#he was TERRIBLE at it like bro was literally inventing ways to die i had never even considered

[stellar-collective]

HAH ok so me n my boyfriend are going to a dance next week and the theme is masquerade and all of my formal wear is green so i told him i was tempted do a John Juniper inspired fit and he INSTANTLY asked me what i thought Agent Phoenix would wear. what a man <3

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 10 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Meta)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Unclean Realm

Lan Wangji has a Louis Henry Sullivan moment on seeing the Nie family home, becoming enraptured by its overwrought monumental architecture after a lifetime of restrained good taste and single-story buildings.

He approaches the fortress with the expression of delighted wonder that he usually reserves for when he’s looking at the moon or at Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian is like, yep that’s a building, all right, but he supports Lan Wangji’s kinks.  

Meng Yao tells them about the Wen Clan directive, and has what appears to be a moment of genuine, affectionate amusement at Nie Huaisang’s reaction.

Jiang Cheng kinda blames the Lans for inventing the whole “indoctrination” thing and for encouraging his brother’s disaster bi tendencies. Wei Wuxian responds by complimenting the Lan Clan, almost like someone who met his true love got some real value out of the instruction he received there.  

(more after the cut)

One of the great ironies of this story is that Wei Wuxian sort of becomes a rogue Lan disciple because of his relationship with Lan Wangji. He relies on Lan temperament techniques, uses music as a primary cultivation method, has committed all of the Lan rules to his supposedly terrible memory and cites them on multiple occasions, and is an important mentor for the younger generation Lan disciples. Because Hanguang-Jun is just that good in bed.

Xue Yang in the background of this conversation is channeling OP’s church-enduring, school-enduring inner 10-year-old.

Nie Mingjue, Chifeng-Zun, appears, and couldn’t be more different than his brother. On first watching this episode, I saw him as a grumpy, sexy, very emotional leather daddy man who is quick to anger. Rewatching, I see someone who’s struggling with a growing illness...the resentful energy kind.

Nie Mingjue’s handling of resentful energy is very different from Wei Wuxian’s straightforward interest and acceptance. NMJ has a traditional cultivator’s view of it, regarding it as evil and as something to resist, while he is literally carrying it on his back. He’s like a secret alcoholic who is preaching temperence, and can’t find a way to be reconciled with himself.  

At this point of the story, Nie Mingjue is keeping it together, but is under a hell of a lot of stress, and Baxia’s blood thirst is already maybe a problem.

The Yunmeng bros think that Nie Huaisang’s fear of his brother is hilarious, because they don’t understand the situation. They think he’s just living in a hideously toxic family dynamic like theirs, when actually he’s in a loving, sorta healthy, if parentless, family that is being crushed under a generational curse.

Compliments for the Yunmeng Bros

I’m not the first meta poster to notice how happy Jiang Cheng is to be praised by Nie Mingjue.

He never gets this at home. Jiang Yanli praises him, but in that watery “you tried your best” way that doesn’t really stick.  Nie Mingjue’s praise really means something, because he is a fearsome warrior and stern authority figure. And this is a double compliment, because Nie Mingjue says he heard it from Lan Xichen, and agrees with it.

Let’s Make Terrible Decisions

Keep Xue Yang alive, says Wei Wuxian, and Meng Yao immediately agrees, although I’m pretty sure he would have proposed that even if WWX hadn’t.

So they do, not realizing that “kill him later” is never a good plan for someone who 1. super needs killing 2. has a whole lot of death-dealing skills.

Future clan leader Jiang Cheng notices how smart and talented Meng Yao is.  Xue Yang finds it hilarious when the trio praises Meng Yao, possibly because their evil team up is already underway.

Boss’ Bed Warmer Son of a Ho

The constant insults toward Meng Yao are about his mom, but there’s another level of leering implication, that Meng Yao seems to encourage in his conversation with the soon-to-be-murdered guard captain.

Nie Mingjue elevated him way above his expectations, and he is ridiculously pretty, which has to create rumors. In the Nightless City scenes when he’s fondling Baxia and telling Nie Mingjue’s family secrets there’s definitely a sense of intimacy that’s not just “loyal retainer.”

I feel like maybe this whole exchange is a bit of theater designed to show Xue Yang something without showing it to anyone else. Meng Yao didn’t need to have this conversation in front of his prisoner.

Let’s Do Exactly What We Said We Wouldn’t

Once the younger quartet are alone with Nie Mingjue, Wei Wuxian crosses the room away from his friends and practically into Lan Wangji’s pocket, if Lan Wangji had pockets.

He has no pockets and also has no personal bubble any more, when it comes to Wei Wuxian.

We could make a weapon out of Yin Iron, Wei Wuxian says, completely forgetting his entire conversation with Lan Yi, apparently. Lan Wangji doesn’t argue with this idea.

Nie Mingjue warns Wei Wuxian not to try it.

I stabbed a man in Qinghe just to watch him die

Nie Mingjue is like the Johnny Cash of the cultivation world, carrying the weight of his poor choices and trying to steer the young folk to the path of righteousness. But--like Johnny Cash--his bad choices have made him really fucking cool, so he isn’t very good at deterring anybody.

Meng Yao Didn’t Come Here to Make Friends

Immediately after Meng Yao’s fellow Nie clan people call him “son of a whore” again, Wei Wuxian meets him, is nice to him, addresses him by his military title, bows to him, asks why he’s away from the party, and thanks him for his service.

But Meng Yao has already decided to make friends with Xue Yang, so Wei Wuxian goes onto his list of people that he doesn’t give a crap about except if they can be useful to him.  Then Meng Yao goes to make out hatch a plot with Xue Yang.

I’ll Sleep On Your Roof

Meeting SongXiao seems to have done away with the last of Lan Wangji’s resistance to his connection with Wei Wuxian.

He hears a noise on the roof and, when realizing it’s Wei Wuxian, he smiles one of his tiny reserved smiles before heading outside.

When he sees Wei Wuxian drunkenly sprawled on the roof, limbs akimbo, wine on his chin and neck, mouth full of poetry about the open road, Lan Wangji gives him the most fond look imaginable.

Then he reluctantly leaves, with his signature “say goodbye, but only when he can’t hear you” thing.

They’ve both come a really long way since their first meeting. Wei Wuxian is openly and vocally attaching himself to Lan Wangji...but is not actually entering his space or asking for anything from him; he just wants to be near him, and wants to let him know that. “I’ll sleep on your roof tonight.”

And Lan Wangji just...loves him. Wei Wuxian is drunk, embarrassing, demonstrative, eager to make a hell weapon out of yin iron, touchy feely, and absurdly sexy. And Lan Wangji is pretty okay with all of that.

I Might Have Been Drunk

Wei Wuxian carefully avoids telling Jiang Cheng where he was last night.

Even if he did get blackout drunk, he would have woken up on Lan Wangji’s roof. And I don’t think he was as drunk as that. He just knows Jiang Cheng wouldn’t like the truth.

Wen Fucking Chao, Again

Wen Chao shows up to be annoying and boring.  This leads to a pretty good fight between Nie Mingjue and Wen Zhuliu. Note that when the chips are down, Nie Huaisang stands with his Gege without any cowering. Almost as if he had hidden reserves of bravery, and is not as helpless as he lets on.

Wen Zhuliu isn’t styled to be super hot, although he’s certainly compelling, and in Dance of the Phoenix he looks good with sensitive-guy hair wispies. I wonder what actor Feng Mingjing looks like out of character?

BRB, adding a tag to my follow list

Battle Bros

When the fighting breaks out, the Yunmeng brothers are decisive and united, with Wei Wuxian giving orders to Jiang Cheng and JC following without hesitation.

I feel like if these two could have gone through a few big battles together, instead of being separated during most of the Sunshot campaign, their whole relationship would have improved. On the battlefield, they respect, trust, and understand each other.  

The Pointy End

Nie Mingjue is holding his own against Wen Zhuliu, but he gets distracted by Meng Yao hollering “Xue Yang has escaped” and then shanking the guard captain right in front of him.

Wen Zhuliu takes advantage of the distraction to aim a very slow stab at Nie Huasang, and Meng Yao jumps in front to get stabbed on his behalf.

When the Yunmeng bros show up to help NMJ, Wen Zhuliu immeiately yanks Wen Chao back behind him and points his sword at Wei Wuxian. He absolutely sees these two as a serious threat.  Considering that eventually WWX is going to kill Wen Chao while JC kills Wen Zhuliu, this concern is not misplaced.

Wei Wuxian tells Wen Chao to stop being such a jerk, and Wen Chao menaces Wei Wuxian and gloats about the burning of cloud recesses. The burning, that is, of some part of cloud recesses that doesn’t include the library, the Jingshi, the main cultivation chamber, the rabbit warren, or Lan Qiren’s house, unless the Lan Clan is really really good at rebuilding things to very exact specifications.

In a rare moment of seeing Meng Yao’s internal thoughts, he is worried about Lan Xichen when he hears about cloud recesses.

The Yelling Part

Now we have the particularly nasty breakup between Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao. It’s...got some layers. Meng Yao is cowering on the floor, but is not apologizing.

He never apologizes throughout this encounter.

孟瑤無悔  - Meng Yao (has) no regrets

This scene is amazing and excruciating to watch, even more when you know what’s ahead.

What the Fuck is Meng Yao’s Plan

On one level this is Meng Yao, manipulative sociopath, setting up a cover story for his aiding and alliance with Xue Yang.  On another, this is Meng Yao, loving subordinate, being tossed aside by his lord because he dared to stand up for himself.

He uses the same “scout’s honor” gesture we’ve seen Wei Wuxian use to swear he’s telling the truth. Wei Wuxian is always lying when he uses this gesture.

I’m...not sure exactly what Meng Yao’s plan is, with all these chess moves? By stabbing the captain in front of NHS, he created an opportunity to plant a cover story about Xue Yang’s escape. He might be hoping that Nie Mingjue will forgive him and keep him on, while Xue Yang can stay in his back pocket to be used later.

Dry eyes? Try Visene

Or he might be intending to get kicked out, given his non-apology. In any case, Nie Mingjue is weeping during this encounter, and Meng Yao...isn’t. He is signaling distress in his voice, expression, and body language, but his eyes are dry up until the last moment, and even then they just glisten a bit. In a show where every actor is an expert at crying on cue, that’s got to be a deliberate choice.

Which isn’t to say that Meng Yao is faking being full of emotion in this scene. It’s just that the emotion isn’t necessarily sorrow.

What Does Nie Mingjue’s Head Think

Flip the view and this is about Nie Mingjue being betrayed by a subordinate, who has turned out to be a self-serving murderer. And on another level it’s Nie Mingjue being betrayed by his lover, who was just using him for advancement.

I rewatched the later episode where we get the scene as Nie Mingjue’s head perceived it, and he’s particularly brokenhearted and disillusioned from his head’s POV.  In that version there is a telling addition to the conversation.

Nie Mingjue asks about the guys who were roasting Meng Yao behind his back. He asks, if I hadn’t come, would you have murdered all of them?

Um. No, dude. Of course fucking not. That’s what a patriarchal authority does. That’s the way an angry Nie Mingjue/Baxia team might solve a problem.

Meng Yao has to use subterfuge to kill his enemies. And while he super hates being called “son of a whore” it’s absolutely not enough to make him kill someone, with the risk murder brings. Likewise, being treated well isn’t enough to make him spare someone. Nie Mingjue totally doesn’t get this, because he’s been the patriarch of this clan his entire adult life.

And Here’s the Actual Problem

There is a betrayal here, but Nie Mingjue is not simply a victim.  Whether it’s a sexual relationship or a non-sexual bond of affection, there can be nothing solid in Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao’s relationship within a feudal society, because it is fundamentally unequal. Even if they love each other deeply - which I’m not convinced either of them does - every encounter they have is tainted with power dynamics.

Meng Yao has been elevated by Nie Mingjue and quite probably taken into his bed, as well as being told many family secrets, but has not been given a new surname (like, for example, Wen Zhuliu was) or independent power. More importantly, Nie Mingjue has not used his authority to remove or punish the many people who disrespect his subordinate.  Lan Qiren would have had all of those gossipy fuckers kneeling in the snow, and Wen Ruohan would feed them to his mosh pit zombies.

Meng Yao is a murderous little snake, but he is right to be angry with Nie Mingjue about some things, and his pursuit of his own agenda is understandable.

Well, That Was a Slice

Meng Yao leaves, hurt, with a dignified bow; just as he did that one time when his dad kicked him down the Carp Tower steps.

