak for the oppressed characters in its story, making Holden’s tragic inability to let go into the lens through which other characters have to suffer. It’s a beautiful, sad little love story that’s frequently maligned from all sides, in no small part because of literally the worst ad campaign of all time.

Since it’s early Smith the film lives and dies by its script, and it’s a good one. Ponderous and heavy at times but always sincere, filthy but sweet at its core, thoughtful and retrospective – all of the things that his best stories do. And that’s…all I have to say about that.

1. The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

World renowned thief Lupin III heads to the tiny duchy of Cagliostro in hopes of tracking down the source of some legendarily high quality counterfeit bills, only to instead become embroiled in an unexpectedly heroic attempt to save the unwilling bride Clarisse from the ruling Count.

On the one hand, this is another one of those Personal Things: this was the first Lupin III story I ever saw, if you discount a few minutes of Red Jacket here and there on Adult Swim, and that franchise led me to meeting some very dear friends. And in some ways it’s a comfort food film, with one of Miyazaki’s few downright mustache twirling villains and lines of conflict as simple and clean as the lines on the gang’s character designs. But that’s far from all there is to it.

Cagliostro is exemplary at achieving simplicity in form and function. Sure, there’s a Bad Guy and a Damsel in Distress (though one allowed more agency than most) and a Dashing Rogue who comes to save the day, but there’s a cleverness of execution every step of the way that defies a viewer to offer what more it might need. The backgrounds are pure Miyazaki, lush and detailed and full of fancy steampunk machinery; but the characters are just on the edge of being cartoony, allowed stretch and bounce to the very edges of physics without sacrificing gravity in the dramatic scenes. The action scenes are stunning for their day, going on to inspire both Spielberg and the folks at Disney, and still read as wonderfully smooth and high energy into the modern day.

It’s an exacting tightrope that results in a beautiful range of tones and thrills – we can laugh as Lupin accidentally runs down a roof and across an impossible jump, and still fear for his life when he’s shot. We can boo and hiss right melodrama-like at the Count, and then settle in for the gentle melancholy of Lupin remembering his life as an accomplished criminal. And that’s what raises that simplicity into art: it’s a poignant, beautiful goodbye to a character who started off Miyazaki’s career, and that gentle farewell seeps into every frame of the thing.

It’s a fairly common sentiment that Cagliostro is “a good film but a bad Lupin film,” and I couldn’t disagree more. It certainly stands on its own, and until the last few years was the most common inroad to the franchise in the West, but it clicks perfectly into place as a final chapter as well – the “Whatever Happened to the Caper Crusader?” of Lupin stories. It’s an accomplished, wiser version of a brash character reflecting on his past failures and glories, a cyclical return to an old failure as an opportunity to choose human connection over material gain, an “ending” that allows for someone else’s beginning. It’s a fleet, straightforward adventure story with emotional meat on its bones; a damn fine first outing for one of my favorite directors, and an unmissable beauty of a film.

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exprimis · 2 years ago

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John Abramson, author of Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It, writes in favor of:

increasing grant funds from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation

separating the people who make the drugs from the people who test the drugs, or at least requiring transparency and open data in medical research, with accurate and independent peer review

third-party assessment of the efficacy of treatments

decreasing medical industry profits

price controls

A Hillsdale scholar advocating for increased regulation, increased government subsidies, and increased government intervention in the private market? I wasn't expecting it, but I'll take it.

#imprimis #hillsdale college #john abramson #healthcare

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stranger-than-fictionn · 2 years ago

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Welcome to Hellfire, Girly

(my first fic! i hope you all enjoy :) I tried, key word tried, to base the reader as a close as i could to 80′s goth and shoutout to my bestie for helping me :) <3)

-Eddie Munson x alt!reader

-warnings: light talk about his drug but otherwise no warnings :)

The morning started out like any other, sticking to your routine perfectly.

6:00 am

Wake up and get clothes on. Today you decided to wear your cuffed boatneck black sweater, your ripped up stockings, and a red plaided penicl skirt. You added your silver ankh necklace and silver rings, courtesy of your friend for your 18th birthday. Before you could start anything else you tucked your sweater into your skirt.

You teased your hair to your liking and put makeup on for the day. By the time you leave your room and make your daily buttered toast, it’s 6:30. After slipping on your black, worn out boots you make your way to the bus stop. You slip on your koss porta pro headphones that are connected to your Gpx cassette player. As ‘Shake the Disease’ from Depeche Mode begins to play in your ears, the bus makes it stop and you walk on the crowded vehicle

This morning already started on a bad foot, your best friend wasn’t here at your meeting spot so that meant going to the basketball pep rally by yourself. You spotted Robin Buckely within the band section of the gym. You gave her a small wave and she returned it.

The two of your were close freshmen to junior year but with no classes together and having jobs, the two of you rarely hangout anymore.When you do see her at Family Video, you two equally talk each other’s ears off with stories from the past week,

The rest of the pep rally went by and you left for your English class. You didn’t mind this class but the basketball boys were still pumped up from the pep rally so their loud excitement didn’t sit well with you at 7:35 in the morning.

“Okay everyone, it’s book discussion day, please out your books and 3 questions and split up into groups two to four.” your teacher said, sitting at his desks, clearly to busy grading your past test to care that much. You went to closest 3 person group you could find, starting to discuss ‘Jurassic Park’ and the metaphor of how the book shows we shouldn’t disrupt mother nature and the cycle of life. The three people you sat with could care less about the book, but you really wanted this grade.

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Lunch. God not this period, usually you sit with your friend but their absence means sitting alone. It’s like being in a small row boat in the sea of social classes within this high school. You have your band kids, party goers, your popular kids table etc. You can either sink or float, and it feeling like you’re sinking.

You decide to sit in the back of the cafeteria, music playing through your headphones as you ate your sandwich. Being at lunch alone is like being a zebra alone in the wild, the lions can come up any second and attack-

“Hey, you listening?” a younger boy said while smacking the table to get your attention. You quickly set down your sandwich and took off your headphones, looking at the two look at the boys.

One wearing a hat that says ‘thinking cap’ and a fun button shirt, the other tall with black curly hair and strong cheekbones and jawline. The two have one thing in common, a hellfire club t-shirt. Most famously known to be the dnd club of Hawkins High. You thought of joining, but your job makes it hard for an after school club.

“Yes? May I help you?” you ask, the shorter boy looked excited. “Hi I’m Dustin, so would you know a game called Dungeons and Dragons also known as dnd? It’s a really cool game-” he was cut off by you saying, “Yes I know what dnd is, I have a character for it.”

“Great! Now my buddy Mike and I need a sub for tonight’s meetup, would you like to come to hellfire with us tonight?” he asked, adding a smile to butter up his deal with you.

Playing dnd with stranger you’ve never met? Is this how you want to spend the night before spring break?...fuck it, what’s the worst that can happen? “Sure, I’ll join you,” you said, looking at the boys smile at each other in accomplishment.

“Awesome! You won’t regret this!” Dustin said smiling, shaking your hand. You couldn’t help but smile a bit, these kids were excited you wanted to play, it felt nice. “Okay, all you have to do is talk to the dungeon master and we’ll be in our way. Meet us outside of the gym around 5:30. that can be our meeting spot then we can play.” Mike says obviously sounding more chirped than when he first came over here.

You nodded, “Okay, sounds like a plan to me,” then the bell rung, signaling people to movie to your next period. “I’ll see you guys then,” you said to the boys, making your way to the exit.

———————————————————————————-

5:30 came around, you waited by the gym doors. while you held your note sheet and pencils. You soon hear shouting from the boys, making it clear they’re here. They came up to you, “Ready to meet our dungeon master?” Dustin asked, “Ready as I’ll ever be,” you gave a small smile.

The three of you walked to where the hellfire club meeting was taken place. You walked into the dimly lit room, seeing the ‘dungeon master’ and the three other members of the hellfire club around him.

“Soooo, this is who you brought as a sub?” Eddie asked, leaning back in throne. “Yep! And they already have a character made,” Dustin added in. Eddie smirked, his eyes examining you and your posture. You seem a bit nervous but otherwise determined, he likes that about you. “Okay, state your name and tell me about your character.” he demanded, feeling almost king-like from the chair he sat upon.

