#hi i'm alive even though my blog's been basically dead for a bit

[meiloorunsmoothie]

i love his "that was stupid" laugh

[foxingpeculiar]

FF16 Blogging: I have reached the point where I have returned to the Hideaway from Kostnice in 878. And yeah, there are some spoilers in this one.

So, I had a version of this post saved to my drafts... or so, I thought, but now it's gone. So this is me having had a couple days to reflect on the whole situation.

And okay. My patience was starting to get a little tried by this game. Like, by the time I'm searching for a missing courtesan and, yep, she and her stalker are both dead, I was kind of feeling like "the whole time we've been in 873, it's been about how much everything just sucks. When are we going to DO something about it?" Isabella's cool, I guess, but the whole way to Oriflamme just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth--particularly that sidequest with the noble and his son murdering people for sport. It feels like you're being beat over the head with the grimdark and it almost stops being fun.

But then you go to Drake's Head, and you get the whole "Hey, this is a story moment that's gonna fuck shit up. Are you sure?" dialogue warning. And it's kind of a relief, like... okay game, finally. Whaddya got?

But goddamn if it didn't deliver.

Okay, so first--up until this point, Cid has been the most engaging character. They've given him all the witty lines and bits of wisdom--you're clearly meant to have an emotional attachment to him, more so than pretty much anyone else, even Clive himself. Because they're going to use that against you, make you really feel it. This is the Aerith moment, where they're really trying to punch you in the feels with the loss. And I felt like they pulled it off pretty well. It got to me; I didn't expect it and was briefly quite upset.

Having sat with the emotion of it, though, I now have several questions.

One: Okay, so like... Ultima is clearly the Big Bad here. It's the quintessential FF villain: eerily soft-spoken, intimidatingly powerful and otherworldly, vaguely unsettling. But 1) What is it, exactly? I mean, it seems pretty obviously to be an Eikon, but what actually are Eikons, though? And 2) how did Cid recognize it? And what makes Clive so special that he's the perfect vessel or whatever?

Two: Does Clive know Joshua is alive now? And what, exactly, happened to Joshua, that he has the knowledge that he does? What was that ancestral magic that he was invoking, that allowed him to stand toe-to-toe with Ultima? Did he forcefully take in Ultima? Like is he the Ultima Dominant now? Is that what that was? Am I going to have to kill the brother I thought I failed to protect but was actually alive in order to defeat some greater, existential evil? That feels.... I dunno... so like, Greek-tragedy over-the-top that it seems kinda possible.

Three: What's happening with Jill? Like, to gain the Ramuh powers, Cid had to die. It seems logical to assume Clive is going to absorb Shiva at some point as well, so does that mean Jill is gonna die? I want the game to do right by her. Cos like, first she was the Archduke's ward--essentially a piece of property, taken to establish dominance. Then she was a slave of the Iron Islands: "do what we want or we'll make your people suffer," and she's someone who has that responsibility bred into her, so she had no choice. And now she's basically Clive's sidekick--he's "Cid" (the man, the myth, the legend) and she's just... there. I really hope she gets her own story at some point. Something she does that's just hers. I will be disappointed in this game if it doesn't give me that.

I do appreciate, though, the acknowledgment of the difficulty of the struggle. Like in the face of Kupka's war-of-attrition, the Bearers hate Clive for making their life harder. Doubt feels very appropriate for this stage in the game. According to the PS5 stats thing, I'm about 41% through the game, so I'm curious to watch that get turned around.

I'm also really curious to meet Joshua's attendant. Cos the last time we saw him was without her, which means she's out there somewhere. That woman's gonna have some interesting shit to say.

My only stray thought this time was Cid saying something like "what was that nickname? Cid the Vicious?" And like.... I see what you did there. Sid Vicious. You cheeky fuckers.

Anyway, now we're in the shit, so okay. What's 33 y/o Clive gonna do?