Take note, both patriarchal authorities: that is his way of saying “I’m going to murder you one day.”

Nie Mingjue sits with his broken heart, as we realize that we’ve only spent 20 minutes with this guy and we’ve gone on an entire emotional journey with him. This episode packed in a LOT.

Soundtrack: Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues

[tfw-no-tennis]

ani....morphs.....

ok so picking up after the david trilogy, which hit hard as FUCK, we have book 23, which basically was a semi truck that ran over my corpse, jesus christ, they really followed up the david trilogy w/all that....

23 was so so good and also painful. its the culmination of a lot of tobias’s characterization in the series thus far and also we finally get the reveal we’ve been waiting for about elfangor....ooooh man 

and there was a lot of painful stuff in this book but the worst imo was tobias wondering if it were possible that somebody wanted him and would take care of him, only to have it all come crashing down in the worst way when it turned out aria was visser three in morph, ouch. 

that was so brutal augh. and when he figured it out and just crash landed and kept thinking about how he wanted to die and how he was stupid to think he could have a home...bro get these kids some THERAPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

so yeah that book was absolutely brutal but also so good...and it further fleshed out the animorphs working as a near-flawless team, w/the whole setup of tobias meeting w/the lawyer being so airtight and well-planned 

also more free hork bajir!! its cool that there's stuff happening w/them offscreen, I like that 

I literally had to take a break from reading the books bc the david triology + 23 was like so much, and also bc the olympics were on and all my time got dedicated to watching those, but then I opened 24, not sure what to expect, and BAM it was the helmacrons lmaoooo

I don't even remember the helmacrons but ig a lot of people hate them? lmao so that whole reputation preceded the book and I was like oh wow time for a change in tone

which wasn't wrong but also I liked that book?? I was never bored, even tho the whole thing was patently ridiculous and also had very little bearing on the overarching story

but I think it would be a standout if it were a TV episode w/a good budget - the visuals were amazing even in text, and I can imagine all the cool shrinking/growing/cellular stuff would be WICKED cool visually (ideally 2d animation but an ant man-esque live action adaptation wouldn't be terrible if they had the budget for it)

whatever let me dream. so yeah I didn't hate the helmacron book even tho the helmacrons themselves were...sure something. lmao I think they come back? that should be interesting

next book is the arctic one, we have yet another alien of the week style adventure - I liked this one too, it felt like more plot-y stuff happened since they destroyed the base, and marco’s POV is always fun 

I do find it funny/interesting how sometimes when the animorphs do something - like in this book, destroying that base in the arctic - it doesn't really seem to impact the yeerks much/it doesn't get brought up much after that. and then other things like them destroying the ground-based kandrona get mentioned a lot (that example is understandable tho bc that WAS a big deal). its just hilarious to me how blowing up entire building complexes has become so routine that it isn’t even worth mentioning at this point

Also I adore when they meet other random people/kids and are chill w/them, like w/that kid they met in the rain forest earlier on w/the time travel 

the descriptions of the brutally cold weather were great. I hate the cold so I was like oof this is a nightmare lmao

also ig that was the first ghostwritten book and I did kinda notice it was slightly different than usual? maybe? I could be imagining it tho 

okay but book 26 tho...BOOK 26. bruh 

that was SO good and I really didn’t know what to expect - but when we finally revisited Jake’s dream w/crayak I knew it was gonna be good (but I didn’t expect it to be a chess game war epic..!)

basically I loved it. SUCH a good Jake book - I really appreciate his character now as opposed to when I was 10 and often overlooked him (sorry jake).

similarly, when I was a kid and read these I sympathized a lot w/the chee and felt bad for them towards the end of the series when they had to get more involved in the war (genuinely don’t remember what they even do but ik I felt bad) 

but now I've basically 180′d and I'm like damn those chee sure are hypocrites huh. 

like they could solve So many of the animorphs problems but their stringent adherence to nonviolence leads to them actively getting in the animorphs way sometimes? and obviously pacifism is a complicated topic, but in this case it also intersect w/the whole ‘child soldier’ thing, and as beings who are insanely old and wise, the chee probably shouldn't just leave all the dirty work to a bunch of literal middle schoolers

aaaaanyways. there’s so much I love about this book. the iskoort! they were sure something. and the ‘plot twist’ that they are actually 2 beings, the Isk and the Yoort - and the Yoort are essentially Yeerks - that slapped. the symbiosis of it all! 

I loved the part where they all realize what this means, that this is why Crayak wants the iskoort destoryed - because someday the yeerks might come across them and realize parasitism is not the only way. I love it! 

alas I don’t recall the iskoort returning in the story (but also my memory is terrible so who knows?) but still that would be cool

basically I feel like this is the book where Jake Truly comes into his own as a leader, in every sense. he outmaneuvers Crayak, and even the ellimist, who’s yanking them around in his own way

the scene where jake shoves the howler off the cliff and jumps off and morphs and acquires the howler...that was fantastic and tense. 

also the murder is definitely becoming more overt. I mean, it has been for a while, but it isn’t really pointed out as much anymore. oof

more on the chee - as Jake points out in this book, and other characters point out in other books - the chee could have saved the pemalites, but instead just stood by while their creators were slaughtered. on the other hand, jake says, what do the chee do AFTER they’ve killed the howlers - where to point them next? when is the end of their violence? 

buuuuut also standing by while atrocities occur is pretty damning, as is frequently mentioned in this series - from the very beginning, when marco initially doesn’t want to get involved in the war at all, and the other animorphs basically tell him that turning his back on the war and acting like he doesn’t even know it’s happening would be immoral and cowardly (which imo this reaction helps to push marco in the direction he ends up going, but I digress) - this topic comes up again in 19 when cassie quits the team and rachel is upset bc she sees it as cassie elevating her own feelings above the greater good (as in, as long as cassie feels good about how she acts, it doesn’t matter how much preventable evil the yeerks are committing while she turns away). etc etc. but that’s essentially what’s happening w/the chee - even tho they help w/intel, the lack of any sort of Action on their part means that they’re essentially allowing awful things to happen when they could prevent them. this is rambly but basically...animorphs deals so much in grey areas, and the chee are noticeably black and white in their actions, despite falling, in a meta sense, in an extremely grey area. its such good, thought provoking writing!

anywayssss I keep talking about the chee lmao what else was there. oh YEAH jake and cassie kissed for the first time awww that was super cute 

and ofc immediately marco teases them as asks jake if he’s gonna kiss him next, and all I can say is...marco is a bicon 

also I love the background worldbuilding w/the iskoort, how they have all these groups and guilds and stuff - its not dwelled on much, which actually works really well to give the world/species a sense of lived-in realness 

okay oh man and the reveal at the end that the howlers were just like...children who thought the whole thing was a game...AUGHH man that’s sooo fucked 

like, when jake morphs the howler and has rachel ready to knock him down in grizzly morph if he gets out of control due to the howler’s murderous instincts, and he morphs to find that the howler is...playful, like a dolphin morph. SUCH a good fucked up sense of dawning horror there 

and the fact that as far as I can tell the chee KNEW this, but wanted revenge anyways, so they let the animorphs assume that the howlers were Evil On Purpose

also I love smaller moments, like jake seeing that ax is ashamed for briefly running away during one battle w/the howlers, and then entrusts him w/an important task bc he knows that ax will see that as redemption - and when everyone thought jake was dead and were so happy when he wasn't (they all love each other so much im gonna cry about these child soldiers augh)

basically that book was so good

man one thing I absolutely love is that the longer the series goes on the more obvious it is that andalites, despite inventing morphing technology, barely use it themselves 

like, most of the andalite characters we see barely morph. its kind of a last resort to them, as they’re already plenty dangerous in their regular forms 

meanwhile for the animorphs, that’s all they have to fight with. that’s their only weapons against the yeerks, and its so fun to see them use the power in so many varied ways, and so creatively, while the andalites have barely scratched the surface of their own technology

its also interesting to contrast against the yeerks who start out w/absolutely no technology, and the andalites share some but not all of their technology w/them...its too bad that morphing technology was just starting out cause that would’ve been interesting

like imo a lot of the conflict w/the yeerks could’ve been avoided if they could just nothlit into better forms - of course, there’d still be plenty of yeerks who want to go start wars or w/e, just like pretty much any species in the series, but a lot of yeerks would probably be like ‘yeah I'm good’ and just chill out as nothlits

also people online love to talk about how humans are alienfuckers and would definitely have sex w/sentient aliens and whatnot, and while I'm not saying that's untrue, its just funny bc in animorphs the truest alienfuckers are definitely the andalites

as of the hork-bajir chronicles, we now have a second instance of an andalite morphing another species to be in an inter-species alien romance (and eventually have kids) 

speaking of, I don’t think I’ve talked abt the hork bajir chronicles yet??? even tho I read it a while ago lmao 

HBC was great...I honestly haven’t really run into an animorphs book I’ve actually disliked at this point, I’m sure it’ll come w/all the ghostwriting and whatnot, but I’ve liked at least some aspects of every book

anyways HBC was great, and it’s funny bc I remember that I read this book as a kid, and yet rereading it now I didn’t remember a single bit of it lmaooo

I really liked the framing device of the free hork bajir telling this story to tobias. I also liked how we know from the beginning that this story wont have a happy ending - we know all the hork bajir end up enslaved by the yeerks, but it’s still somehow hopeful at the end? I think this is largely due to the framing device tbh. 

also I love toby, and I love that the First free hork bajir named their kid after tobias ;_; 

and oooh mannn I LOVED the different POVs from this book. all the characters were so interesting! aldrea was fascinating - I really like the increasingly negative view of the andalites that the readers are getting, all while maintaining the sense that they aren’t like, actively evil, just that they have their issues - like aldrea’s arrogance, and the general andalite arrogance which lead to the loss of the hork bajir. also, who knew andalites had their own brand of sexism? Ls

I did like getting a female andalite tho, that was cool. and dak was really cool, he was such a good, compassionate character who was able to maintain his morals in an interesting way throughout the story

and VISSER THREE...or should I say esplin 9466, because he’s not visser 3 yet...getting his ‘origin story’ was excellent - I really like how we’re learning about visser 3 backwards - we start off the series w/him as the main villain, and he’s campy and menacing, and then we see him in the andalite chronicles as a power-hungry sub-visser trying to climb the ranks and eventually getting alloran as a host, and then back even further here, w/the start of his focus on the andalites and the beginning of his ambition. its been very cool and interesting to see

plus, the beginning of the yeerks as we know them! seerow! alloran! it’s a party and nobody is having a good time, except for some of the yeerks. 

I like how it’s pretty obvious that the andalites are well-meaning with their interactions w/the yeerks, but go about it the wrong way - they give them enough technology that the yeerks realize there’s a whole world out there to experience, and then they blockade the yeerks on their planet and tell them they can’t leave. nnnnot the best approach imo

again, as I said above, I’m interested in how things could’ve gone if the andalites had given the yeerks morphing technology early on - could a lot of the conflict have been avoided, or would it have been worse? the yeerks seem pretty evil in this book, immediately jumping to enslave anyone they can. otoh we hear from esplin that not all yeerks like having host bodies, and find it overwhelming, preferring to swim around in the yeerk pool as a slug - I assume as host bodies became more available this type of thinking was probably stamped out in yeerk society or w/e, but there are a lot of interesting what-ifs in the situation 

I loved the scene where esplin first experiences having a host, and immediately knows he can’t go back. there are a bunch of great sensory descriptions, and it’s a nice scene to pinpoint as a foundational moment for the visser three in the current story, who spent a lot of time and energy getting what he sees as the best possible host body, an andalite

I find it interesting how much visser three clearly respects the andalites, even while constantly deriding them. and you can see the origins of that here as he immediately focuses in on the andalites, working to become an expert on them in order to make himself useful enough to move thru the ranks

another thing I like is how esplin seems a lot more crafty and ambitious than the visser three from modern times - I would guess that reaching his goal (andalite host body) and being given all that power was detrimental, playing on his weaknesses instead of his strengths. basically, I don’t think it’s ooc or anything, I can see how HBC-esplin became animorphs-esplin, especially w/TAC in between

as for seerow...poor dude. you really do have to feel for him, because you get the sense he really did just want to be kind to the yeerks, but it was borne from a place of pity, and he (and the other andalites) consistently held too much power over the yeerks for the species relations to ever be truly equal and functional 