“My name is Y/n and my character is a level 15, chaotic good, elf, ranger named Saeya Gaelen. She has poison laced arrows and a dagger named ‘Dagger of Death’s Flower’ carefully crafted to be able to kill any being she so pleases.” you stated, feeling a bit silly saying everything out loud, you never played with this party, how will they react to you?

Eddie got up from his throne, walking towards you with a smile, “Not too bad there…Think you can hang with us?” he asked while leaning close to you, his voice had genuine excitement in it. Your face heated up a tad, he is really cute and was so close to you.You smile and nodded, “Yeah I do,” he stuck out his hand for you to shake, “Welcome to hellfire, girly,” he said while you shook his hand.

———————————————————————————

After the most intense game, the 8 of you walk out the school, same time as the audience of the basketball game. You all were laughing and celebrating after you rolled a successful 20 as the last player standing against vecna.

“So Y/n, you like it here?” Eddie asked, coming up to walk with you. “Yeah! It was loads of fun, thank you for letting me in, dungeon master,” you joked at the end, put a smile on his face, “You can call me Eddie now that we’re not playing…You know, you’re different from the rest of the people here,” he stated while looking at you. He smiled and continued, “You’re not some conformist like everyone else at this school, you’re actually really cool… and pretty..” he mumbled towards the end.

You blushed, “Did I hear that correctly Eddie?” you asked, making him smile and blush out of embarrassment, “Nooooo, you didn’t. I didn’t say anything actually,” he laughed and you joined him, “But no I’m serious, you are…really pretty,” he stated as he stopped walking to look at you, “T-Thank you, I think you’re pretty cute yourself Eddie..” you added, feeling yourself unconsciously but your lip and look down at your boots.

He gave a small laugh before saying, “Can I get your phone number at all? Just so we can talk when I get home? I got do this deal, someone’s buying and I’m selling,” he joked, but he was serious about selling what someone wants to buy.

“Yeah you can, i’ll give you my personal phone so you don’t call my house phone late tonight…” you mumbled, using your pencil and a spare piece of paper, you wrote your number, “Okay I gotta go so call me when you get home,” you smiled, going towards your car to drive home.

Eddie smiled as he watched you pull out and drive away from the school. He looked at the paper that had your phone as a small message that wrote, “Thanks for the fun night dungeon master Eddie, hope this means I’m invited to next meeting :)”

He bit his bottom lip, trying to hide his excitement from getting your number. People say dnd makes people go crazy, start cults, or even commit murder…never mentioned how it can bring someone new to you.

#stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #stranger things eddie munson #eddie munson x y/n

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scotianostra · 3 years ago

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On December 21st 1846 Linlithgow born Robert Liston, performed the first operation in a British hospital using anaesthetic.

Ether had been around for a while, it was mainly used as a recreational drug, ‘Ether frolics’ (parties) were regularly hosted by the aristocracy, and it was during one particular frolic in the town of Jefferson where a medical scholar named Crawford Long discovered the connection between inhaling ether and the prevention of pain. An attendee took a heavy fall but, due to his inhalation of ether, showed no indication of pain. Long never published his findings as he wanted to make sure his theory was correct.

In 1846, an American Dentist named William Morton claimed to be the first person to successfully use ether as an anaesthetic when he extracted a tooth with no pain. Many others were also claiming the same achievement though, so Morton spent much of his life fighting for this title. Following Morton’s painless surgical procedure, the use of ether in the operating theatre became hugely popular. Robert Liston, a famously skilled Scottish surgeon, was the first person in Britain to amputate a limb using ether.

Liston was known as ‘the fastest knife in the West End’ his obsession with speed had a downside, the knife sometimes moved so quickly that accidents occurred. In one instance, Liston cut through a dresser’s fingers. The patient later died of infection, so did the assistant. An observer died of shock. It was probably the only operation in history with 300% mortality.

In the early 19th Century, even the most knife-happy surgeons like Liston only carried out operations as a last resort. Any patient with a compound fracture of the leg or arm – where the bone penetrates the skin – for instance, had little choice but amputation. In a time before any understanding of what caused infection, the alternative was gangrene, blood poisoning and death.

Liston was a showman in the operating theatre, he would often draw large audiences to see him work his magic with a knife, as in this description of him working:

"Time me, gentlemen," he calls out to the gathered spectators. "Time me."

The man grabs your leg and begins to cut just below the knee. He continues to hold onto your leg as one of his lackeys gets a tourniquet around it. To free his cutting hand, he clasps the bloody knife in his teeth and picks up a saw. He cuts back and forth through the bone, drops the severed leg into a bucket filled with sawdust, and sews you up, to the applause of the men sitting in the wings. As promised they've timed the whole procedure -- from first incision to clipping the loose threads on the sutures -- at just two and a half minutes.

His style may have seemed careless, but in the age before anesthesia, speed was essential to minimizing the patient's pain and improving their odds of surviving surgery. Slower surgeons sometimes had pain-wracked and panicked patients wrestle free from their assistants and flee from the operating room. Only about one of every 10 of Liston's patients died on his operating table at London's University College Hospital. The surgeons at nearby St. Bartholomew's, meanwhile, lost about one in every four.

Liston had more going for him than just a quick and (mostly) steady slice, though. He was a highly-regarded surgical instructor and prolific inventor. Some of his creations, like the "Liston splint" and "bulldog" locking forceps, are still around today. He also published two medical texts, The Elements of Surgery and Practical Surgery.

And so we come to this day in 1846, Liston saw a patient named Frederick Churchill, whose right knee had been causing him terrible problems for years. None of the treatments he'd been given before had worked, and now the only option was amputation. The day of the surgery, Liston walked into the operating room and, instead of grabbing a knife and asking his audience to time him, he pulled out a jar, in it was Ether.

"We are going to try a Yankee dodge today, gentlemen," Liston told the crowd, "for making men insensible."

Liston's colleague, Dr. William Squire, administered the anesthesia. He held a rubber tube to Churchill's mouth so he could inhale the ether, and after a few minutes, he was out. Squire placed a handkerchief laced with more of the stuff over Churchill's face to keep him that way, and then Liston began the operation.

A mere 25 seconds later, the amputation was complete. Churchill roused a few minutes later and reportedly asked when the operation was going to begin, to the amusement of the audience.

Further use of ether in Europe's operating rooms revealed its drawbacks. It irritated surgeons' lungs, caused vomiting and other side effects in patients and, in some windowless rooms where surgery was performed by gaslight, ignited and caused fires. Anaesthetics would continue to improve and become more common in medicine, but Liston wouldn't get to see much of their progress. He died in a sailing accident less than a year after Churchill's surgery, still the fastest knife London had ever known.

#Scotland #scottish #Linlithgow #physician #surgeon #anaesthetics #medical history #history

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mamusiq · 2 years ago

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Songs You Totally Misunderstood, Explained

These songs have more to their meanings than meets the eye—or ear.

Have you ever been singing along to your favorite tune and suddenly realized that the song might be about something completely different than you previously thought? Don't worry, you're not alone. In fact, there are more than a handful of hits that have more to their meaning than what meets the eye. For instance, if you like dancing along to "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, you'll be floored to find out that it's actually about mental illness. And did you know that the early 2000s novelty hit "Who Let the Dogs Out" is a feminist anthem? To help clear things up—from The Beatles to the Boss—here are the famous songs that have been totally misunderstood.

1 "Who Let the Dogs Out" by Baha Men

As much as we love our four-legged friends, this Caribbean classic is not about canines. After eight years of research, Ben Sisto got to the heart of the titular question in his documentary Who Let the Dogs Out, which premiered at SXSW in 2019. The final answer? The steel drum-infused song is actually a feminist anthem.

According to The Daily Beast, Trinidadian artist Anslem Douglas wrote the song—originally titled "Doggie," but famously known as "Who Let the Dogs Out" thanks to Baha Men's 2000 cover—as a "rallying cry" against cat-calling. Hence the lyrics: "Well the party was nice, the party was pumpin'/And everybody havin' a ball/Until the fellas started name callin'/And the girls responded to the call/I heard a woman shout out/'Who let the dogs out?'" And for other reputable remakes, check out The 50 Best Cover Songs of All Time.