[ntshastark]

fucking image limit

Ults #6

ok so, last time i mentioned this book in this blog, i was extremely angry at what i'd interpreted as blatant usa nationalism in issue #2, to the point i'd almost dropped the comic. issue #3 held me back from doing that, but i was still frustrated at how tone deaf it seemed to have the maker's fictional council do cartoonishly evil things that are actually in no way that different for what the real global north has done and still does, and then have the hero characters fighting for what ultimately (no pun intended) was a return to our status-quo.

then i saw some tweets from the writer, deniz camp, that made it seem like he was very much aware of that. then i read issue #5, which opens with his absolute banger

and then spends the entire issue having an indigenous character telling captain america to eat shit and die, including basically spelling out what i was hoping would be addressed:

(and also spotlighted our brazilian villain a bit, which is mostly unrelated but reminded me i might have more stuff to get angry at later on)

with all that in mind, i went back and reread issue #2 and i think i understood better what it was trying to get at, but i still find it the weakest execution overall.

so, with my hope renewed that this universe will give me the first steve to actually verbalise that 'fuck the "american" dream, this country is rotten to the core', let's get to issue #6

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HE'S SO BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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oh good for him

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i'm usually not big on thorsif as a couple (thorjane >>>>) but this dynamic

is kinda hard to resist

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he's my son

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OH

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sorry, why is the BABY the leader???? you have four people in this team who've fought in actual wars!! and two of them are gods!!

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why do all of these sound like old forum usernames

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nults hank is ADORABLE and him and jan are so cute 😭 i haven't been fed hankjan like this since emh

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sorry, is using "hiroshimas" as a metric for explosions an actual thing? bc it feels awfully insensitive.

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why is half of this issue just silly ass names for attack moves

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nah, he'd just take it out on his wife

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guys i think janet just killed a god

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hm.

ok.

this was not in my plans.

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OK, I THINK WE'RE SAFE

unless it's someone else under the suit, but like... who?? howard is still locked up, none of the iron man supporting cast has been introduced, and i don't see a random person donning the suit right in the following issue... if it was just #7 i might think it's a fake out, and if it was just #9 i might think it's luke taking over for some reason, but both of them???

also, the wiki lists him as alive and his appearance on #6 as "apparent death", so idk if there's been spoilers that he's alive of if they're just waiting until we're sure bc. superhero comics.

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ok, i've tried looking it up and there doesn't seem to be any spoilers... ugh i really hope he's not perma-dead, or even fake-dead for a long while... bc him 'being fake-dead until the end of the current overarching storyline when he appears as kang to fight the maker' is honestly just as bad (not to mention i haven't been as sure that tony is kang as everyone else seems to be, imo it could just as easily be howard)

and the tony on issue #9's cover is apparently just because luke is a "success story" of his, like peter. and he's in one of the variants, also in the background, but not in the one with the actual team...

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ugh i hate this. like, there's a reason i didn't even bother watching avengers endgame (though i already hadn't bothered watching infinity war, but yknow)

it's not as if i was reading so many runs where tony doesn't even show up just because of him, but him not being alive at all in that universe diminishes the appeal A LOT, i'm not gonna lie. and for story reasons too, like. i can see it making sense in the actual ults title (thought now is definitely a bit too soon, i'd wait a few more issues at least to off the optimistic go-getter in order to show how bleak things are. they've been bleak!!), but what about the spider-man book, where they're dealing with the aftermath of his supposed terrorist act? him just dying for real off-screen is so anticlimactic!!

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HEY I JUST REMEMBERED THIS

we haven't even met all the silhouettes , i don't think?? huge one is either jan or hank, the furthest one is probably america, but the one besides doom is way too skinny to be this she-hulk. and no one has even mentioned t'challa, much less met him! and i don't think it's someone else in the iron lad suit, if someone was going to take over tony's mantle (which is already him taking over howard's mantle, mind you) i can't see it going to a character we haven't seen yet, even if it's someone later shown to know tony (like luke might be). this isn't some years-later revival, we're in the 6th issue, if he's dying for real it has been decided from the beginning

that being said, this teaser might not mean anything and tony is just there for hype. duggan's iron man run also had a teaser page like this and half of the things in it never happened, so it's not like this is some smoking gun

anyway. we'll know when we know. i'm going to sleep.

NUlts lb

I've been busy these past weeks so catching up with everything from mid-october to now

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USM #10

the jjj/uncle ben flirting in this is absurd, why is hickman so hooked on old man yaoi

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oh as soon as i saw u-65 i knew it was gonna have something to do with gwen (and completely forgot we actually already knew oscorp bought stane/stark, incredible work from my brain)

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NULTS GWEN IS SOOOOOO GOOD i missed gwen being a bitch so fucking much 😭 can't believe i've finally got my girl back

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gwenmj cheating arc when (i'm joking!!!)