AUGH I have so many thoughts about alien space politics. omg. I need to talk about the actual story lmao

so yeah I also feel for aldrea, she had a rough time, watching her entire family die and being thrown into a hopeless war

and then the andalite council or w/e not listening to her bc she's a girl AND seerow’s daughter...oof

also, I really really liked the running theme of the andalites - specifically aldrea - looking down on the hork bajir as ‘simple’ and constantly underestimating them, especially dak

and I like how this is portrayed as a bad attitude for aldrea to have, and she still remains and interesting and sympathetic character even while having obvious flaws. it’s about being 3-dimensional baby!

and oh man I love that dak realizes that aldrea looks down on him, and his entire species, but he can see that that’s how the andalites are, and it all connects back to the beginning of the story w/the yeerks, bc the andalites looked down on the yeerks and treated them with pity and kept them pinned under their proverbial thumb ‘for their own good’ and look how that turned out 

but dak is wise and kind enough to not hate aldrea for this, even acknowledging when she’s using him, but not pushing her away because he recognizes good in her too - and she ends up changing, partially because of his faith in her

and I feel like it can all be compared to that scenario of like - a hypothetical creature that lives in a 2D world suddenly being thrust into a 3D world, and comprehending what its seeing, and understanding that there’s so much more out there outside of the flat lines of its world - and then its dropped back into 2D-land with the knowledge of all the stuff its missing out on, and no way to get back to it or explain it to anybody else

I loooove that ‘trope’ or w/e you wanna call it, and it’s done beautifully here w/the yeerks - whos the say they wouldn't have been fine in their pool swimming around; as esplin said, a lot of the yeerks were terrified of having a host, it was only from the andalites’ perspective that their lives were sad and pitiful, and the andalites showed them what the world could be like, and then said ‘no, you can’t travel the stars like we do, you have to stay here on your planet and do what we say.’

and then again, w/the hork bajir - dak talks about how, even though he drinks up the knowledge that aldrea gives him, in the end it might have been better to just have lived peacefully, not knowing what was in the sky or the Deep - as aldrea says: “It was too late for Dak: he knew that the stars were not flowers.” 

plus the hork bajir having to go from a completely peaceful species who don’t even understand the concept of violence, to a bunch of soldiers fighting a war...oof 

basically everyone in this story uses the hork bajir. the yeerks use them as hosts, the andalites use their planet as a convenient place to dump seerow and then take their sweet time coming to help, and the arn created them as means to stabilize the planet, but block them off from their society and refuse to help when the yeerks come

like, the arn modifying themselves to be un-infestable by the yeerks and then being enslaved for physical labor instead? oof guys. if they had teamed up w/the hork bajir resistance things might have gone better, but probably not 

more on aldrea - throughout the story I was always thinking ‘how am I supposed to see her? as a good person, or as a bad person?’ 

as a POV character, especially a ‘good guy’ andalite, you just start off automatically thinking of her as a good person, but as the story goes on, she starts getting lost in revenge and begins using dak and the hork bajir, and you’re left wondering if this is a story about her slide into darkness, and then towards the end of the story her character development culminates in her making the decision to stay w/the hork bajir, and the be with dak, and that’s about when I went ‘ohhh right this is animorphs so every character is pretty much gonna be grey’

I feel like that moral grey-ness was on full display w/aldrea, and I really enjoyed that. I love so much when characters who are good do bad things, for good or bad reasons, especially in media like animorphs that’s aimed at kids. it’s so compelling. 

oof, and the ending when aldrea convinces dak to mobilize the hork bajir and teach them violence...and dak asks her if she’s ever killed another andalite, and she’s horrified, and says of course she hasn’t, and he says that that’s what she’s asking him, and all the hork bajir, to do - to kill their own people, even if they are being controlled by the yeerks. biiiig oof. I love that dak can keep up w/aldrea and her andalite supremacy attitude - it seems that the non-andalite characters who get along best w/the andalites are the ones who wont take their bs 

what else happened....oh my god how could I forget about alloran, and his quantum virus. oooof. I like how we find out about alloran in parallel to visser three, in the same backwards way - in animorphs he’s the tragic host of visser three, in TAC he’s the disgraced but still semi-respected war-prince who becomes the first ever andalite controller, and here he’s the guy who decides to commit some war crimes because, hey, we haven’t tried that yet 

but yeah that was fucked up, I love it. I’ve said it before I think but I like that alloran isn’t some perfect martyr tragically taken by the yeerks - it’s a lot more compelling that he’s a very flawed person who was taken as a controller partially due to his own bloodthirstiness. 

but yeah, the part where aldrea morphs alloran and ‘sneaks’ into that room was great. aldrea’s dedication to disposing of the virus is a great indicator of her character development - it really feels like the straw that broke the camels back w/re: to the andalites not being what she thought they were, w/their tardiness coming to help the hork bajir planet and the way her father was treated being the precursors to this realization. it all culminates nicely in aldrea saying ‘fuck this actually’ and nothlit-ing into a hork bajir.

and it’s really tragic but realistic that even though aldrea and dak end up seeing eye to eye at the end and getting together, the virus ends up being released anyways (and fails in its objective to stop the yeerks from using the hork bajir - the whole thing was p much a lose-lose situation oof), and aldrea and dak still die fighting a hopeless war 

but then we have the free hork bajir on earth, including toby, who, like tobias, has andalite ancestry, but no DNA to show for it - I like that they have that connection as well as tobias being her namesake

so yeah I enjoyed that one and its many-layered themes

WOW this got long uuuuuhhh ok I think i’ll leave this one off here. at the time I’m actually finishing the writing and editing, I’m on book 35 lol so I have some backlogging to do. never fear, I have a lot to say....

[littencloud9]

a (long) rant on why i love promare

warning: contains spoilers

| the animation/art style

BROOO THE ANIMATION IS FREAKING FIRE I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING. ik it’s an action movie, but everytime a fighting scene comes on it just,, blows my mind. there’s so many things going on but somehow you know where and what to focus on and i think that’s really cool. also the colours?? the vibrancy and everything. i love love LOVE how the fire looks, or when there’s a sad scene and everything turns white and black and grey, or even the fact that everyone has colourful hair XD. even those scenes where the burnish are being used for fuel or when they’re dying/turning to ash/whatever you wanna call it, it all feels so magical. there’s a really special vibe in this movie which is amazing imo

| the storyline

as if this wasn’t obvious, but the storyline!! the plot!!! the characters!!!! everything is PERFECT. the part where galo realised that kray isn’t the hero he always thought he was, or when galo watches the lives of the burnish and realised through lio how terrible their fate is (ik lio said it’s a blessing but it’s kinda sad?? to just be burned up by the fire within yourself), or when aina learns about what heris is really working for.... gosh. this also brings me to my next point

| aina and heris’s relationship

okay i’m a SUCKER for interesting sibling relationships and promare DEFINITELY delivered. even though aina feels like she’s living in the shadow of her sister, she still loves her and it makes me 🥺. also, everything heris does, even if she knows it’s wrong, is all for protecting her sister. you can really see her conflict bc she knows what she’s doing is terrible but it gives aina a chance to be one of the 10,000 people to be on the spaceship, and she struggles between her morals and her sister’s safety. there’s also that badass scene where heris jumps off the building and reappears with aina in the helicopter like ???? okay queens??? go off LMAO. but yes their relationship was wonderfully shown and it’s fantastic

| kray’s character

honestly, kray reminds me of lysandre from pokémon xyz lol. he has this mentality that if someone doesn’t do something, the earth is gonna explode or whatever and everyone will die and he takes it upon himself to do it. ig he kinda sees himself as the hero?? (which we al know is wrong but whatever). and when he was revealed to be a burnish and he tries getting lio to join him by saying how he understands the feeling of wanting to burn the world down? or that he only saved galo as an excuse to build up his reputation? and then sent galo to be a firefighter bc it had the highest mortality rate?? he’s a terrible guy BUT he makes for a perfect villain and i’m here for it

| the soundtrack

OKAY COME ON I COULDN’T NOT INCLUDE THIS. THE SOUNDTRACK FREAKING  S L A P S. also you can’t listen to the lyrics of inferno and tell me that it isn’t just a romance song for lio and galo LOL

| the characters

okay tbh i really wish we could’ve gotten more of the burning rescue team. esp lucia!! she’s probably one of my favourites out of the team, alongside varys. she’s got this crazy science kid vibe and vinny (the lil mouse that’s always with her) makes it twenty times better. but anyway, i love how each of the characters have their own quirks and personalities and i really wish we could’ve gotten more of them

| the burnish 

as tragic as their lives were, i think it’s super cool how they all lent their power to make the core explode LOL that’s probably one of my favourite scenes in the movie. also lio’s generals? when they held back the ice just to send lio to the volcano in an attempt to protect him... 🥺 and the line ‘forget about us! the burnish's flame won't fade as long as you live!’ oh my GOD. RIGHT IN THE FEELS

| the humour

when lio captures galo and galo witnesses the life of the burnish and galo’s like ‘y’all eat???’ i have never laughed harder. lio’s FACE omg. or anytime someone jabs and insults the other,,, lio’s just like ‘you’re an idiot’ half the time and galo’s like ‘:((‘ LMAO. or the names of all the inventions and robots? it’s so silly but it really gives a breath of fresh air to the movie!! even if you don’t like romance/action, i’d 100% recommend it simply for the comedy

| galo and lio’s relationship 

alright, saving the best for last XD. there’s just,, so much i love about them? pushing the romance aside first, the way they work together is FANTASTIC. they’re both kinda reckless, but their fighting styles complement each other so much!! and when galo stuck their names together LMAO he’s so silly and lio knows it. they’ve got the same beliefs despite being on opposite sides (at first) and oh my god even the fist bump at the end was so CUTE what a bunch of dorks. 

romance wise, you’re lying if you say you don’t ship these two even just a little bit. throughout the WHOLE movie, even their first interaction where they’re just heavily glaring at each other,, the TENSION these two have omfg. lio figures out that galo really doesn’t know anything about kray and so he’s just like ‘i’m about to ruin your life sorry bro’ and galo is SHOOK but straight after that he’s like ‘the burnish. aren’t bad people?’ he’s seen the tragedy of them, even when lio attempts the burnish cpr thing and it fails and he just watched while the ash... fades. AND THEN HE DOES IT TO LIO AHAHAHAHA. but also, the way they work together is fan-freaking-tastic i said it already but i’ll say it again they COMPLEMENT each other so WELL. 

there’s also the part where lio’s flames protected galo and MY HEART... i think i uwued on the spot. to put in simple terms:

kray: attempts to kill galo

galo: doesn’t die

galo: lol actually my boyfriend gave me his flames to protect me so i won’t scorch to death and he’s also being burned from the inside so brb while i eat the flame he gave me and give it back to him through cpr kissing. yeah bye

KSHSKDHSLSJS

lio wakes up/resurrects/whatever you call it, RIPS OFF HIS SHIRT, JOINS GALO IN THE ROBOT HALF NAKED. this is especially funny to me bc lio at first dissed galo for being naked and now he joined??? LMAO THAT’S GAY YOU CAN’T CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE. and then the robot flew off and THE SMOKE THING TOOK THE SHAPE OF A HEART DHSKDHSK I SCREAMED. CAN THEY GET ANY MORE OBVIOUS???? 😭😭😭😭😭

i haven’t talked much about it yet but the kiss. the KISS. say what you want about it being cpr but that scene SCREAMED ‘ily pls wake up i will kiss you like there’s no tomorrow bc this is my last chance WAKE UP’ to me. and when lio wakes up he’s like ‘...galo? you saved me?’ MY HEART PLEASE 😭😭😭. these two DORKS. and the little fist bump at the end oh god. it’s okay y'all can kiss we all know you want to. the smirks/smiles they send to each other.......... 

AND AND AND NOT TO MENTION THEIR DYNAMIC. listen lio can call galo an idiot however many times he wants BUT we all know lio admires galo and is totally willing to go on with his plans. ‘what’s your strategy?’ ‘grinning and bearing it!’ PLEASE that’s such a galo thing to do and lio’s like: are you serious i have to work with YOU 

and even at the end he’s like ‘you really are an idiot’ LMAO I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF I LITERALLY BLURTED OUT ‘but he’s your idiot’ AND ALMOST STARTED CRYING RIGHT THERE AND THEN

um this is WAY longer than i intended it to be but yeah here. this is me screeching over promare :)

[serenagaywaterford]

random thoughts:

jsyk, Serena swam in the place my dog poops. I hope Fred stepped in it. Die Fred.

(spoilers obvs)

NOT. ENOUGH. JANINE. the only time i cheered out the entire 3 episodes was that one glimpse of janine.

I got to see my girl Alma though which was lovely.