2 "Blackbird" by The Beatles

In terms of symbolism, "Blackbird" is one of The Beatles' best metaphors—and no, it doesn't have any aviary connection. The British band was fascinated and appalled by the American civil rights movement happening in the '60s. They wrote the song "Blackbird" after hearing about the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who fought to desegregate the school system in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 2016, Paul McCartney tweeted, "Incredible to meet two of the Little Rock Nine—pioneers of the civil rights movement and inspiration for Blackbird," following a meet-and-greet with Thelma Mothershed Wair and Elizabeth Eckford.

3 "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind

This '90s hit from San Francisco rockers, Third Eye Blind, isn't what it seems. Despite its upbeat sound, the lyrics have a much darker undertone. In a 1997 interview with Billboard, frontman, Stephan Jenkins, calls "Semi-Charmed Life" a "dirty, filthy song" about, well, sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.

"I think people hear 'Semi-Charmed Life' as a happy summertime jam. And that's fine with me," Jenkins said. "I don't think the song should be so blatant that I have to come out and say, 'Couples who take speed tend to break up, so don't do it.'"

Even the title itself refers to "a life that's all propped up," Jenkins adds. "You know, the beautiful people who lead bright and shiny lives that on the inside are all [messed] up." And for more music about relationships gone wrong, check out, The 100 Best Breakup Songs of All Time.

4 "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler

This breakup ballad is not about your typical "boy meets girl" scenario. In fact, Jim Steinman who wrote the song for Bonnie Tyler, told Playbill that he based the song off a fantasy about vampires. No joke. It was originally called "Vampires in Love," which explains all the creepy lines such as, "Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time/I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark."

5 "Waterfalls" by TLC

Who could ever forget this carpool-karaoke staple? You loved singing the 1994 TLC hit, but you may have overlooked the song's serious subject matter. It's actually about the AIDS epidemic, as referenced in the line: "His health is fading and he doesn't know why/Three letters took him to his final resting place."

"Anything that's self-destructive, that's chasing a waterfall," singer Rozonda 'Chilli' Thomas told The Guardian. "We wanted to make a song with a strong message—about unprotected sex, being promiscuous, and hanging out in the wrong crowd." The music video furthered this message by showing a kid dealing drugs and a man contracting HIV.

6 "Slide" by Goo Goo Dolls

Don't be fooled by this popular 1998 song by the Goo Goo Dolls. "Slide" is not a love ballad, but rather, a story about an unplanned pregnancy. In a 2018 interview celebrating the 20th anniversary of the album Dizzy Up the Girl, lead singer Johnny Rzeznik told Billboard, "I was thinking a lot about the neighborhood I grew up in. 'Slide' is about a teenage boy and girl. They're trying to figure out if they're going to keep the baby or if she's going to get an abortion or if they're just going to run away. They're dealing with these heavy life choices at a very early age. Everybody grew up way too fast."

Don't believe it? Just take a glance at these lyrics: "Don't you love the life you killed?/The priest is on the phone/Your father hit the wall/Your ma disowned you."

7 "Macarena" by Los Del Río

The choreographed moves are almost as iconic as the tune itself. But this '90s Spanish cult-classic isn't as innocent as our childhood memories would expect. The rhythmic hit is actually about a woman who cheats on her boyfriend (with his two friends!) while he's being drafted into the army.

8 "Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5

Maroon 5's breakout album, Songs About Jane, may be full of steamy love songs, but "Harder to Breathe" is not one of them. In fact, it is actually about a different suffocating relationship—with the group's record label.

"That song comes sheerly from wanting to throw something," frontman Adam Levine said in a 2002 MTV interview. "It was the 11th hour, and the label wanted more songs. It was the last crack. I wanted to make a record, and the label was applying a lot of pressure, but I'm glad they did."

9 "One Way or Another" by Blondie

Blondie frontwoman, Debbie Harry, pulled from personal experience to create the '80s rock classic, "One Way or Another." But, what sounds like a cat-and-mouse game between lovers is a scarier situation in reality. "I was actually stalked by a nut-job so it came out of a not-so-friendly personal event," Harry told Entertainment Weekly. "But I tried to inject a little bit of levity into it to make it more lighthearted. I think in a way that's a normal kind of survival mechanism. You know, just shake it off, say one way or another, and get on with your life. Everyone can relate to that and I think that's the beauty of it." And for other earworms from the '80s, check out 25 Songs Every '80s Kid Knows By Heart.

10 "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People

This head-bouncing bop sounds like it has simple origins about a teenager with sweet new shoes. In reality, it's trying to raise awareness for mental illness and gun violence, as seen in the chorus: "All the other kids with the pumped up kicks/You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun."

"I remember that week, there was some shooting that happened, and it really bothered me, because I recognized that it was going to continue to get worse," lead singer Mark Foster told Billboard in 2019, setting the scene of the song's creation. "And then that song popped out."

11 "Gangnam Style" by Psy

As one of the earliest viral sensations—reaching 3.5 billion views on YouTube—Psy's "Gangnam Style" swept the globe with its infectious beat and dance moves. But behind the South Korean artist's lyrics, lies a sharp social satire on the ultra-rich residents of Gangnam, a neighborhood known as the Beverly Hills of Seoul. In the music video, he pokes fun at the glamorous lifestyle, but even doing that didn't bring him much satisfaction. According to The Atlantic, Psy said: "Human society is so hollow, and even while filming, I felt pathetic. Each frame by frame was hollow."

12 "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen

At first glance, the title track of Bruce Springsteen's seventh album seems as patriotic as patriotic can get. According to The New Yorker, the 1984 hit was even used in Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. This quickly prompted the Boss to clarify things a bit, saying that "Born in the U.S.A." was "the most misunderstood song since 'Louie, Louie.'" From then on, he played an acoustic version of the hit that made its darker tone—about Vietnam veterans—more obvious to listeners.

In a 1984 Rolling Stone interview, Springsteen said: "When you think about all the young men and women that died in Vietnam, and how many died since they've been back—surviving the war and coming back and not surviving—you have to think that, at the time, the country took advantage of their selflessness."

13 "S&M" by Rihanna

If you thought Rihanna's 2010 bop, "S&M," was about a racy relationship, guess again. The songstress intended it to be about her tumultuous experience with the media. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Rihanna told Vogue in 2011, "The song can be taken very literally, but it's actually a very metaphorical song. It's about the love-hate relationship with the media and how sometimes the pain is pleasurable. We feed off it—or I do. And it was a very personal message that I was trying to get across."

14 "London Calling" by The Clash

Although "London Calling" was known as a political punk-rock anthem in the late '70s, the song was much more relevant to a topic of today's time: climate change. According to The Wall Street Journal, the British band was scared after reading a 1979 London Evening Standard article about the Thames river flooding the streets of London. Originally, frontman, Joe Strummer, focused his lyrics on the subject of drowning but then broadened his approach to include an array of dire circumstances. You can hear it for yourself in the chorus, "The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in/Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin/Engines stop running, but I have no fear/'Cause London is drowning/I live by the river."

15 "Royals" by Lorde

Although the lyrics to Lorde's 2013 hit "Royals" depict the idea of rejecting fame and fortune, the true meaning is literally in the song's title. The New Zealand pop artist was flipping through a 1976 issue of National Geographic, and stumbled upon a picture of George Brett, a Kansas City Royals baseball player, who was surrounded by screaming fans begging for his autograph. In an interview with VH1, Lorde explained, "his shirt said Royals… I really like that word, because I'm a big word fetishist. I'll pick a word, and I'll pin an idea to that."

16 "The A Team" by Ed Sheeran

Soothing acoustics aside, "The A Team" is a melancholy story inspired by Ed Sheeran's experience performing at a charity concert for Crisis, a foundation that helps the homeless in the U.K. After visiting the shelter and hearing their stories, Sheeran went home and wrote the lyrics in 20 minutes. You can pick up some of the references, especially in lines like, "Ripped glove, raincoat/Tried to swim and stay afloat/Dry house, wet clothes/Loose change, bank notes/Weary-eyed and dry throat."

17 "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga

Since she first stepped onto the scene in 2008, Lady Gaga has been an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and representation. And on her debut record, The Fame, she explores her own bisexuality in the song "Poker Face." According to NBC, the pop star said the song was "about being in a relationship with a man but fantasizing about a woman; hence, the man must read her poker face."

18 "American Pie" by Don McLean

Don McLean's catchy 1970s ditty may be the perfect campfire sing-along, but it's not as happy-go-lucky as it seems. In fact, the line "the day the music died" nods to the tragic 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson (a.k.a. The Big Bopper), and Ritchie Valens.