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THE LITTLE GREEN GLINT THAT APPEARS ON HIS ALREADY-GREEN EYE WHEN SHIT'S ABOUT TO GET REAL OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS SO GOOD

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david messina kills it at conversation scenes, i don't know how he does it. the layout is so simple, and you can see a lot of the panels are recycled, but it still feels so dynamic????? how?????

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GIRL WHAT THE FUCK ok there's absolutely no way these two aren't fucking, i'm a clois girlie, i know article-proofreading-as-foreplay when i see it

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oh. oh no. now i want a hickman clone saga.....

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USM #11

remember how i just complimented how dynamic david messina's conversation scenes feel? yeah, his action scenes are just the opposite. so fucking stiff.

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queen.

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oh 👀 nults gayle???? (i hate how the shadows on her hair look)

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NULTS FLASH!!!!!!!!!!

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OH SHE'S SO REAL

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serving all that cunt in the cover only for this to be her only appearance in the actual comic, ugh

and i hope she eventually gets to update the suit bc this one is so whatever. and i hate the bare forearms.

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he doesn't seem like a guy ready to move on with someone else, so do we think jjj was their third

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OH UNCLE BEN KNOWWWSSSS

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UXM #8

ok, this is the first time i ever mention uxm here, so i should probably talk a bit about my feelings towards the series in general bc they're... complicated.

so, i don't think it's a bad comic at all, quite the opposite. but i'm definitely not the target audience, since i haven't been into anime ever since i was 9, and i never liked mangá (i'm physically unable to type it as "manga", sorry, that's a fruit). and it has nothing to do with the actual x-men characters or mythos, which is the reason i wanted to read it in the first place. i really wish they would've just made it about original characters who happen to be mutants and leave the door open for the x-men (and runaways!) characters to show up in other book(s). though, to be fair, fans of characters like armor, nico, and molly (who rarely ever get the spotlight) are probably happy to see them as prominent characters in a big book. but i, you see, am mentally ill about scott summers.

it might come off as a surprise, considering i almost never talk about him, but scott is probably the easiest character to make me tear up just by thinking of how much i love him. he's my special baby boy whom i've loved since i was a little kid refusing to miss a single episode of x-men evolution. but the thing is. x-comics are insane. so i end up not reading him much. and what upset me the most is that this was the perfect chance to change that. and my problem obviously isn't that they've turned him into a girl, i mean, *points at my own user*, but that natsu has almost nothing in common with scott, and if it wasn't for her powers i could read this entire comic and never wonder if she was anything other than an original character. so yeah, i was pretty upset i wasn't gonna get my baby. still am a bit, honestly. fucking wolverine gets a whole fucking solo run, as if he doesn't already has like 10 in the mainverse, and scott gets to be the only main x-character (so far + afaik) to be barely himself. offensive to me specifically.

but then!! but then. i almost cried over this little panel in issue #6

and i realised i am also capable of being mentally ill about natsu tsukishima. that's it, thanks for coming to my ted talk. now onto the actual issue

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guys i think kanon might be stupid.

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hmm really not sure how i feel about the tattooed numbers thing

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OH MY GOD I THOUGHT THIS WAS DROOL i was like wtf is wrong with her

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OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO

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it's always morally correct to do this to influencers btw

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wait, the wiki says rogue showed up in this issue??? i've gone over it twice and haven't seen her

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OH WAIT this might be it

i thought these were bunny ears and it was mori, but i guess it's hair?

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UXM #9

this issue is feeling so rushed

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WAIT WHAT

OH MY GOD I THOUGHT IT WAS LOGAN

AND ALSO WTF, WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIM

AND ALSO tf you mean "the first homo superior"???

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dude what the actual fuck, look how they've massacred my boy

also... i know it's definitely on purpose in this specific case but... i'm actually not a fan of peach momoko's style......... it's very... loose? everything looks like a thumbnail, the characters sometimes look like they're melting, or as if someone randomly took a distortion tool to the page at random, and the watercolour colouring leaves a lot of blank spaces that bother me. like, i can see the merits, i can see why a lot of people enjoy it, but it's really not for me (which is basically how i feel about this comic in general)

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storm in the bg!!

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??????

this is less than 10 panels ago:

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see what i mean when i say characters sometimes look like they're melting??

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yeah, ok, the numbers tattoo thing definitely does bother me. i know it probably just doesn't have the same immediate connotation in japan (though they were axis so like... maybe that's a problem), but editors exist for a reason

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Ults #6

on reblog bc i've hit the fucking image limit on the second page

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hello, I hope I'm not bothering you, but do you have any good "enemies to lovers" recs, may they be books or movies?