OMG. Can... I just... that scene with Emily walking through the hospital was the dumbest fucking, most American stupid scene ever on this show. It was so fucking cheesy and absolutely 10000% unrealistic. Who actually thought it was a good idea? They should be fired. Or sent to go work on Grey’s Anatomy or something. Not even that shitshow aka SVU would do something as painfully cliched and cheesy as that. Firstly, this show is fucking stupid. Okay. If all this shit was happening, Canada would have got like MILLIONS of refugees. Seeing the cops escort some raggedy refugee would be common af. Maybe it’s the baby thing? Still, Canadians aren’t gawkers like that. We also don’t like embarrassing displays like that. It’s so American it hurts.  NOBODY CLAPS LIKE THAT IN A FUCKING HOSPITAL. It’s a quiet place, okay. Also, why don’t any of these doctors have anything better to do? Anyway. I hated that scene so much.

Nick is so boring. So boring. He’s just a wet doughnut. I sorta liked him getting angry at June but also I wish I cared about anything he has to say. Bye Nick Bland. Good riddance.

Lawrence’s one liners? Funny. Lawrence? Disgusting awful psycho. I hate him sfm. 

Fred? Also disgusting. I hate him 10000x more. Everything about him is repulsive. He’s so much worse this season. I hate everything about his entitled, poor me, manpain. I hate hearing about any of his feelings. Fucking die already. I found him interesting enough as an antagonist in the show before but no longer. Redundant.

Beth. Too good for Nick. Too good for this world.

Too much staring. I AM SO SICK OF IT. It wastes time. Is redundant af at this point. I’m bored. Stop it.

Moss... um. Honey. I love you but... what the fuck was up with all the over-acting? 302 seemed particularly bad. Like I just can’t take it anymore. Who directed 302? They should be fired too for making her do that. Also, lady from Transparent, what the fuck was up with her acting?

Luke is useless. Like, I get it. I get why he’s a huge damp sulkbaby but I mean. I don’t want to see it? I’d rather just not see him at all cos literally I can’t recall a scene of him not being fucking useless or ignorant. Or half-assing it. I want to like Luke, honestly. But I just... don’t. I love the shit outta Moira and Erin, and I adored Moira/Emily interactions. But Luke? Miss me with his manpain.

Once again, I hate Lawrence. He is no good. He’s so fucking creepy and gross. I do not understand why people like him? And I don’t mean, “I don’t know why people like this character.” I mean, “I don’t understand why people like this person.” As a character, sure, he’s interesting and revolting and does his role well. He’s even got some funny lines and Whitford has great delivery. I mean these people who LIKE HIM. As a person. They think he’s great and a good guy. I don’t get it. Are we watching the same show? He’s a great character and a terrible person. That said, he’s still a dude and I’m not about to say he’s such a great character that I want to know all about him. Nah, bros. I wanna know all about Emily, Moira, Serena, Janine, Alma... and June I suppose but we already have quite enough of her. I don’t care about Lawrence’s backstory or emotional turmoil. I don’t need his perspective cos I’ve seen it before, I know it already. It’s in so many movies, books, and TV. So, he may be a well-written character but he’s not a fascinating one. If we wanna dig around in the psyches of bad people, Serena and Lydia are far more fascinating cos bad women’s stories are so much rarer to explore in any depth.

So, June got her feet lashed to shit again. And then she’s just walking around like no biggie next scene? Did the writers forget the first season when June couldn’t walk at all? All I’m asking is a bit of a limp?

June going straight to the house that just housed the handmaid that ran away with June’s baby seems... well, like complete bullshit. Never.

SERENA ISN’T WEARING HER WEDDING BAND. She’s done. She hates that man and I hate the fact everyone is pushing her to just get over it. Fred... is horrible in literally every single way. Every. Single. Way. (And sure Serena is horrible in some ways, but not nearly the same ways as Fred.) I just want Serena to be free of him. I want her and June to murder his ass. Graphically. That is the only violence I want to see on this show in the future. OMG, I can’t actually explain how much I hate him and I vomit in my mouth thinking about Serena having to get back with him. Even if I know she has to in order to survive. Ugh. 

UM. Okay, the “blood against the snow” bit was really interesting. I don’t recall Offred saying that in the book but Atwood brings it up often when talking about red. It was clever to include her own words, just like last season with the “men are afraid women will laugh at them...” bit.

But speaking of weird inclusions: Lawrence reciting book!Offred’s line about how easy is it to invent a humanity for anyone. It was curious they had Lawrence saying that to June, whereas it’s Offred in the book thinking that about the Commander.  “He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, offkey, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.”

My wife, when Nick showed up in 303: “Oh, this prick again!” Just out of nowhere cos we don’t talk about fandom shit. She has no idea the extent of my sick obsession with this show. She doesn’t know how much I loathe Nick lol. She’s completely casual and even she can’t stand Nick. Which is so lovely. And then when he was yapping about going to the front, she just muttered, “Hopefully he’ll die there.”

OH MY GOD. I HATE MEN. That whole Commanders meeting scene made me want to throw up multiple times. It started with the words “shipment of females” and just got progressively worse with every passing second.

Except... LMAO. June: *sees Fred at a meeting* Fred: Hello. June: Hey you see Serena? How’s Serena? Is Serena okay? Serena’s tough. She’s great. She’ll be okay. I love her. *proceeds to do the world’s worst cringe-inducing seduction* I think on some level even Fred knows it’s bullshit.

I love comparing June’s seduction of Fred to her seduction of Serena. They’re very interesting contrasts. She’s so painfully fake with Fred. And only sort of insincere at times with Serena. 

Man, Sylvia is a dick lol. LOOK RICHMOND IS HARD ENOUGH TO GET ACROSS WITHOUT YOUR LIME GREEN CAR BLOCKING THE ONE MOVING LANE OF TRAFFIC!!!!!! Jokes aside... I actually really liked that scene of Emily finally calling her. That was touching and the closest I came to actually getting sniffly.  Actually no. Traffic on Richmond is no joke. I’m not kidding. That was a dick move, Sylvia. LOL.

June saying Nichole gets her politicianess thing from Serena absolutely fucking slayed me. I don’t even care if she was emotionally manipulating her af, it seemed genuine in parts of that convo. TWO MOMMIES. June used her flashback!June voice at one point. Honestly, these two actresses run this town.  You can tell how broken Serena is tho cos she’s oblivious to how manipulative June is being. She’s been aware in the past as soon as June does her whole “Say nice thing, bond over babies, ask for something” method and called her on it. It’s June’s only trick. It’s transparent af. And Serena knows it. Yet, she seems completely wooed now and not at all suspicious. So, when she gets her wits together again, I suspect Serena won’t be so malleable.

I’ve said a bunch of stuff about June/Serena stuff in my tag rants so I won’t repeat it. I just fell in love with it all.

PRAISE BE!!! We didn’t actually have to see a Nick/June sex scene. Behold His miracle! I was so relieved. And then... curiously they continued that love-theme-y music all the way over into Serena’s scene with June and that was not a coincidence.

I know people really like that Boomtown Rats song being the music to the fire... And it’s a jam. But... it’s about a real school shooting and I feel like that’s just a little... off? (Not to mention Tori Amos’ version is better, imo.) I mean, okay, I did some drama courses in university and I did a thing about that song so I researched it all and it just to me doesn’t fit at all. A 16-year-old girl shot up an elementary school. And somehow, call me crazy, but that’s completely inappropriate to use in this scene. I get female rage, etc etc. I get they didn’t want to go super obvious and use a song about burning houses. But considering how EXCELLENT a song they chose for 3x03 with that Roy Harper track you’d think they’d find something better for the bed/house burning. Not only that but the motive for Spencer was ... literally nothing. She didn’t like Mondays and thought it would be fun to kill a bunch of kids--which is the complete opposite of Serena’s motivations. It just devalues it.

I want more of Emily’s journey. This is the first time I’ve actually been interested in Emily tbh. And Clea Duvall is a treasure.

I want a Moira/Emily BROTP. Honestly Moira just seems like the best friend anybody could have?

WHY IS NICK A COMMANDER?! WTF????? Was I just not listening carefully enough? Is he? Cos I don’t really pay attention when he’s onscreen tbh and the wifey was like “Why’s this guy a commander now?” And I was like, “What do you mean he’s a commander?” Honestly, Nick is just like a piece of furniture. I barely notice him onscreen lol. Okay, this has nothing to do with my dislike of him. It honestly does not make any sense. We saw that other Commander only got promoted because his wife got pregnant. WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY PROMOTE NICK? What on god’s green earth has he EVER fucking done well? Why the shitting hell would they promote a Guardian who, under his watch, has had one handmaid kill herself, another one escape/”get kidnapped”, wife cheat on him then get executed, allow a BABY to get kidnapped, the house get burned down????? All those things seem like Very Bad things and put all together seem like something that would put him on the Wall for being such a shitty employee rather than someone who deserves MORE responsibility. There’s literally no reason to make him a Commander. Just conscript him to the Chicago front. You don’t need a reason. He’s a grunt. Eye or not. I DO NOT GET IT. Fred gets demoted and Nick gets promoted? Nahhhhh mans. Not buying it.

So little Nick. I love it. I want zero Nick, but this’ll do. I’ll even put up with him being a Commander (LMAO) if it means he goes away for a while.

Lawrence calling out June’s terrible seduction technique (it is really bad), and calling Fred stupid = :} 

OK BACK TO THE BURNING WATERFORD HOUSE... i cannot abide how SLOW June is ALL. THE. FUCKING. TIME. Like, she shows up in Serena’s little pyromaniacal bedroom inferno and is like “COME ON!” and pulls her out of the room in what appears to be a hurry. Then as Serena and Rita are rushing out June just fucking stops and starts staring at all the smoke as if she’s on fucking shrooms. Then there she goes on her bullshit... Hey, bish, the house is literally burning down cos your crazy ass soulmate set fire to her own life and maybe you should leave. No? Not interested? Sure, stand there. Feel up the walls like I did once on MDMA. Makes total fucking sense. TAKE YOUR TIME WHY DON’T YOU? Why not? It just reminded me of 2x13 when Rita was saying “You gotta leave NOW!” and June just took it upon herself to carve a bunch of shit onto the wall for no goddamn reason.

OKAY. I WAS RIGHT. The other night when I was like, “I think I know that beach.” I do know that beach!!! My dog likes to take dumps right where Serena was. (I clean up after him, don’t worry.) I can point out that beach on a map if you want. There are also heroin needles and ticks in the bushes. There is literally a water treatment plant 200m away. I go swimming exactly where Serena was and once a dead fish floated by and I had to wrestle my dog away from it. I have been swimming there a lot. It’s nice in the summer. HOWEVER, poor Yvonne in her drysuit doing that in fucking November or whatever. This lake is fucking cold even in summer sometimes lmao. Like, I’ve spent so many hours right in that spot... cos well, I used to live right up the road so duh. Of course now that I don’t live there now and it was winter so why would I take my dog swimming, that they decide to film there. OF COURSE.

Speaking of filming, not that anyone cares, they were at the St Lawrence Market at one point. It was so obvious. Wasn’t really paying attention to any of the other locales tbh. If I watch again and pay attention I prolly could pick out a few more but honestly the only person that entertains is myself.

I still can’t believe Serena was being reborn on dogshit/dead fish beach. 

[firelord-frowny]

a fav recent passage about madison

He tried to make me sit, but I didn’t want to sit. I yanked my arm away and paced. “You! Drank yourself into a coma! Because I abandoned you! You almost killed yourself because I abandoned you!”

He said in that careful, measured way, “No, I drank myself into a coma because I’m an alcoholic. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Bullshit!” I snapped, and I saw him flinch a little. “You weren’t an alcoholic when I was here. Where I was supposed to be.”

“I’m always an alcoholic! You know that! I’m always an alcoholic, and you’re always an addict, and it doesn’t do either of us any good to try to blame the other for the choices we make.”

I shook my head. Pulled at my hair. “No… no. Steven said it was my fault. He said you said my name. He said you asked for me.”