"The lyrics had to do with the [deteriorating] state of society at the time," McLean told The Guardian. When he auctioned the song's original manuscript at Christie's in 2015, McLean said, "Basically, in 'American Pie' things are heading in the wrong direction. It is becoming less ideal, less idyllic… it is a morality song in a sense."

19 "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan

This Sarah McLachlan song may conjure those sad SPCA animal commercials, but there's more to the tear-inducing tune. According to ABC News, McLachlan penned the piece in memory of Smashing Pumpkins keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin, who died from a heroin overdose in 1996. "The story shook me because though I have never done hard drugs like that, I felt a flood of empathy for him and that feeling of being lost, lonely, and desperately searching for some kind of release," McLachlan wrote on Quora in 2014.

20 "Closing Time" by Semisonic

You've most likely heard this crooner at the end of a late night out with friends. But contrary to popular belief, "Closing Time" isn't about the last call at a bar. Semisonic lead singer, Dan Wilson, actually wrote the piece for his daughter, who was born prematurely. At his college reunion at Harvard in 2008, Wilson told the crowd, "I hid it so well in plain view that millions and millions of people heard the song and didn't get it. They think it's about being bounced from a bar, but it's about being bounced from the womb."

https://bestlifeonline.com/misunderstood-songs/

Read This Next

20 Songs You Didn't Know Have Secret Messages These hit tracks have some hidden meanings you might've missed on first listen. July 9, 2020

The 65 Best Cover Songs of All Time Admit it, these tracks are so good, you actually thought they were originals. April 28, 2021

30 Famous Songs Everyone Misinterprets Wait—"Hey Ya!" means what?! September 27, 2018

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mitigatedchaos · 3 years ago

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Re: Borderers

[ anon ]

wait a fucking minute you're telling me that motherfucker wanted to CURE BORDERISM

I stuck up for that son of a bitch

[ @kaumnyakte ]

that's certainly a way of putting it but yeah. and he's not even the most overtly Like That of them!

[...] like. racist tumblr banter is one thing. "rationalists" are another

One of the textbook findings of political science is that terrorism is not caused by low IQ (at least, as I recall it).

There can be people who commit street crime due to a lack of impulse control, drugs, and so on. But actual terrorism, including the planned variety, is not committed out of stupidity in the narrow sense. It may be committed out of stupidity in the broad sense in which ‘ideology can make you stupid,’ but that isn’t the same thing.

East Asians rather famously have some of the lowest crime rates in North America, but when the Imperial Japanese military invaded China, they committed legendary historical-level atrocities.

Genetic engineering cannot end war. It cannot end violence, or envy, or death. It cannot end stupidity in the broadest sense: how many credentialed Twitter users with a blue checkmark next to their name loudly and proudly called the pandemic wrong back in early 2020? How many of them could run intellectual circles around a stereotypical Trump voter, only to downplay an emerging epidemic even as videos circulated of the Communist Party of China welding doors of apartment buildings shut to contain the virus?

#politics #uncharitable

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izzyspussy · 3 years ago

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if the cast of witch noir and the cast of stephen king's spooky clown story had a sleepover who would get along?

Oh noooo two of them have the same name agjmlfaa.

Um okay. Fred and Richie would get along famously. [Everyone hates that.] "Sleepover" automatically made me think of the younger Losers, so I'm rolling with it. Fred would teach Richie new tricks and introduce him to new fun drugs (which he would not like but would pretend he did to look cool in front of em). He'd have a little boy crush on em, and as such Eddie K would hate em on principle. Every Loser would have a vague gender Epiphany because Fred is 110% androgynous and they, being 13 year olds from the 80s would not Know About That previously and it's obviously cool as hell.

Stan, Ben, and Mike would all kind of idolize Angel (if he managed to show up). Ben would be into him because he's tall, dark, and handsome and has a star-crossed love that he bears stoically, and because he's a good dad (when he manages to show up). Mike would think he was so wise and wordly. Stan and he would just kind of Vibe (it's the Depression, but they don't know that). Unfortunately, Angel would be a frankly very bad influence on kid Stan - and he wouldn't take guidance from adult Stan if matters were switched. This man is not a role model, boys, I'm sorry to say.

Every Loser except Richie would be lowkey into Jessica. By the time this so-called "sleepover" was ending she'd have Bill half convinced that he's a lesbian. (He isn't, but to consider one's gender is never a mistake.) She'd be like, "So obviously you love women, because women are beautiful and perfect. But what if... you loved women, and you were a woman too? Think about it." and he'd be like OoO wow... so true..... alsfjlks. (Meanwhile, Ben is distracted by Angel talking about sneaking into the asylum to visit Dido. However. He will remember this conversation later. Good for him.) Jessica herself is not particularly enamored with any of the Losers, mainly because she's not particularly enamored with kids, but she does try her best to take Bev under her wing and impart some feminist futurism. (Were they not either having this sleepover in the macroverse somehow or else UR/time traveling, she would simply murder Alvin by putting her skewering his head on the heel of her shoe. Alas.)

For Eddie A... it really depends on where she is in her story when this sleepover happens. At the beginning, she's very off-putting as a person and makes absolutely no overtures of connection. She would refuse to interact, and would generally bring the party down. Bill and Ben might try to cheer her up or draw her out, and they would fail. (Had it been with the adult Losers she might try to fuck Bev or Ben, and after failing that Richie. She might succeed with Richie if he's also in a really shitty place, but it's really unlikely. [for clarity: she's a lesbian, Bev is bi, Ben is also a lesbian, and Richie is non-binary.]) In the middle, she'd be really intimidated by the clear and present bond between the Losers and would still avoid interacting with them, but out of fear now rather than abject misery. In this case, all the Losers (and all of her own support group) would attempt to draw her in and this time they'd succeed. She'd get along best with Stan and Richie because she'd be quiet with an upstanding but black sense of humor - and because Richie would remind her so much of Fred. If she and Jessica were still broken up she'd be trying her absolute damndest to match-make benverly and reddie. At the end, she'd probably get along best with Bev and Eddie because they have a lot of worldview aspects in common, and all three of them... don't have a super high charisma stat.

Lily and Pennywise would team up (if It was there). Not on purpose, because neither of them is exactly a team player. But Lily's victims would be perfect for It to scavenge. On one hand, Pennywise would be a hindrance to Lily because she needs her victims to be spiritually strong so that they'll survive long enough for their body to be as alive as possible when she puts it on. On the other hand, Its penchant for making people not see things they don't want to would be pretty useful for her.

Evelyn would simply be betting on baseball games and investing in stocks because he's a soulless capitalistic heel lmao. After so long fucking another pseudo-shapeshifter he might think about fucking Pennywise, but Pennywise is in fact not sexy so his mind would be quickly changed. It would scare him with himself as a beggar probably. But, it would also be afraid of him first because he has very, very little to fear. (Evelyn is a rich, white, cishet, adult man. So like- lol.)

Anyway. Kay I am kissing you so sweetly on the back of your hand. Thank you and forgive me for not formatting this in any way.

#jack facts #jack chats #it #hc #my fic #writing process #witch noir

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black-paraphernalia · 3 years ago

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Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1942- August 22, 1989)

Huey Percy Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana. His parents moved to Oakland, California during Newton’s childhood. He graduated from high school without having acquired literacy, but he later taught himself to read. He attended a variety of schools including Merritt College before eventually earning a Bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

During his tenure at Merritt College, Newton joined the Afro-American Association and helped get the first African American History course adopted into the college’s curriculum. Soon after, in October 1966, he and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP). They decided that Seale would be the Chairman and Newton would be the Minister of Defense.

Many of the Party’s principles were inspired by Malcolm X and his views. The Party believed that in the Black struggle for justice, violence (or the potential of violence) may be necessary. The Black Panther Party, under the leadership of Newton, gained international support. This was most demonstrated when Newton was invited to visit China in 1970. He was welcomed enthusiastically by large crowds holding up copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung as well as signs supporting the BPP and criticizing U.S. imperialism.