“Steven is a dumbass. I mean, he’s a genius, but he’s a dumbass. Just because you hurt me doesn’t mean I get to go and die about it.”

i love it bc madison’s current ~character arc~ deeply involves the people in his life shoving his own narcissism back in his face. he’s not the malicious sort of narcissist that gets complained about on reddit and whatnot, but he has this way of creating chaos around himself, and then dragging people he cares about into it. And they get into it willingly because they care about him, too, and if they see him in trouble, they want to help, whether that’s by giving him a way out of the mess he made, or going through the mess with him so he won’t have to do it alone. 

inevitably, these people wind up getting hurt right along with him, sometimes even winding up with the brunt of the pain while madison manages to come away in way better shape, usually because the person with him chose to shield him from the danger.

and then that feeds into madison’s ~woe is me~ crap, and he throws himself a grand pity party, oh wahhh, all my friends would be better off without me, oh wahhh, i’m physically incapable of not causing profound mental and/or physical injury to the people i love, waaaah, i’m so terrible, i personally poured alcohol down nixon’s throat until he almost died even though i was literally 2000 miles away, it’s my fault, i did it, wahhhh.

and now nixon is just like 

bro you aren’t that powerful. i’m just an alcoholic. 

and while he was awol for 3ish years, gallivanting around the country doing crimes and being dumb and putting himself in hella dangerous situations, one of the people he becomes acquainted with kinda falls in love with him, but it’s not Real Love, it’s that kind of surfacy, fantasy love that people might feel for anyone who seems charismatic and kind. so she winds up tagging along with him on a variety of mishap adventures, and they share their tragic backstories with one another, and somehow madison winds up basically explaining that he’s where he is by choice, and that there are people back home who he could stay with and who would be happy to take care of him, 

and the girl basically tells him that he’s a gross piece of shit, ~what kind of absolute shithead would choose squatting in a condemned rowhouse that smells like piss in 29 degree weather when there’s people out there in warm, safe homes, who would actually want him to be there.~ she rants at him about all the queer kids in her life whose family and friends turned on them, and the shit they’ve had to go through just to try to stay alive, the places they’ve slept in, the things that have been stolen from them, numbing the hopelessness with substance abuse, not even allowing themselves the luxury of even imagining a normal future with a home and a family and a career and a health care plan, because as far as they’re concerned, a life like that was never an option for them in the first place, and yet here you are, inventing new problems for yourself, digging your own grave, manufacturing your own misery, and for WHAT?? to be some kind of lame ass wannabe charles bukowski?? wanna be a lil tortured genius?? wanna be a lil poor depressed Smart Boy?? fuck off!!

and so madison is all *surprised pikachu* 

and yes lmfao this is DEFINITELY me calling out me.

and that was the incident that caused him to finally go back home. and just like he knew would happen, nix let him in without question, ready to give him everything he needs.

but yeah so like. his character is currently learning that he’s not nearly the critical component he thought he was in everyone’s life. he kinda genuinely felt like their worlds would all stop if he ever went away, but he DID go away, and when he got back, he discovered that all of them were perfectly fine and thriving in his absence, and it left him SHOOK. 

[acetokens]

My (post game) opinions on the ndrv3 cast

Alright, before the game came out I made this post where I basically vomited out my opinions on how I felt about the newly revealed ndrv3 cast onto a post and it was 50% jokes, 50% venting at fangirls. But now I've actually played the game, delved into the fandom and looked at the changes between the Japanese and English versions, I feel I can make a more genuine list of how I feel about all these good kids that deserved better. I realize my opinions are just that, and I’m probably yelling into the void here. But I felt I had to do a followup to the last post because MY GOD WAS I WRONG ABOUT (MOST) THINGS. I've listed every character in ‘favorite to least favorite’ order for convenience sake. Also this post will contain Spoilers. You have been warned.

Placed under a break for your skipping convenience. Ya’ll are welcome.

1. Himiko Yumeno - I absolutely adore everything about Himiko. Her design, her lazy attitude, her voice (NYEH), her development across the game to become a more driven and energetic person...I found her really funny, really cute and oddly relatable. Himiko is probably in my top 5 DR characters of all time. Which is even crazier when I remember she’s one of the few survivors. I've never had a favorite character who survives a killing game before. So unlike past Dangan Ronpa games where my interest sorta dies off by Chapter 6, Himiko kept me fully invested in everything until the end. She’s a special bean and I love her.

2. Gonta Gokuhara - Continuing the DR trend of a Big Guy who’s a Big Friend, Gonta was so good and so pure and so friendly and deserved so much better. He was always trying to do his best and protect everyone until the very end. R.I.P Gonta. You were a true gentleman. Chapter 4 can suck my ass.

3. Tenko Chabashira - I literally D E S P I S E D Tenko when she was first revealed. I hated her stupid, sexist guts. But come Ndrv3′s release and Tenko turned out to be a dorky, kind, protective and strong willed girl who was skilled enough to be admirable but pathetic enough to be pitiable at the same time. I loved her undying adoration of Himiko (even if it was a bit creepy at times) and the two make a really cute ship. I was expecting some kind of tragic backstory in her FTE’s to explain why she hates men (I believe she mentions a drunken father at one point, and I really wish they went more into that), and the lack of a reasonable explanation for such a strong hatred is what prevents her from sharing (or even taking) the top spot in my book. But misandry aside, Tenko is a Great Gal and I wanna hug her. Although she’d probably bodyslam me.

4. Kirumi Tojou - Kirumi was my favorite when all the characters were revealed at first. I made multiple posts about how I’d die for her and how she was beautiful and whatnot and I was confident about two things when the game came out: 1) She’d be my favorite. And 2) She’d die - following in the footsteps of all previous ‘best girls’ before her. And well, I did really like her. Just...not as much as I thought I would. Kirumi is efficient, brave, elegant, caring and has a really cool design. But her talent occupies most of who she is as a person, and she isn't too dissimilar to most maid characters in anime or manga. So it made her quite predictable at times and I feel they could’ve done so much more with her..ah well. Kirumi is still a super awesome maid and a great Mom. Even if she hates being called that.

5. Kaede Akamatsu - Ahh...I remember when I was wishing someone else would be our protagonist when she was first announced...I think I cursed it. Because Kaede was just *incredible*. She was headstrong, perceptive, kind and left such a big impact on me after Chapter 1. You know that ‘Do It For Her’ meme? Yeah, that about summarizes the rest of Ndrv3 for me. Also Kaede is a huge gay and all the Ndrv3 girls are her girlfriends, pass it on.

6. Ryouma Hoshi - Congratulations to Ryouma for being the only non-standard design character not to be terrible. Far from it, in fact. Ryouma is a badass! A lil’ badass with such a depressing backstory and death that when they showed his motive video, I let out a single manly tear. Or several. Or many. I just...I just want this man to be happy...

7. Miu Iruma - Miu has zipped up and down my lists more than any other character. I had her ranked highly pre-game, lowly during the game, and mid/high post-game. Her design and talent are really cool and she makes several neat inventions over the course of the game, but her personality was so damn prickly and vulgar that I found her really offputting while she was alive. It was only after finishing her FTE’s and seeing her Love Hotel scene that I realized holy shit this girl has some serious trust and abandonment issues. It put all of her behavior in perspective and I began to feel really sorry for her all of a sudden. The hurt/comfort potential here is just WAITING to be uncovered but, alas, most Miu fanfics I've come across are just smut or crackfics. Out of all the Ndrv3 girls, Miu deserves the most headpats. Lots and lots of headpats.

8. Kaito Momota - A good, supportive friend and an effective comic relief. His optimism was a bit grating for me now and again (I never like it when DR plays the ‘’Oh we should just believe in him/her because s/he’s our friend :)’’ card because of how biased it always is. Like, DR will sometimes bend over backwards and completely 180 its own rules to make sure certain characters survive. In a game where finding the truth by objective evidence and fact is key, the times where it just says ‘’nah fuck the truth who needs proof just b e l i e v e’’ just feel so...stupid). But criticisms of the series aside, Kaito is a bro and he’s great. Who doesn’t love the luminary of the stars?

9. Kokichi Ouma - I realise putting the most popular character at 9th is going to make hoards of fangirls despise me but!!!! I don’t dislike Kokichi. In fact I like him a lot. His character is probably the most enjoyable to analyze out of everyone, his interactions are hilarious but also disturbing, the Kokichi memes are funny, and I too think the changes they made to his dialogue in the English translation was utter bullshit (almost as greater character assassination as Mukuro in the DR3 anime). But, I really love most of the characters in the game which leaves characters I’m torn on (like Kokichi or Kiyo) hovering at a position which makes it seem like I dislike them when actually I enjoy them immensely. Just...not as consistently as some of the others. Also Chapter 4 was an kick to the nads that I can’t get over. Sorry Kokichi.

10. Korekiyo Shinguuji - I was prepared to LOVE this guy so much. Seriously. I was ready for the moment where it would turn out creepy noodle man would be turn out to be a Wholesome noodle man. But uh, I think I’m with the rest of the fandom when I say that Korekiyo’s reveal as the SHSL incestuous serial killer made me drop him faster than Kirumi dropped in her execution (sorry). So, now I've establish Kork is the *real* Worst Boy...why did I put him at 10th? Why not 15th? Especially considering he killed Tenko? Truthfully, it’s the memes. Just...the Kork memes. And the fact he’s such an awful person and so obviously a murderer that it becomes genuinely hilarious to me. And his design is my favorite out of all of them. I’m so split on him. So, so split...

11. K1-B0 - Keebo made me laugh a bunch of times, and I enjoyed him more than I thought I would initially. Also his upgrades in Chapter 6 were badass as fuck. But I just don’t really feel the same affection for him like I do other characters. I’m afraid cute robot girls will always be my weakspot. Cute robot boys...not so much. (Although I’m all for Agender! Keebo that’s my jam).

12. Shuichi Saihara - This is the point in my list where I finally reach true neutral. I have no feelings on Shuichi either way. He’s deeper and has a more interesting plot arc than Makoto, which makes him a more effective protagonist in my opinion. But Hinata will always be the best protagonist in my book. And I just keep picturing what it would’ve been like if Kaede survived instead...

13. Rantaro Amami - I never understood why he was uber popular before the game came out and I don’t think I understand why he’s so popular now either. I have no negative feelings on the guy; he’s mysterious and has a ‘big brother’ attitude that I like. But the poor dude just died too quickly for me to feel anything for him. 

14. Maki Harukawa - I only dislike three characters in this game. Maki is one of them. I knew *exactly* what kind of character she was going to be and I knew I wouldn’t like her much and I knew she was going to survive. I didn’t guess she was going to be an assassin! But outside of that, There isn’t much going for me for me. The tsundere is never an archetype I like and the fact the deaths in Chapters 2 and 5 are partly her fault and no one calls her out on it is kinda frustrating also. 

15. Angie Yonaga - Angie’s creepiness is her most appealing trait to me. That should explain how low the bar is set here. Its difficult to write what I feel about her without coming across as a salty atheist (because most of her problems revolve around her use of her god to manipulate people) so I’m just going to leave it there.

16. Tsumugi Shirogane - Y’know I distinctly remember labelling Tsumugi as ‘’Hifumi but likable’’ on my previous Ndrv3 opinion post. I was wrong. She was hovering around mid/low level for me while I played the game, and I often forgot she existed (kinda funny considering her self admitted plainness) and her references were quite obscure a lot of the time so I didn’t find her funny either. I didn’t dislike her, I just forgot her. Then Chapter 6 happened and everyone knows the rest. It’d be difficult to truly ‘like’ Tsumugi after her reveal as the mastermind, after all. Although she was certainly entertaining when she started cosplaying as all the previous characters and I did like how her eyes glowed when she went all DanganRonpa crazy. I did actually consider putting her above Angie for those reasons, but if I dropped Kokichi’s placement because he killed Gonta then I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t slamdunk Tsumugi into last place for technically being responsible for everyones’ deaths as well (well, responsible as part of Team DanganRonpa. I understand it wasn’t *entirely* her behind it all). You know there’s a problem when *Hifumi* looks pure in comparison...

If you read through all of this, then congratulations? I don’t know how to end long ass posts like this...just pretend I said something witty. 

I need sleep.

[quadratic-shipping]

Kay, new icon is Vriska’s dice cause the gradient was lame, and every Vriska blog halfway to sunday has already had every photo of her face as their icon twice. It also works cause of yknow liking dnd and stuff. one thing I really liked about my last vriska pic one was the negative space made it feel like it popped and I feel like this one has sort of the same thing going for it. Wow, it can be that deep. I’m just rambling cause it’s 3am and yet again I have stayed up this long. I can;t wait til it’s winter again so I can force myself back into a normal sleep schedule. I stayed up all night a couple nights ago, and that gave me one decent night of sleep so I might just try that again tonight. Rest put under the readmore because it’s irrelevant and sleep deprived rambling I wouldn’t dare subject my beautiful followers and browsers to.

While I’m here, posting a late night thing no one will see or interact with; thank god; I was cleaning and I came across one of those neck warmer things that legit just a tube you pull up your face to keep your nose from freezing off because Canada Winters, I never can use them because I always fog up my glasses, and I just wanted to say that Niqabi gals with glasses are so brave? Legit if I had to deal with my glasses fogging up I’d die, I’d rather lose my nose to frostbite than fog them up (like I go outside enough loll) so for them to deal with that everyday is like, legendary. I mean, I guess if you were pretty antisocial you wouldn’t have to deal with it much but still, point totally stands. 

While we’re on the positivity train? Lesbians? y’all really like Vriska HUH? Thank you for interacting, I appreciate, yall are so valid. I’m torn between “You have good taste” jokes and “Yall will just like anything w/ vriska in it” and either way it takes too strong a stance on my own content to feel good about it. Obvs goes the same way for all the NB and Trans ppl interacting, yall are also Excellent and I appreciate yall. Obvs I’m cis so I don’t have any real godtier takes or anything abt. gender, but reading your guyss stuff is excellent please keep making it.

Uh sexuality update; Still labelling as bi, IDK if I really want to date men tho, before I actually and FINALLY get a taste of the other side; please; because I feel like the problem with my relationships re; dudes is just that I can’t just be myself, I’m just 900000% in my own head about it and not even like; trying to be idealized, idk whats going on I just have a hard time connecting w/ them and it’s defo my fault so idk bro. IDK it’s fun to have crushes but dating is BORING from my very limited experience with only guys which is why a gf would be excellent. Or girl aligned partner. I feel like maybe what I’m attracted to is like, femininity, not necessarily femmes or women. IDK bruh it’s weird. doesn’t help I can’t even figure out how to get and keep friends LOLLL it’s 3am. Sorry

Honestly before I started vrisrose posting I felt so useless yknow cause in the vriska circles there are a lot of intelligent people who understand canon better and are overall smarter and better spoken so I just felt like everything I had to say was just old hat and not very interesting. But the thing I like about VrisRose is no one else is talking about it as frequently ( I was searching the tag and my blog came up in the recco’s for blogs up top and I was very happy) so I feel like, hey, this is my niche. That one engineer of useless inventions quote: The best way to become top of your field is to specialize:, I jsut love rarepairs so much! I think it’s such a great way to approach character analysis because no one exists in a vaccum so seeing peoples interactions and what people like is so fun!!!! I say, invalidating all my personal issues lollll

CHARACTER ANALYSIS! FUCK TALKING ABOUT INTERACTIONS OR ACTIONS ON THEIR OWN OR THOUGHTS OR HC’S, I STAND BY MY ONE TAAKO ‘vriska did nothing wrong’ QUOTE; Trying to understand what characters morals, and their opinions on certain things by analyzing their opinions and interactions in canon is 500x more productive seeming to me than other things. Like, say taako’s thoughts about vriska, V and Lucretia are p similar actions wise, and he was pissed at her but that was mostly cause of the personal connections, when it doesn’t affect him Taako doesn’t seem to have any moral objections to any of the icky moral stuff; think robot planet or whatevs where they were gonna genocide the place and lup was like no and that was like the only reason he didn’t I’m pretty sure, I’m not too big brained on taako or adventurezone either so don’t take my word; So I think that Taak’s would be chill with Vriska. Another thing? The Lucretia thing was like, giving up which Taako is not ok with and Vriska thigns were about not giving up so I do legit think he would be totally coool with her, even if she were real, unless obvs she hurt one of the seven bird red robe people and their new friends.

ISN;T THAT SUCH A FUN METHOD OF CHARACTER ANALYSIS? I’m not drunk or in an altered state just tired enthusiastic and with a lot of pent up thoughts. Speaking of which, this song just came on it’s “Slowdance with you” by the Marcus Hedges Trend Orchestra and it is SOOOOO good, it’s on a vrisrezi playlist I put on bc I’m rereading song of the pyre because it was vriska day and it’s super good soo so good. It’s on loop now, legit best

Quick detours before I lay out some more hs thoughts; 

Overwatch:

-Ben “Captainplanet” came out w/ a new article and I LOVE IT so much and I want hhis job so bad I wanna get into stats so much ahhh  please so good it’s giving me a , this is crude but it’s the best way I can phrase it, a math erection. I love math so much <33333333

-The Shock, my faves, are doing well and I’m happy for them! I hope they go 7-0, I believe in them! I’m lying I am so fucking nervous for literally every match they have they’re gonna 2-5 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Why am I so INVESTED? They technically could take first spot but that’s require titan’s to lose every match left and the shock to 7-0, but the thing is I thought that I wanted that but 

-then I watched the titans london match today, and I HATED the thought of titans losing. And losing so hard to other teams too, and I didn’t realize this but I think I do actually kinda like the titans?The thought of them not being a great team makes me sad. I think it’s like I really like them and shock as rivals, yknow, stage one and two, then this upcoming map? If Titans aren’t still Good in this meta it just sorta makes their rivalry not fun. Kismesis vibes is what I’m gonna say cause I’m TRASSSHHHHH pls stop my terrible hands from typing also if I ever saw actual ship stuff I would kill whoever made it. Like I’m not gonna check their socials or anything but if they’ve got a match against most teams I’d probs root for them. The Wolf section today was so funny lollll

-I think I might hate the London Spitfire. I have literally no reason to? I think all the players are good and I like them as people and I would never actively hate on them? But I’m like. Really mean to them in my head. I was so satisfied seeing htem lose to Florida, and Titans like IDK? Also they’re hella overrated so anticlutch jfc. Hate the franchise, love the players if that makes sense. IDK WHYYYYYYYYYYY

-Also I’m gonna miss tomorrows shock match and I’m so scared rip.

Misc: 

-Tripped backwards and somehow upturned my moms glass scale and it fell on my foot, that shit hurted.

-Oh My God I’m Projecting a million different things right now because I feel like this will not have an audience if you see this I’m begging you please don’t interact I’d die of embarassment keep the fact you’ve seen this a secret from me

HS:

-JFC song of the pyre is an excellent fic, I wish it would ever get updated it’s so fucking good guys

-I need to read more vrisrezi long form

-Non-sgrub vrisrezi is best vrisrezi

-My ideal Vrisrezi au would be like HS canon, diverge into non-sgrub and they completely fall out of touch, Killing Eve season 1, then Song of the Pyre. THAT is what I want.

-Killing eve season one and two would be an even BETTER VRISROSE AU AHHHHHH

-I once read a very good trollstuck rose but it was an eri-rose ship so basically what I want is that persons troll rose but paired with vriska. For how much I blog about it I’ve read very little vrisrose fic but almost everything I know comes from this fic. . Oh uh this is not the erirose fic that I read w trollstuck although it does unfortunately have erirose but I can excuse it when the vrisrose is this Excellent

Alright I’ve run out of hyper juice, have a nice night, sorry for posting thisssss

bye

[thecorteztwins]

“Mutant Empire: Sanctuary” Chapters 15 & 16

Tagging the people I think are still reading  along with me: @malakhvent @hexiva @muffiewrites @magnetician @magnet-dad ... how about you, @ofbecomings and @taintedhero, you want in on this too? I’m doing a read-along of the Mutant Empire, a trilogy of X-Men novels (comic verse, not movie) in which Magneto takes over Manhattan and turns it into a mutant society/sanctuary he calls Haven. I tag people I know will be interested in the Magneto (and sometimes Charles) characterization! You can catch up (if you’re interested) by reading the “mutant empire” tag on my blog :) Okay, so this is pretty much the end of Book Two. There is a Chapter 17 after this, but nothing in there I think I’ll be posting about. There’s actually nothing much about Magneto in Chapter 15 either, but there is some Xavier stuff, and I know at least two of y’all will be interested in that, plus just some mutant politics stuff. After that is Chapter 16, which is where we come back to Magneto. Okay, let’s dive in...

CHAPTER 15 At one point when things are looking grim and so is Xavier, another character says he’s ruining her image of him as an eternal optimist, and he responds thusly: “That’s one of the biggest misconceptions about me. I’m actually a terrible pessimist. I don’t believe that humans and mutants are such good souls that they can live in harmony simply because it is the best way to live. That just isn’t reality. I dream of a world where humans and mutants live in harmony, that much is true. But I know that if it happens, it will be because the alternative is so terrifying that we have no other real choice.” If that seems too dark for Xavier by your taste or opinion, this bit does get added in the narration right after: “He was rarely so verbose without cause, and even more infrequently so bitter. But he found it difficult not to become bitter with the gleaming Sentinel just over his shoulder as an illustration of how close they already were to losing the dream. And maybe he had lied a bit. Maybe a part of him believed in the innate goodness of people, believed that peace could arise for its own sake. Even if that were true, a greater part of him had begun to grow cynical. He didn’t like it one bit.” Personally, I think that even if he is really an eternal optimist, being momentarily grim when it really does look like the shit has hit the fan is realistic, and I like the idea of him being human, being able to have moments of doubt and pessimism, even while everyone around him stereotypes him on a pedestal as just never-ending hope without waver. That’s a hard role for anyone to fill, and the idea that he struggles to stay that way is more inspiring than if it just came naturally without effort. When he goes into the mind of Gyrich, an anti-mutant government agent, we get this bit, and it reminds me of what you wrote about Xavier and Anne Marie, Hex: “Without desiring to, he began to get a much clearer picture of Gyrich as a person. As he had suspected, the man was not nearly the villain Cooper had always painted him to be. And yet, he was perhaps even more dangerous because he fought for what he believed to be right. Patriots were always more passionate than mercenaries. The greedy were never martyrs.” Then we get to some mutant politics stuff regarding a new Acolytes recruit named Needle, told through the eyes of Acolytes veteran Amelia Voght: “Needle was new to the game, Voght realized. Not much more than a kid, really, a young woman whose genetic mutation had destroyed any hope she might have had of a normal life. Unlike Amelia, who could ‘pass’ for human without any trouble, Needle had changed far to much to ever be considered human again. Her mouth had distended slightly, and was filled with several rows of long, thin, razor-sharp teeth like needles. They seemed to extend when she opened her mouth, and retract within the girl’s head when her mouth closed. It was not an attractive mutation. She had been bitter, angry, despondent. Then Magneto had come along and shown her that the world had a place for her, that she was as good, no, better, than the humans who had ridiculed her. [...] She was the perfect recruit. In it one hundred percent, with nothing to lose and everything to gain. She also illustrated, for Amelia, one of the prime differences in the conflicting philosophies in the mutant community. Charles Xavier touted harmony between the two races. Magneto spoke of conquest. What Xavier would never understand was that, like abused children, mutants like Needle would never be able to rise completely above the past. They could forgive, if they had the heart for it, but they would never forget. Harmony, for Needle, was out of the question. And if it was out of reach of some mutants, it was out of reach for them all.” I love that wham line at the end. As a note, this bit is told from the perspective of Amelia Voght, so if you (as I do) disagree with the idea that abused children can never rise above the past, or that rising above it is defined as being able to forget it, or that Xavier (being an abused child himself) can’t understand this, understand that it’s not meant as objective fact but the opinion of a character, one who herself, despite being able to pass for human, still ended up suffering the loss of her family at the hands of humans (hence why she’s on Magneto’s side too) Amelia is pretty bitter and pessimistic and not without good reasons of her own, basically, so it makes sense to me she’d think like that even if I disagree and think it was a shitty thing to say (I think she’s projecting, personally) CHAPTER 16 Here’s where things come back to Magneto. Many of the X-Men are still his captives, and they are before a crowd of his mutant followers. Beast starts to speak out against him, the Acolytes yell for him to be gagged, but Magneto says to let him speak. I’m not gonna summarize the speech and go through each bit and what I agree/disagree with, I simply haven’t the patience, but at the end, Magneto then addresses them. Beast makes a really unfortunate mental comparison of him to Hitler and oh the tragic irony and could we not? Anyway, Magneto tells them that they are going to give two or three days respite, then expand the borders of what is now called “Haven” beyond merely Manhattan.  The crowd cheers, Bishop attacks Magneto, Magneto is like LOL I HAVE ALREADY WON and reminds him how he’s letting the X-Men live in order to witness his victory and hopes that they, as “honorable men and women” will come around to his side, but maybe he should make an exception for Bishop. He fires some magnetic force at him, Bishop runs the opposite way and frees Storm, which is when the shit really hits the fan. Firstly because IT’S STORM and secondly because she is SUPER PISSED about the “locking her in a car trunk to use her claustrophobia against her” thing, like she feels SUPER violated by that and understandably so, especially since she knows Magneto knew EXACTLY how awful it would be for her.