Taking advantage of a California law that allowed people to carry non-concealed weapons, the Panthers instituted armed patrols that monitored police activity in the black community. These patrols led to increasingly tense relations with the police, and in October 1967 Newton was arrested following a Panther-police shootout that resulted in the death of an Oakland police officer. Considered a political prisoner by many on the left, the Panthers orchestrated a Free Huey campaign led by the Party’s Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. Charles R. Geary, a well-known attorney, headed Newton’s legal defense, and in July 1968 Newton was convicted of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. That conviction was overturned on appeal, and in 1970 Newton was freed from prison

After returning to the United States, Newton was tried for a variety of violent offenses such as assault and multiple murders. These charges resulted in him fleeing to Havana, Cuba to escape prosecution for three years. Upon his return, he stood trials for one more assault and murder and was acquitted of both charges. Compounding these challenges was the split that developed between Newton and Eldridge Cleaver in early 1971 over the primary function of the Party.

Newton’s leadership of the Black Panther Party in the early 1970s helped contribute to its demise. He led a number of purges of Party members, most famously in 1971 when he expelled Eldridge Cleaver in what was called the Newton-Cleaver split. In 1974, Newton was accused of assaulting a prostitute who later died. Instead of standing trial, he fled to Cuba. He returned to the U.S. in 1976, stood trial, but was acquitted. In 1978, he enrolled in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz where he earned his doctorate in 1980. His dissertation, “War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America,” was later published as a book.

Newton wanted the party to focus on serving African American communities while Cleaver thought the focus should be on building relationships with international revolutionary movements. This rift resulted in violence between the factions and the deaths of several BPP members.

In 1989, Newton was fatally shot in West Oakland by a member of the Black Guerilla Family and drug dealer named Tyrone Robinson. Relations between the Black Panther Party and the Black Guerilla Family had been strained for nearly twenty years prior to this incident. The murder occurred after Newton left a drug den in a neighborhood where Newton had once organized social programs.

Newton’s last words were, “You can kill my body, and you can take my life but you can never kill my soul. My soul will live forever!” Robinson then shot Newton twice in the face. Newton is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland. Robinson was convicted of murder in 1991 and was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.

Sources

Social Networks and Archival Context - Huey Newton

African American Network

Blackpast.org

Black Paraphernalia Disclaimer - Please read

images from Google images

#black paraphernalia #Huey Newton #Black Panthers #did you know #black power #revolutionary #no justice

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violetfaust · 2 years ago

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For my own sanity

I'm trying to put together a list of the various versions of Goncharov (1973) screened throughout the last fifty years.

The four-and-a-half-hour film festival cut that even Scorsese felt was a rough draft

The US theatrical release in 1973

The 1973 European theatrical release with its extra half hour of footage

The 1973 Latin American dub with its extra half hour of different footage

The 1980 director's cut

The 1980s Soviet bootleg (which became so popular that it led to the 1993 re-envisioning)

Also probably based on one of Matteo's cuts, the "Underground" cuts that were the basis of the Queer improv parties dating back at least to 1982

The first VHS release

The rare Betamax release with the extra Patchka scene

The post-Soviet edit 1993 "modernization" re-envisioning Gonchorov/Katya's backstory that was most Millennials' introduction to the movie

The butchered 90s broadcast TV airings (both of which cut vital plot points--such as Ice Pick Joe's lobotomy backstory--and were likely the reason an entire generation lost interest in the film)

The 1998 25th-anniversary director's cut (the one that The New Yorker famously panned with "It seems that Scorsese has forgotten his own movie")

The 40th-anniversary DVD release with six hours of additional footage

The recent gorgeously digitized Blu-ray release that included the nine-hour supercut and "Making Of" documentary (and probably inspired the Gonchorov renaissance)

Am I missing anything?

#goncharov (1973)#goncharov 1973 #katya goncharova #andrey daddano #mario ambrosini #ice pick joe #valery michailov #sofia #patchka #unreality #op #martin scorsese #gonchposting

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whumpingcrow · 3 years ago

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Ink Poisoning - Chapter 10

"Garbage Person"

CW: bbu and everything in relation to that, drugs/alcohol (explicit), injury description, blood, sick whumpee, anxiety attack, amputation mention (vague), noncon mention, conditioned whumpee, food mention (let me know if I missed anything!)

Nicko had been working on a tattoo when Ben called him. The skin underneath him belonged to a slightly older woman, a blonde with pink lipstick on her teeth that he could see every time she smiled at him. She was annoying, and she was flirting with him, which made her even more annoying. The first time his phone rang, he ignored it completely, too consumed in his work to even look up. Secretly, he was wishing that he was tattooing Gio instead. It had been a little over a week since Nicko made him sick by icing him out, and Nicko hadn't allowed himself to bring him back to the shop. Instead, it became his mission to make him better. He made him soup, he let him sleep in his bed, he even helped him take a bath the first day he was sick.

That had been difficult. Nicko had never been "nice", he knew that about himself. He was notoriously an asshole, famously short tempered and foul mouthed. He knew what empathy was, he could feel it, but it was just...rare. The knowledge that others had emotions and feelings didn't matter to him, most of the time. But when he gave Gio a bath, he'd never felt worse for someone in his entire life. Gio could hardly keep himself upright, couldn't even keep his eyes open, when Nicko undressed him and helped him into the water. Nicko hadn't washed the blood off of his face the night before, hadn't wanted to move him around and hurt him more than he was, so when he wet a rag and tried to gently wipe the dried blood off, he wanted to cry right along with Gio. He held his head still with one hand on his jaw as he ran the towel over the bridge of his nose, over his cheekbones, very carefully under his eyes, wiping away some of his tears along with the blood. Nicko couldn't believe he'd hurt him so badly. He felt even worse when Gio's face was clean and he could see the bruises he'd left there. Then Nicko washed his hair, there was blood there, too, somehow, and then he just sat outside of the bathtub and let Gio warm up in the water for a few more minutes. He couldn't stop crying.

"I'm sorry, sir," he whimpered out, using his wrists to push away the tears, directing his huge, teary eyes at Nicko. He looked hopeless, his chocolate brown eyes dulled down with fear and sadness. Nicko reached out and traced his thumb down Gio's face tenderly. He looked so young, with his hair slicked back out of his face and his huge eyes and his cheeks and nose flushed red from crying and his fever. His file didn't include an age when Nicko got him, but he couldn't have been more than 20.

"You shouldn't be sorry, Gio. Really, I'm the one who messed up. I'm..." He paused, frowning to himself. The words didn't sound right in his head, he hadn't used them earnestly enough all that often, so it was sort of alien to him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Gio looked positively perplexed, like he was just as much as used to hearing apologies as Nicko was at giving them. "S...Sir?" He squeaked.

"When I came back out and saw you outside like that, all bloody and fucking tied up...God, Gio, I was just disgusted." He could see Gio's face fall even more, and his heart sank. "No! No, not of you! I was disgusted in myself. I was disgusted that I did something so awful to you. And I'm sorry."

After that, Nicko made him rest, and he nursed him back to health. It was the least he could do, after putting him in that condition in the first place. That morning, he was up with Nicko, asking if he could go with him to work, if he would finish his tattoo. Nicko thought it was adorable, but he still had bruises and still seemed a little out of it, so Nicko made him stay home. He was regretting it now, as the blonde bimbo told him "Don't be afraid to hurt me, I don't mind a little pain" with a wink.

The second time his phone rang, he told the blonde to give him a moment, pulling off his gloves as he stood up and walked into the next room to answer the phone.

"What Ben? I'm working."

"Hey, uh...you didn't take Gio with you to work, did you?" Ben's voice was a little nervous, and Nicko was instantly worried.

"No, I left him there. Is he not there?"

"Um..."

"Ben is he there or not?!"

"I thought I saw him earlier, but I can't find him now. I think he jumped ship, dude."

Nicko had never had an anxiety attack before. Nervous, sure. Fits of rage, all the time. But he'd never felt the tight rubber bands around his lungs feeling that took his breath away when Ben said that. So he hung up the phone and left through the back, all but sprinting to his car. It was a miracle he got home in one piece, with how fast he was driving and how badly his hands were shaking. Gio jumped ship. Gio hates you because of how badly you hurt him. You scared him so bad he ran away. You awful person. You horrible, garbage person. The anxiety only worsened when he got home and Gio really was gone, he wasn't just hiding out somewhere like he sometimes did. Nicko pictured him, his huge, horrified eyes, how small he was, how he was probably out there scared and alone and someone might hurt him and Nicko wasn't there to protect him. You should have just taken him to work with you. This wouldn't have happened if he came with you. This is all your fault. Garbage person.