Basically this is BIG TIME PERSONAL Magneto yells for his followers to kill her if they have to, and Storm thinks that this reveals his “true colors” but we actually see that he's “saddened” by the idea when the book shifts to his POV. Before that shift, though, we get Storm absolutely TEARING SHIT UP. There is thunder, there is lighting, there is fog, there is wind, people are LITERALLY BLOWN AWAY by 110 mph gales, there is sleet and hail and ice and snow, IT IS CRAZY, SHE IS AMAZING like this is some Grade-A Weather Goddess stuff right here, y'all Then the POV shifts to Magneto, who is in awe as he should be. And “for the first time” he wonders if she's the most powerful X-men of all. Uh for the FIRST time? Really? Yeah I don't buy that...okay, maybe he considered Xavier the most powerful, I guess. Anyway, he starts to think holy shit she actually might end my plans altogether SHE'S THAT BADASS. One of the Acolytes asks him how they can kill this woman, Magneto answers “How indeed” and thinks how “despite his words, he did not want Storm dead. He had always had more respect for her than for most of her comrades, and this display only heightened that respect. Storm could be of great use to him in the future. Of course, if she forced his hand, well then he would have to kill her.” Magneto uses his powers to force his way through the fog and wind and hail that rages all around him, which takes far more effort than his usual levitating and shielding, because DUH HE'S IN A FUCKING HURRICANE THAT IS PERSONALLY ATTACKING HIM SPECIFICALLY but then he makes it to where he has her in his sights. He thinks “how beautiful she appeared then, in all the glory of her mutant power. She was a shining example of the magnificence that was the genetic x-factor, the reason why humans must give way to mutant rule. There was a grandeur about her that took his breath away.” Even Magneto gushes over how great Storm is, if only in his head, and I LOVE IT. Storm catches sight of him and attacks hi shield with lightning, his shield can't take it, he begins to fall, his body in pain, he hits a malestrom, and as his breath begins to leave him, he speaks into his comm unit for the Sentinel he now controls to seize Storm. Excuse me, seize “alpha mutant designate Storm” Hell yeah she's an alpha mutant! (Note: This was before Grant Morrison invented the concept of the “omega mutant” basically there's never been any consistent canon way of classing mutants and it varies by writer) Then he's tossed around in the storm itself, which draws him towards her, and he wonders if he will die, if she will kill him. But as he has “no desire to find out” he summons another magnetic force bubble around himself, thinking how his powers are unmatched in terms of sheer force and devastation, how Storm only survived this battle as long as she did because she had the element of surprise. Sure bro, whatever you wanna tell yourself -eyeroll- He thinks how if she doesn't surrender, he will destroy her and make an example of her to other rebellious mutants by impaling her on the spire that drops the New Year's Ball. And yet, even as he's thinking these smug, vindictive, brutal things, “Magneto found himself a little saddened by the thought.” of doing it. I really love the mix of emotions, especially such diametrically contrasting ones, going on in Mags at the same time, I feel like that’s really fundamental to him. Anyway, they fight for another two pages and I won’t bore you with a blow by blow but this would make a GREAT movie scene. Then the Sentinel shows up, Storm looks and up and sees it, and the last lines of the chapter are “Realizing she had lost, Storm attempted a retreat. She did not get very far.” There is one more chapter and an epilogue in the book after this but there’s no Magneto stuff and it doesn’t really change much, besides that the other half of the X-team is back from space so I guess they’ll be joining the Magneto plot in the next/third/final book. Which is fine with me because I didn’t care about the space plot besides Cr+eeee you should all love Cr+eeee

[bibliosexxual]

the blazing bombardier.

Idk, this is just a summery fluffball of a Sterek getting-together drabble because I’m tired of winter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Derek fundamentally doesn't understand people who like roller coasters.

He knows such people exist because he's been standing in line with them for the Blazing Bombardier for half an hour now, but even when he's looking right at them, it's hard to believe. Seriously, why. The list of things to do on a Saturday afternoon that don't involve screaming and trying not to hurl is literally infinite. He could be lounging around in his pjs in his dorm right now and rereading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, just for example. Or working out, or going for a drive to the beach, or watching a movie with Boyd and Erica. (Boyd and Erica are officially his favorite people right now because, unlike his sisters, they understand the basic concept that friends don't make their friends who lose bets ride the most terrifying invention since clown costumes.)

The line moves forward, and oh god, now Derek can actually see the loading station. The seats are wicked-looking hanging harnesses painted to look like flames. He's going to be sick before he even sits down in the thing.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Cora. send me a selfie when you get on the ride or we'll make you go on it again.

"Dude," the guy directly in front of him says, eager, and for a split second Derek tenses, thinking he's being addressed, but no, he’s talking to the guy in board shorts beside him, showing him something he’s found on his phone. It looks like he’s on Wikipedia. "Did you know it’s actually possible to kill someone with a roller coaster? Like, hypothetically, you could build one that kills you with its g-force.”

“Awesome,” Board Shorts Guy says.

(Derek does not think it sounds awesome. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to think about happy things, like puppies and solitude.)

“Yeah,” Wikipedia Guy goes on excitedly, “it’s called the Euthanasia Coaster. First it drops you from the top so you’re going over two hundred miles an hour, and then it loops and loops in tighter circles until you die...”

Puppies, Derek thinks aggressively, and then, Don’t throw up, don’t—

“...It only takes seven loops. Three minutes and twenty seconds. There’s a mathematical formula and everything. God, what a way to go, right? First you’d be having the ride of your life and then you’d faint, and then boom..."

Someone behind Derek pokes him in the small of his back, and he opens his eyes to see the line’s moved again while he’s been standing there, trying and failing to tune out Wikipedia Guy. They’re at the gates now, next in line to board.

His phone lights up with a text from Laura. It’s like she can sense him scrambling for last-minute loopholes. pics or it didn’t happen! and no just standing beside it and then walking off, bby bro. you gotta actually be STRAPPED IN.

Fuck.

“Hey, man, you okay?” someone says, and Derek looks up, straight into the warm, concerned brown eyes of Wikipedia Guy. “You look kinda pale.”

“I’m fine,” Derek gets out through gritted teeth.

Wikipedia Guy doesn’t look like he believes him. Derek half-turns away. The gates to board the ride open, and someone behind them yells, “Are you going to get on or what?”

“No,” Derek mutters, and presses himself up against the railing so the people behind him can get past. To his surprise, Wikipedia Guy doesn’t budge, either. He just turns to his friend and says, “Hey, Scott, you go on, okay?”

Before the guy—Scott—can respond with anything more than a nod, Wikipedia Guy has Derek by the elbow and is dragging him aside a little, urging him to lean against the wall and breathe while he distracts him with bad puns and chatter. It helps. Derek wonders how old he is. Probably early twenties, like Derek. He says his name is Stiles.

“Look, man, you don’t have to go on this if it scares you,” Stiles says finally, after Derek’s stopped hyperventilating and explained a little about why he’s here.

Derek knows that, okay, but on the other hand… a bet is a bet. He and his sisters bet each other on practically everything, and none of them have ever backed out, not yet. Derek’s not going to be the first to do it, that’s for sure.

But on the other, other hand, just glancing over at the Blazing Bombardier is enough to get his heart racing again.

But on the other, other, other hand, there’s something about Stiles that makes Derek want to impress him. It’s illogical—he’s probably never going to see Stiles ever again after this—but he wants Stiles to remember him as more than just that wimp who got scared of a ride that even pre-teens are going on. He’s seen the group of them over Stiles’ shoulder, bouncing on their heels with excitement and giggling, not scared at all.

Stiles rests a comforting hand on his shoulder and says, “Screw your sisters. Do what makes you happy.”

It’s how soft he’s pitched his voice, like Derek is fragile or something, that finally strengthens Derek’s resolve. The gate is just opening to let the next batch of people get on the ride, and Derek squares his shoulders and tugs Stiles forward by the wrist. “No, I can do it. Really.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. He looks a little doubtful, but he doesn’t question Derek’s choice.

Before he can over-think it, Derek pulls down his harness to lock in place and hands over his phone so Stiles can take the photo evidence for Derek’s sisters.

As soon as the ride starts moving, Derek grabs Stiles' hand in a death-grip and doesn't let go until the end, when he's shaking too hard to undo the clasps on his harness and Stiles has to help him.

At least Derek didn’t faint or throw up. He just screamed a little. Or a lot.

“Do you want to ride the scenic riverboat with me?” Stiles asks him at the end of the exit ramp, when Derek’s racing heart has started to slow, finally.

Derek realizes he’s still clutching Stiles’ hand from when they got off the ride, but Stiles hasn’t let go.

“What about your friend? Scott?”

Stiles shrugs. “He texted me, he’s going to ride the Blazing Bombardier again. After that, I dunno, he might go find our other friends. We came with a group. Anyway, I figured we could do something else.”

Derek blinks at him. “Why?”

“Well, I can’t in good conscience just abandon you to your sisters,” Stiles says, squeezing Derek’s hand a little. “But to be honest, I’m not that selfless. It’s mostly because I think you’re really hot, and I’d be down with getting to know you a little better.”

“Oh,” Derek says. He’s been trying not to stare too much at Stiles, especially at his mouth, or his hands, or his neck. (Derek has always had a thing about necks.) The fact that Stiles thinks he’s hot is definitely okay with him. “Okay.”

*

As it turns out, Stiles loves roller coasters, the more terrifying the better, but he’s also perfectly content with the tamer aspects of the park. They ride the riverboat, as promised, and Stiles gets the brilliant idea to send a selfie of them together to Derek’s sisters. Then Derek turns off his phone just as the first volleys of “who is that? DEREK, WHO IS THAT?” texts come in. It’s pretty good revenge.

After that they just wander, going up to booths and competing for prizes (Stiles has terrible aim and a competitive streak a mile wide). They eat themselves into a food coma. They get into a lively debate about whether Rey is a Skywalker or a Kenobi. They spot Derek’s sisters across the street and duck behind a group of German tourists to hide, and Stiles says he feels like a secret agent; he sounds pleased. They try on ridiculous sunglasses in the gift shop, and Stiles gets Derek to take a picture of him like that to send to Scott. At one point Stiles mentions that he goes to Berkeley, which is where Derek goes, too.

“We should meet up, then,” Stiles says, smiling. “Hang out, do a study date.”

They’d decided to go for ice cream, so now they’re standing on a bridge overlooking the lazy riverboat ride and talking while they eat. Derek got vanilla; Stiles got this monstrosity of a three-scoop thing with mint chocolate chip, strawberry, and pistachio. He has a bit of chocolate sauce on his chin. He’s the most enthusiastic and also messiest eater Derek has ever seen, and it’s weirdly attractive.

“Yeah,” Derek says, maybe staring at Stiles’ mouth a little too long as Stiles licks a long, slow stripe up his cone.

When Stiles leans forward and kisses him, slick and messy and wonderful, Derek is so surprised he drops his ice cream into the river.

For a second they look down in sad silence at the swirling water where it disappeared, and then they both crack up.

“Here,” Stiles says, “you can share mine.”

Derek is dubious, but it’s actually a surprisingly good combination. (Stiles looks smug.) It doesn’t hurt that this way they get to pass the cone back and forth while holding hands, or that some drips on Derek’s wrist and Stiles licks it up while making intense eye contact, until Derek feels like he’s going to combust.

It’s definitely the best time Derek has ever had at a theme park.

He leaves with Stiles’ number.

[sartle-blog]

Anti-Valentine’s Day

There are a lot of reasons to be upset recently. The changing political climate, immigrants being denied entry to our country, learning that Lady Gaga didn’t actually jump off the roof at the Super Bowl half time, and now to top it all off that one day a year designed to remind people how lonely they really are is upon us. Yes, the day of love letters, roses, and cheap heart shaped box chocolates is right around the corner. You may be thinking, I snagged me a Valentine this year so maybe things aren’t so bad. Well, I am here to remind you that even the most doting of relationships can turn sour.

Some say that artists feel emotions stronger than the average bloke, hence why they feel so compelled to tell their story by any means necessary. If that is the case, we can only assume they love hard, and hate even harder. We at Sartle love a juicy breakup story and if time had taught us anything it is this: the worse the relationship, the better the art. So here’s to some great art and terrible relationships!

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

When thinking about bad artist relationships, the Frida and Diego fiasco always seems to find its way into the convo; probably because their relationship was all kinds of messed up. To give you a taste for what their relationship was like, listen to this gem of a quote from Kahlo, “I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down…The other accident is Diego.” If you openly admit that your husband is one of the great mistakes of your life, you might want to reevaluate your life decisions.  

Where do I even start with these two? They met in 1928 and a year later were hitched. Besides the fact that Diego was almost twice her age, this was his third marriage, which probably should have been a red flag for young Frida, but when the heart wants what it wants, common sense goes out the window. It only took two years for the affairs to begin and honestly, they never really stopped. They both had endless lovers, sometimes out of desire, and sometimes they just did it to piss the other one off. Why Diego decided to cheat on Frida with her little sister though will continue to remain a mystery.

Not surprisingly the two divorced, but ultimately ended up marrying again just one year later. Needless to say, nothing really changed and they returned to their tumultuous ways until Kahlo’s death fourteen years later.

Frida and Diego Rivera by Frida Kahlo, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin

Sometimes it can feel as though our relationships are driving us crazy. In the case of Camille Claudel though, that is literally what happened after spending a bit too much time obsessing over the famed sculptor Auguste Rodin. Shortly after beginning her sculpting career, Rodin needed an assistant to help expedite his artistic practice, and Claudel was just the woman to do it. It didn’t take long for the two to start lusting after each other and with time, stone was no longer the only thing getting pounded down in that studio. The two shared an intense relationship that fueled their creative outlets as well. It was pretty much perfect, except for one little thing: Rodin was already married.

Claudel pleaded and begged, but Rodin refused to leave his wife…and this is when things started to get ugly. Claudel grew furious, she ain’t nobody’s mistress! As this vengeful side of Claudel began to become apparent to Rodin, he decided that she had become too much baggage for a fun fling and decided to boot her from his life. Claudel soon grew neurotic and experienced a complete breakdown, which landed her in a mental hospital where she lived until her death. That’s amore?    

The Mature Age by Camille Claudel, Orsay Museum

Pablo Picasso and Marie-Thérèse Walter

Since it appears that we have now entered the territory of lovers on the down low, we cannot forget about art history’s biggest playboy/womanizer: Pablo Picasso. Picasso had two marriages, six mistresses, and hundreds of other conquests (and who knows how many venereal diseases). Let’s have a gander at Marie-Thérèse Walter, for her tale is a brutally sad one, and as you know, we’re sticking with the theme that romance is probably dead. This dreamy saga started when Marie-Thérèse was only 17 years old, just a tad younger than Picasso’s 45. At the time their little affaire de coeur started, Picasso was already hitched to Olga Khokhlova, but as we know, the whole sanctity of marriage thing was a bit drab for the salacious artists.

The affair went on for eight years before Olga uncovered his philandering ways and ultimately took their children and skipped town. “Yes!” Marie-Thérèse must have thought “now I have him all to myself”. Wrong, so wrong. She should have known that old habits die hard. His eyes soon wandered to his next lover and muse Dora Maar. Rumor has it that when Marie-Thérèse found out about Dora, the two ladies entered into a physical catfight over the man’s affection. Marie-Thérèse ultimately lost and Picasso threw her out like day old chowder. Nonetheless, Marie-Thérèse never stopped loving him, and after his death, she hung herself out of sorrow.

Nude Woman in a Red Armchair by Pablo Picasso , Tate Britain 

Gustave Courbet, James Whistler, and Joanna Hiffernan

The tale of Gustave Courbet, James Whistler, and Joanna Hiffernan serves as a solid reminder that bros before hoes is actually some pretty good advice. Back in the day, painter James Whistler fell for the vivacious ginger Joanna Hiffernan. Sadly, when introduced to his family, they felt she was too loose and could not approve of his dating her. Turns out they may have been right about the whole hussy thing, but we’ll get to that later. Hiffernan decided to ignore his parents advice and develop what became a six year long relationship in which she both loved and modeled for him.

Whistler had a whole slew of cool artsy friends, one of which included painter Gustave Courbet. Naturally, Whistler introduced him to Jo and it didn’t take long for things to start blowing up. After learning that Courbet probably had an affair with Jo, and that he definitely painted a picture of her vagina, their friendship soon fell into peril. Shocker. Turns out painting an awkwardly up-close painting of your friend’s girlfriend’s hooha is totally against bro code protocol. Their friendship soon ended and ultimately neither of them ended up with Joanna. Turns out Whistler’s parents may have known what they were talking about after all.

Portrait of Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl by Gustave Courbet, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Love is messy business. Perhaps that is why we invented Valentine’s Day to convince us that the tumultuous desires of the heart are actually a good thing. Or maybe it is just to sell us stuff we don’t need; Hallmark, I got my eye on you. Either way, to all you Valentine’s Day haters out there, I hope this blog has taught you one thing: maybe single life ain’t so bad after all.

By: Jennifer

[richmegavideo]

My Horrible Records Time Capsule, Subtitled: Crapsule

  Cuing up "That Smell" by Lynryd Skynyrd

Related to Elements: Crate Digging, DJ, Underground

Every evening as I descended the basement stairs on my way to my nightly music-listening ritual in the man cave, I'd be forced to ask myself "What is that God-forsaken, moldy-ass smell?  ...And why are the stairs squishy feeling?"  I knew the answer already, but I was afraid to look and find out.  I ignored it until the smell became unbearably strong and it was obvious at that point it was time to act for the health and safety of my family.  

So after a little liquid bravery on a quiet Saturday morning it was time to bust out the power tools and demo some basement walls!  After a little sweat and a lot of noise I found a hidden crawlspace right next to the basement steps where the smell was emulating from.  

IT WAS ABSOLUTELY NASTY!  As soon as I removed the paneling hiding the hell hole, the smell rushed out of there and grabbed my nose hairs.  Thankfully my family was gone for the weekend and luckily I had a dust mask to help at least keep some of that death out of my lungs. Well now I did it.  I just created a huge job for myself, but it was one that couldn't be avoided any longer.  I knew looking at the hole what I had to do.  It was time to man up and seal this place up properly.  But only AFTER dealing with the mold that came courtesy of the dumbassery of the previous owner of my house.  I've watched enough Holmes on Homes on TV to know it needed to be "done right the first time or not at all!" Don't worry, I'm not going to go through the entire child birth process, I'll skip right to the baby.

Removed the nasty, poured concrete, sealed with Dry Lok Paint, insulated properly!

Long story short, after a lot of work the smell was finally gone!  Now I can seal this up properly and I'll know there will be no problems with moisture or moldy insulation again.

Water Tight, Air Tight, Sealed Space = Time Capsule

Before I seal this small crawlspace up behind walls for "eternity", I knew I had one chance to leave behind a permanent message for future archeologists or pissed off home-owners.  Something that I can leave behind that represents my lifestyle as a human being.  After pondering a while on the dilema with a few beers it hit me, "Duhhhhhh, RECORDS!!!" Records Last Forever!  Well, they do if stored andor played properly, and this was now the perfect sealed-off from the elements environment.  But there's no way in hell I'm going to leave behind any of my cherrished records!   Even some of my crappy records can still be sold for cash, so I couldn't just throw in random crap that some people would enjoy. I had to choose the most horrible records I had.  Stuff I'd have a hard time selling even if I wanted to.  I had to choose records that were horrible quality pressings or massively overproduced or just terrible music.  So I chose 3 records that represented all of those qualities and gifted it to the future inhabitants of my little corner of Earth.

Time Crapsule: The List!  My 3 Worst Records Left Behind in No Particular Order

Relax!  It's the Mexican Pressing

1.  Devo ‎– Freedom Of Choice "Libertad De Eleccion" LP (Warner Bros. Records) Mexican Pressing 1981 Look, I LOVE Devo.  It pained me to even THINK about dissing Devo in any way.  But this pressing was not their fault and if anything it probably pissed them off more than it did me.  I actually bought this record earlier this year from an online seller.  It was never the best album they did but it was a Devo album I didn't yet have on wax, still sealed for only 6 dollars!  What could go wrong with that deal!?!  Well, I guess I didn't pay attention to the "Mexican Pressing" footnote on the product listing.  

  "I'm on a Mexican, (woah woah) Radio!"

"What's so bad about a Mexican pressing?" you may ask.  After all, they invented the world's only perfect food, the taco, so how could they possibly screw up something as simple as pressing a record?  Well apparently they didn't have the speed setting right at the pressing plant that day because this record sounds like the Chipmunks doing Devo.  No lie, this thing somehow plays too fast at 33 RPM.  

But hey, no problem, I have a deck with pitch control, so I'll just slide it way down and then it will sound normal right?  Well it helps a little, but screw that!  Any time you have to use your pitch control to make ANY record sound right you are literally bending over and taking it from the record companies.  Even with the pitch adjusted the entire thing sounds hollow and without any nuances.  This is probably one of the worst cases of quality control I've ever seenheard in all my years of collecting records.  

So Naturally I couldn't sell this to anyone in good conscious knowing the look on their faces would be similar to the look on my face when the needle was dropped on it for the first time.  I can't pass on crap to others, that's the opposite of paying it forward.  Besides, Devo deserves more respect than that.  So I whipped it into the hell hole!  (sorry, bad pun!)

$12 from 720 records, this was unofficial as all hell, a DJ Shadow boot to boot

2.  DJ Shadow ‎– March Of Death / Karmacoma 12" BOOTLEG (Mo Wax) 2005 I love DJ Shadow's music and I love Zach De La Rocha's music so the thought of hearing a collaboration between them was WAY to intriguing for me to pass up when I saw this back in 2005.  I'll admit, I knew it was a boot when I bought it, but there was no other way to get that music back then, and, as it is often the case, curiosity killed the cat.   This sounds like pure ass.  It sounds like it was recorded from telephone and then pressed to record.  There is almost ZERO bass, it is muffled, it doesn't even begin to sound good at any point.  Even with my EQ highly tweeked it was not enjoyable to play on either side.  

As with all bootlegs, the artists on here didn't make a penny off this sale.   Shadow himself mentioned it's existence on his website and obviously if it was legit it would have gone through quality control until it sounded great... Like it does here...

The Real Deal.  Buy THIS if you want to actually enjoy that song.

Once I bought the Handmade record, there was no way I was going to keep that bootleg around, and I couldn't justify passing the buck onto a fellow Shadow fan even if he or she knew what they were buying.  They deserve better and the musicians deserve better.  It was clear that this boot deserves permanent dark days in the hole.  

  3. Natalie Imbruglia ‎– Smoke (Remixes) 12" Promo (RCA) 1998

Horrendous music doesn't even begin to describe this

Why in the name of all that is unholy do I even have this?!  I don't even REMOTELY LIKE Natalie Imbruglia so why is this vile record touching my other records?  It's not that she's a bad musician, (well yeah, she's pretty horrific or maybe average sounding on her best days) it's that this is an overproduced sounding remix clusterfuck.  The remixers didn't even attempt to use her vocal track in a respectful way, in a way that accentuated her vocals, or even left the vocals alone.  These songs were all about over-effect-processing trippy-trance sounding beats and basically they were trying to make it get played at some upcoming rave.  

I think I bought this on year one of my record collecting days, when I was an utter newb.  I clearly didn't play it before I bought it or I would have left it in the store.  I'm pretty sure I bought it because I liked some of Rae and Christians productions at the time.  Yet even that remix, the only remix I bought it for, sounds abominable.   There is literally nothing about this collection of corny, predictable-build filled, and utterly outdated sounding remixes that sounds even remotely tolerable.   I attempted to sell it a few times and I got blank stares from the record store owners I showed it to.  The last guy I brought it to said "Dude, I have like 5 of those online right now for a buck, so even if you want to donate it to me, I don't want it."  I swore that would be the last time I took it home feeling embarrassed and defeated, so into the hell hole it goes with the rest of the heinous archaic black discs!

A Warning for the Future

  And now the message.  Time to write something that will be my legacy, something awe inspiring...  I could leave a written http link to this blog, but blogs are too temporary and who knows if the Intenet won't be directly responsible for Skynet in the future.   

Hmmmm....

Ah hah!!!

Sometimes I just can't leave well enough alone

Cuing up Taps

  It's the moment of truth!  Now it's time to permanently seal the horrible record time capsule.   2" pink foam was cut to size, but not too tight yet leaving room for expansion foam to cement it firmly into place.

Closing the coffin lid on wack records

  Lastly I sealed off the capsule forever with Great Stuff expansion foam.  

Using expansion foam around all 4 sides for an airtight, watertight seal

That's all folks!  Nothing more to see here!

The expansion foam has now cured, the cavity is officially sealed off forever.  Now I'll cover it up with drywall and hopefully the next guy won't see it until I'm dead and buried.  

And on the day I die, I can do so with a small sense of fulfillment knowing this little piece of history was left behind for future generations to hopefully enjoy hating as much as I did.

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