It wasn't until after he had calmed down and hours after Salem was home that Nicko even realized any of his things were missing. He was exhausted, the second he explained to Salem what had happened there was a fight, with rightfully placed blame on Nicko that he was wrongfully defensive about, as always. With his nerves shot and beyond tired from his incessant anger, he got drunk. It was a bad habit, his drinking in an attempt to mute his anger. But it was better than picking another fight with Salem to blow of some steam, and it felt better than the newfound anxiety every time he thought about Gio.

It was when he was drunk that he decided to paint, to make a mess with some red without actually hurting anyone again, and he noticed a few of his paintbrushes were gone. No one ever touched his art supplies (especially not Gio, and especially not after Nicko once made a joke about cutting off his fingers if he decided to be a thief and take his things), and he was very particular about how it was all organized. So when he realized they weren't where he'd left them, even in his drunken stupor, he could tell that something was wrong. So he looked around more, and he was missing more than just his brushes. His room had basically been ransacked, and he didn't know how he hadn't noticed before just then. So he rushed back out to the kitchen, where Ben and Salem were both standing around talking.

When he opened the liquor cabinet (for the second time in the last hour, and he wondered again how he had failed to notice something so important) he was missing a bottle of vodka and the jar of cash he and Rory secretly added to for party funds was empty. There was only one other person who knew about it, and then it clicked.

"Nicko," Ben started in careful disdain, "shouldn't we be doing something besides...you know...drinking?"

"Gio didn't run away."

Salem scoffed at him. "Right. Why would he want to run away from you?"

Nicko shook his head, trying to rub some of the stress out of his face. "No, you idiot. Rory was here. She took my stuff. She took my art shit, she took my cash, she took Gio."

Ben was instantly pale, and Salem stood from his chair and began pacing. It was unspoken, but they were all thinking the same thing, more or less. Rory had a problem, she had ever since they all met sophomore year at a party, and she had never downplayed it or try to make it less obvious. Sober Rory was a rare occasion, despite at some point everyone telling her she should at least talk to someone, go to a meeting, go to rehab. So at some point, their persistence fizzled out and they stopped trying so hard, and she was happier that way, anyway. Nicko had tried a few times to give her somewhat of an intervention, but in the end he decided the only thing he had the power to do was be there with her, whatever she decided to do. Yeah, because you could be all the help she needed? You, the garbage person? Right.

Nicko spent the rest of that night, all the way through morning, driving to places she might be. Her friends hadn't heard from her in days, they'd said, and the dealer that they had been going to together said she'd stopped by the night Nicko kicked her out and bought some weed. After that, he drove up and down neighborhoods all over the city looking for her car. But he had no luck, and he returned home the next morning without Gio or any idea where he was.

Over the course of the next two weeks, Nicko starting failing his classes. He couldn't bring himself to care much about his assignments when Gio was still missing, somewhere with Rory, probably being pumped with whatever she was using. Don't forget that it's your fault. He's gone because of you're shitty decisions.

He also got fired from his apprentice at the tattoo shop, the blonde he was working on didn't particularly like him running out on her and not finishing her piece, and his boss didn't like it either. He couldn't really bring himself to care that much about it. His job, his school, none of that was important to him anymore. Not as important as Giovanni, who was his responsibility and was probably miserable and scared because of him.

So he mostly stayed hidden in his room, starting paintings but never finishing them, tattooing senseless things on himself out of boredom, laying in bed doing nothing. He drove around a lot, too, looking for anything that would tell him where Rory was. He got pulled over three times, he spent a ridiculous amount of money on gas, and he never found Gio.

The guilt was suffocating. Every morning when he woke up alone in his bed he was reminded that Gio was missing, and then again when he got up and saw his empty beanbag, and knowing that he wasn't there because Nicko hadn't kept a good enough eye on him was crushing.

At some point, even Salem noticed how much Gio being gone was eating Nicko up, because he grudgingly came into his room one night, hovering in the doorway, asking Nicko if he was ok. Nicko was sitting on his bed, eyes droopy from however much booze he'd had that day, and for the first time since Salem had known him, he looked painfully human.

"I was responsible for him," Nicko admitted, "if Rory hurts him...if something bad happens to him..." He didn't finish his thought, but Salem had an idea of what he was going to say: that it would be his fault.

"Nicko, whatever Rory does is not up to you. You've done everything you can to find him, that's all that you can do." It was strange for him to be comforting Nicko, of all people, especially after he had found out that he'd assaulted Gio and left him outside in the cold until he got sick. After that, whatever little respect Salem had for Nicko was gone, and now it was being replaced by pity.

But Nicko didn't want his pity, he didn't want to be comforted by anyone. He didn't deserve that. So he told Salem to get out, to just leave him alone. Only Salem, stupid, relentlessly nice Salem refused to leave, and instead he crossed the room and sat down next to him on his bed.

"He likes you a lot, Nicko. Did you know that?"

Nicko did know, unfortunately. He vividly remembered one of the nights when Gio was sick, when he turned over in bed and pressed himself close to Nicko and told him he was his favorite, that it hurt him when he couldn't be around him all the time. And now he was gone. And it was Nicko's fault. "Yeah, I know. He's sort of dumb in that way, isn't he?"

Salem laughed at him, mostly because he didn't know when Nicko became so self aware. "No, I don't think so. I think he's just miraculously good at seeing the best parts of people. He likes Rory, too. Even after...you know, even though she got him high all the time." Nicko let out a long, heavy sigh, and Salem followed suit. "I'm telling you that because he knows that none of this is your fault. I mean, to him, you fucking walk on water. You couldn't ever do anything wrong. So, wherever he is, he isn't blaming you. No one here is blaming you either."

Nicko didn't believe him, but he didn't have the energy to argue against him. So instead, he just said "ok", and then Salem left. Nicko spent the next twenty or so minutes drinking and sketching lazily, dragging pencils across a paper only as a means to distract himself. Everything he drew was ugly, every drink tasted awful, life was miserable. He thought back to what Salem had said, that Gio liked him a lot, and then he thought again of Gio whispering in the dark, "you're my favorite person, Nicko," and his heart broke all over again. He trusted you and you put him in danger. He liked you and you didn't even fucking care, you god awful garbage person.

He was pulled out of his spiraling, self hating thoughts by a knock at the front door. He almost wanted to ignore it, didn't want to ever see or speak to anyone ever again, knowing he would probably end up hurting whoever it was in the end anyway, like he did to everyone he'd ever been around. But then he decided against it, and he stumbled down the hallway with his beer still in hand.

Giovanni sank to his knees in the same instant that Nicko opened the door, so fast that Nicko didn't even realize it was him at first. Only when Gio looked up at him from his place on the snowy porch and started to choke out a familiar sounding apology did it click that it was him. He looked awful, his pale skin peppered with small scrapes and his neck littered with what looked like hickeys, the usual bags under his eyes were an even darker shade of purple, his lips were cracked and bloody, and his face had hollowed out dramatically.

"I'm so s-s-sorry that I left, Nicko," he was rushing out, tears threatening to fall from his frightened round eyes, "ple...please forgive me, sir, please take m-me back-"

Then, Nicko was on his knees too, reaching out to take Gio's face in his hands, frowning at him when he flinched away just a little. Once Nicko's hands were on him, he really couldn't hold back the tears anymore, staring at Nicko as they slipped down his face and onto Nicko's hands. He was afraid at Nicko's silence, he would prefer for him to just start yelling already so that they could get the punishment over with and Gio could maybe be allowed to sleep after. He was exhausted. But Nicko only kept staring at him, almost in disbelief.

Then, as if he remembered that Gio was still outside, kneeling in a pile of snow, he stood up and pulled Gio carefully to his feet, helping him across the threshold so he could shut the door and keep the cold out. Once he was inside, and upright, Nicko got a better look at him, and he was physically upset at how rough he looked. Then he noticed how badly Gio was shaking, and how he was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt nervously as he stared at Nicko. He realized then that he hadn't said anything, and Gio had apologized because he thought he was in trouble, so Nicko being completely silent was probably freaking him out. Gio let out a soft whine when Nicko stepped closer and pulled him against his chest.

"I was so worried about you, Gio," he whispered, swaying side to side, "I looked all over...I'm so sorry I let her get you. I'm so sorry."

Before Gio could even begin to protest the apology, Salem came down the hallway and gasped when he saw Gio all wrapped up in Nicko's arms. "You came back?" He breathed. Gio nodded as much as he could in Nicko's snug embrace. Nicko pulled away then, brushing Gio's hair out of his face and looking at him with a frown.

"Come on, let's get you some food. Anything you want." He pulled Gio behind him into the kitchen, forcing him to sit in a chair. Gio was confused, wasn't sure why he wasn't being berated with pain and cruel words for running off and being gone for so long. He watched as Nicko looked through the fridge, then jumped when the chair next to him screeched against the hardwood floor as Salem sat down.

"Are you ok?" He asked Gio softly, a concerned frown on his face. Gio was happy to see his kind face, but the question made his heart lurch uncomfortably in his chest. He wasn't ok, his body ached all over, everything felt uncomfortably fuzzy and far away from the drugs that hadn't worn off yet, his fatigue was so bad he felt like sobbing every time he had to move his tired muscles. More than anything he was confused, like always, and it was much too difficult to try and figure out why Nicko was being nice to him and trying to give him food like a reward when he had run away and been gone for so long.

"You want pizza, Gio?" Nicko called from the freezer, already pulling out a frozen pizza and setting it on the counter. Gio didn't answer either of their questions, it felt like his any words that he wanted to say were shards of broken glass on his tongue, and it would only hurt him and everyone around him if he started to talk. It was mostly because his mind was a mess of racing thoughts about Rory and Oscar and all the awful things they did to him and how badly it hurt and how scared he was and how horrible he felt for worrying Nicko.

His silence made them both uneasy, and Nicko set the pizza box down with a thud on the table in front of Gio, then he crouched down next to him, placing his hand on his thigh. Giovanni squeezed his eyes shut in response, Nicko noticed his shoulders began to rise and fall quicker in his uneven breathing.

"What's wrong, darling?" Nicko tried, keeping his voice soft and level. Gio cringed, turning his face away from him. "Talk to me, Gio. Please."

Giovanni let out a tiny whimper, shaking his head. Salem and Nicko shared a nervous glance. Salem shrugged his shoulders hopelessly, not sure how to comfort Gio or make him talk anymore than Nicko did.

So, without any other idea of what to do, Nicko reached up and tilted Gio's face towards him, even though he didn't open his eyes. "Gio, I can't help you feel better if you don't tell me what's wrong. I want to help you but you have to tell me how."

Now, Gio opened his eyes, his frown deepening when he looked at Nicko. Within half a second his eyes were overflowing with tears and his shaking went from a tiny shiver to violent tremors up and down his body. "I...I don't know what's wrong." He admitted. His voice was a hoarse whisper, and Nicko pulled his hand away from his face after he spoke. Gio burst into tears just then, tilting his head down as he sobbed out weakly. "I'm s-sorry, I'm so so stupid I'm so f-fucking stupid I'm-"

Nicko shut him up by standing up and wrapping his arms around him again, pulling his head against his stomach and petting through his hair softly. Salem watched them with his hand over his mouth, obviously troubled at Gio's hysteria. "It's ok, Gio," Nicko soothed him, "you're not stupid. I'm not upset with you. I just want to help."

Gio wasn't really listening, couldn't hear anything over his ragged breathing and his sobs that were muffled by Nicko's clothes. When Nicko realized he wasn't going to calm down like that, he pulled off of him, looking down at his tears stained face. It's all your fault he's crying right now. Look at how broken he is because of you.

"You're not stupid, Giovanni. You hear me?"

The sternness to Nicko's voice snapped Gio out of it a little, he forced his mouth closed and nodded up at him reflexively. Then, Nicko sighed softly and turned away from him altogether. He grabbed the pizza, busying himself with that instead of having to look at how ruined he made Gio. He was only turned away for a minute or two before Salem cleared his throat.

"Um, Nicko?" He said. "I don't think he's really hungry."

When Nicko turned to see what Salem was talking about, and Gio had his head rested against the table, passed out cold. Nicko hadn't thought that he might be tired, and he felt like an asshole for not even checking with him. With a huff, he turned off the oven and threw the pizza carelessly back into the freezer. When Nicko picked Gio up he didn't even stir, completely limp when Nicko scooped him out of the chair and pulled him against his chest.

Seeing Gio back in his bed was more relieving than Nicko had anticipated, and once he was curled up under the covers all Nicko could do was stare at him. He was broken and banged up and looked seconds away from death in a lot of ways, but Nicko felt like he'd never seen anything as beautiful as Gio passed out under his covers. Suddenly, the art block he'd had since Gio had been gone dissipated, and Nicko was as quiet as he could be as he got out a canvas and what little art supplies Rory left him with.

Hours later, Gio woke up to find Nicko asleep next to him, covered in splotches of paint on his face and hands and all over his clothes. He sat up just a little, and then noticed the huge painting across the room. Through the dark he couldn't tell what it was, but it made him smile nonetheless. With a yawn, he layed back down, a little closer to Nicko than he was when he woke up. When Nicko reached out and grabbed onto his hand, Gio tensed up just a little, only until he laced his fingers in between Gio's and held onto his hand gently. Gio looked up at him only to see him still peacefully sleeping, and he realized he probably thought he was someone else, maybe Rory. Still, Gio happily pushed himself closer, resting his head against Nicko's shoulder and keeping his grip on his hand tight.

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jtsfavslut · 4 years ago

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can you do something about trick or treating with Gray? we know he doesn’t party and i feel like he would love to just be a kid again one halloween

Miss ma’am, I love this!!!! Also I’m sorry this sucks more dick than anyone I know. But we stan Mr. Treat you body and mind right during Halloween!!! Love you<33333

As we all know and have heard way too many times; Grayson Dolan doesn’t party. Grayson Dolan is also a Halloween enthusiast. Mix the two and you get a sober 20-year-old man in LA while everyone else gets wasted.

That’s when you come in. The famously infamous Y/N that managed to not only catch Grayson’s heart but make him feel like she’s the one. Which he was certain of.

“Baby, I got an idea,” you said walking out of your room while he was on the couch, acting like he was going to die from boredom, “what if we go trick or treating? It’ll be fun,” you added, moving to stand in front of him, him having to look up at you, at least just this time.

“Y/N, we’re 20, they won’t believe we’re kids,” he said, making you roll your eyes and crawl on his lap, this was your way of getting whatever you wanted from him.

“And that, my dear, is when the makeup and masks come in,” you said and he let out a loud sigh before nodding his head, “I knew you’d say yes,” you added with a smile before leaning down to press a kiss on his cheek until he turned his head making your lips land on his.

“Your aim was wrong,” he muttered and you shook your head.

“My aim was right, you moved the target, now come on, there’s only an hour before the sun goes down,” you said before getting off him, and dragging the man to your room.

And after a couple of minutes of Pinterest searching and seeing what you had to work with, you decided on a ‘Scarface’ costume since you had everything for it. Grayson quickly slipped into Ethan's room to borrow his white tux before coming back and taking a shower before changing, and you showered while he changed.

“Babe, I need you to sit still or the scar won’t be good,” you muttered, situating yourself in his lap, with a bottle of liquid latex on one hand and a sponge in the other.

“Kiss me first,” he said, puckering his lips, making you shake your head, but you did it anyway, you always will.

“Y/N, shit that’s cold,” he complained and you just rolled your eyes, and kept up applying the product to his face.

“I never said it wasn’t” you mutter before continuing with the process, taking a bit of toilet paper that you put on your dresser and shaping the scar up.

“Don’t get it on E’s suit please,” he said once he noticed you were about to pour blood on his face. In the actual movie, there wasn’t any blood but for the sake of Halloween, he did now.

“Now it’s my turn,” you spoke once you were done, getting off his lap while he got up to look in the middle.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he inspected his face in the mirror.

“Not much, I just need to become blonde, lucky for us, I got a wig,” you spoke as you began your usual makeup routine.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, Elvira doesn’t suffer as much,” you replied, applying on your gloss.

“Okay, and we’re done,” you said a couple of minutes after, finally done with your costume.

“We need to take pictures before we go,” he said, getting up from the bed, walking towards you, and wrapping his arms around you.

“Sure thing Mr.Montana,” you whispered, turning your head as he began to kiss your neck.

“Do we have to go anywhere, we can have our own Halloween here?” you could feel his stupid cocky smirk on your neck, so you shook your head before pushing yourself away from him.

“No, I wanna go trick or treating. And no offense but these are all white people so they give out the big ones,” you smirked before walking away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Isn’t this ironic? You’re a Cuban drug dealer, and I'm some white bitch,” you chuckled as you walked hand in hand down the street, bags filled with candy.

Surprisingly no one questioned your age, either too tired to care, or you looked like two college students just trying to have fun.

“God, me with drugs, gross,” he shook his head, making you laugh.

"We know Grayson, we know," you replied, making him shake his head.

"Did you know that they call Mr. Treat your body and mind right?" you asked and he nodded his head.

"Honestly, I'm not mad," he shrugged and you nodded your head.

"It's not a bad thing," you whispered before turning your head to look at him.

"Please promise me something?"

"What? Everything okay?" he asked and you nodded your head chuckling.

"Please promise me that you'll be careful. Just looking at this scar is making me sick," you replied, placing your thumb on his jawline as a sweet smile spread on his face.

"I promise I will, but I think I look hot," you shook your head at his ignorant and sweet response, "don't you think so?"

"You always look hot Gray," you whispered truthfully. You knew he needed the reassurance, "always," you leaned up to press a kiss on his jaw.

You pulled away before he pulled you back in, this time pressing his lips against yours.

"I don't like this new thing you're doing. This new habit of yours," he scoffed and you looked at him with confusion.

"Habit? What habit?"

"This thing. Kissing me everywhere but the lips. I don't like it. It makes me mad," he replied, making you giggle.

"So you want me to only kiss you on the lips?" you asked, knowing what he was referring to, but wanting to kiss him.

"I'm not even going to respond," he scoffed, shaking his head.

“What do you say? The first one to the house gets to keep all the candy, and they can do whatever they want to the other person?” you smirked and his eyes immediately darkened, filling with lust and desire. The desire to destroy you.

“Okay, go, you got 10 seconds,” he said and you ran.

Yet, he still beat you to the house, where we can just say that he had a lot of plans for that night.

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gusu-emilu · 4 years ago

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mdzs/untamed figure skating AU where the names of their signature skating programs are the names of their weapons.

wei wuxian names his performance ‘suibian’ (’whatever’) and maximizes points with dangerous stunts that push as close to breaking the rules as possible. he skates with wild, unconventional style that is bursting with raw energy and is exhilarating to watch, making him an audience favorite. he is the highest scoring competitive skater in the country, but his arrogance and tomfoolery rouse the ire of both his peers, who admire and envy him, and his coaches, who implore him to take a step back before he hurts himself.

lan wangji names his program ‘bichen’ (’to avoid worldly matters,’ literally ‘to avoid dust’) and focuses on clean, graceful, steady movements to the sound of the guqin. his bright bluish-silver costume with perfectly matching skates is instantly recognizable. in ‘bichen,’ he illustrates the concept of achieving strength and power through tranquility. as a critics’ darling with impeccable form, lwj is second only to wwx. their rivalry is milked by the media and is a staple of the figure skating scene by now, although the other skaters would tell you that despite their radically different ideas and frequent bickering, they are always in each other’s company at competitions.

jiang cheng performs a thrilling routine called ‘zidian’ (’purple lightning’). its concept is the search for one’s soul. the gentle, stately first half of the routine explodes into a fast-paced, technically challenging performance with an astounding number of spins. jc is known for his unique style of dancelike arm movements between jumps. jc and wwx are like brothers. since they were toddlers, jc and wwx have been coached together on the yunmeng team by skating power couple jiang fengmian and yu ziyuan. however, rumor has it that the coaches shamelessly play favorites among their students, with the most prominent example being jfm’s subtle bias toward wwx and yzy’s outspoken preference for jc, resulting in an unhealthy amount of pressure on the two young men.

jiang yanli skates to the program ‘lianhua’ (’lotus flower’) because yes, lotus pork rib soup is her canon weapon. if yuri katsuki could be a pork cutlet bowl that ensnares men, jyl can be powerful too. anyway. the theme for ‘lianhua’ is eternal consolation and comfort, and her skating style is choreographed with sweeping motions to radiate warmth onto the skating rink. according to the wishes of her coach, jyl is thinking about switching to a pair skating routine with jin zixuan (more on him later). wwx and her brother jc are currently begging jyl to continue her solo career instead. at the same time, the two are investigating, interrogating, and intimidating jin zixuan in case the partnership does happen.

known as the venerated traid, lan xichen, nie mingjue, and jin guangyao all came from the same skating school but ended up on different teams. still, they remained best friends and help with each other’s training, although the relationship between nmj and jgy has become a bit strained. famously, the venerated triad designed their routines to have complementary themes (explained below).

lan xichen’s program is named ‘liebing’ (’cracked ice’). it portrays the restoration of harmony to a world that is falling apart. lxc skates to a piece of music with a prominent flute part. his style is similar to lwj’s but gentler. together, lxc and lwj are known as the ‘twin jades’ of the skating world, both coached on the gusu team by the notoriously strict lan qiren.

nie mingjue performs ‘baxia,’ named after a mythological dragon with the shell of a turtle. the program’s theme is carrying the weight of the world. many criticize nmj for his choppy form, but it is inevitable with his routine being one of the most physically demanding in figure skating history. when he is not training, he drops in as a qinghe assistant coach to his younger brother nie huaisang, who scrapes by at the very bottom of the professional skating scene with lackluster bird-themed routines, more well known for his aviary, art collection, and party attendance than for his skills. although he doesn’t seem to care much about his own skating career, nhs is undeniably nmj’s biggest fan.

jin guangyao names his program ‘hensheng’ (’hating to be born’ or ‘hatred of life’). its theme is survival when the world turns against oneself. in this performance full of angst, jgy’s skating style emphasizes physical flexibility and emotional expression over power. although jgy used to be unknown and does not score very high, his popularity skyrocketed after he exposed the doping scandal of his own team, led by wen ruohan. in a viral interview, he told the story of how he was bullied while on the qishan team. once he became so popular, the lanling team snatched him into their ranks.

jin zixuan calls his routine ‘suihua’ (’the passage of time’). this ambitious program is divided into eight equal-length sections, each representing a different generation of his family, telling a story of wealth and success. his performance, albeit gaudy, is high scoring. along with jgy, he is from the lanling team, which is lavishly funded and grants him access to the best resources. one of his coaches, madam jin, is enthusiastic about planning his partnership with jyl. in fact, she is already working on the choreography. however, jzx is hesitant to give up his solo career, especially as his scores begin to approach wwx and lwj.

[little plot idea]: after a nearly-fatal injury caused by his reckless techniques, wwx must spend a year in recovery. when he is cleared to skate again, he is warned that he cannot attempt his old style of skating without exacerbating the injury. with the help of lwj, wwx readapts his style and returns to the ice with a new program called ‘chenqing’ (’setting forth one’s thoughts,’ ‘explaining one’s actions’). it is about finding beauty in darkness. his movements are aggressive yet elegant, chaotic yet balanced. he seems to have finally found a way to calm his style while maintaining his characteristic edge.

i don’t know how or when to work it in, but because it’s so beautiful and needs to be included, later in their careers wwx and lwj perform a pair skate called ‘wangxian’ (’forgetting envies’). credit to @wackopig for this stunning idea.

(after i finished writing this post i got curious and found wip figure skating AU fics that i haven’t read but now NEED to, one by @zizzani who has a figure skating fic on AO3, and Rinnoa’s fic on AO3. kudos to y’all doing the lord’s work)

i don’t have the discipline to write a full-on fic and I know nothing about figure skating lol. but i want to do a post for fun with plot ideas later. wen ning and wen qing show up as owners of a small skating rink and hot spring while raising a-yuan, in the way that @wackopig made up that i love so much. i think it would be interesting if wn and wq are disgraced members of wen ruohan’s team who got banned from skating due to the doping scandal, but they were forced into taking the drugs against their will and never got their names cleared. also there’s likely a lot of jin ling because i want him to perform his late father’s routine. wwx and lwj coach both lan sizhui and jin ling. also thinking about how to get the yi city folks in here too, because who doesn’t want to see a songxiao pair skate and xue yang doing a murder-themed performance called ‘to cause disaster’? anyway if you have any ideas for plot hmu!

#mdzs #the untamed #cql #mdzs fanfic #the untamed fanfic #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #figure skating au #emilu talks #emilu creations

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