I neeeever am bothered by people asking for recommendations.  Those are my favorite asks because I am nothing if not in love with my own opinions, lol

Books

Obviously, The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn, the best Bridgerton book, because I’ve been blogging about it lol.  If you haven’t read it, it’s basically “rake tries to seduce the beauty of the ton, beauty’s older sister cockblocks him, he realizes that He Is Into It” 

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is a classic.  Very light and fluffy contemporary, two people who’ve always hated each other begin competing for the same job and fall in love.

Kate Quinn’s Mistress of Rome series is a saga and the initial big ship of the first book (which you do have to read lol) is not enemies to lovers.  However, the NEXT ship which dominates the last two books of the series (which is four books long, and tbh... I recommend the second book but it’s a prequel and can be skipped technically) is SOOOOOOO GOOD.  It’s really “childhood friends to young lovers to SEVERE ENEMIES still secretly in love” and it’s literally epic lol.  Essentially, the series is set in Ancient Rome and Sabina (very bitchy Roman noblewoman) and Vix (child of a former gladiator, soldier) are friends who I think lose their virginities to each other?  And are in love as kids.  But then she fucks him over and marries the emperor.  Who he actually begins to loyally serve!  But he haaaates Sabina because she.... constantly backstabs him lol.  But he also looooves Sabina and gets off on everything she does.  And she wants him so badly.  And it is delicious.  And I live for it.

Both of the Evie Dunmore books I’ve read, Bringing Down the Duke and especially A Rogue of One’s Own are very enemies to lovers.  In Bringing Down the Duke it’s a bluestocking versus a duke who for political reasons is her enemy.  In A Rogue of One’s Own it’s another bluestocking versus a rake who has known her basically all their lives.  They have to begin working together and fall in looove.

Sarah MacLean LIVES for this trope lol.  Her first true enemies to lovers was Twelve Scandals to Start to Win An Earl’s Heart, in which the heroine is a scandalous young woman and the hero is a duke determined to avoid scandal--and he rebuffed her before the book began, so they hate each other.  But he also has a massive boner around her, of course. 

My favorite MacLean book, A Rogue By Another Name is another “childhood friends turn enemies to lovers”.  The leads, Penelope and Bourne (last name lol) were best friends as kid and he basically fell off after life set in.  Her family now has hold of his ancestral lands, and Bourne essentially blackmails Penelope into marrying him so that he can get those lands, after which she DESPISES him even though they had..... extremely great sex lol.  It’s SUPER GOOD, and it involves borderline voyeurism, which is great.

Then No Good Duke Goes Unpunished is very enemies to lovers.  The heroine was set to become the hero’s stepmother--then he woke up covered in blood with her missing. He then finds out, after years of being despised by society as a presumed murderer, that she is very much alive with a fake identity lol.  It’s WILD.

The Rogue Not Taken is an enemies to lovers roadtrip romance.  The heroine thinks the hero is a horrid rake who purposefully ruins marriages.  He thinks she’s a stuck up brat.  They end up journeying together and he eats her out in a moving carriage.

Theeen there’s Daring and the Duke.  The hero literally thought the heroine was dead (MacLean loves this) and is OBSESSED with her, but she hates him because the man who raised them both basically pitted them against each other after their days of being childhood sweethearts.  It’s very dark and delicious, and there are blow jobs!  Blow jobs don’t happen enough in romances, especially historical romances.  More BJs!  They are fun!

If you’re interested in a dark and BONKERS romance, Desperate Measures by Katee Robert is a retelling of Disney’s Aladdin about a modern Jafar and Jasmine getting together after he takes over her father’s criminal empire.  It’s definitely extremely explicit and a bit fucked up.  The book comes with content warnings; the first sex scene is dubcon.  (Like you’re reading from her perspective and she WANTS IT but she says no.)

Beach Read by Emily Henry is a cute contemporary in which the hero is a literary author and the heroine is a romance novelist.  They find themselves in neighboring beach houses and basically challenge each other to write in the other person’s genre.  Very light enemies to lovers.

A Heart of Blood and Ashes is a fantasy romance by Milla Vane!  Essentially, the hero’s parents were killed by the heroine’s father and he’s out to kill her father and overtake his throne.  Luckily, she’s on board.  But he needs to marry her in order to accomplish his goals.  They do not trust each other whatsoever and torment one another a lot.  For context, within the first fifty pages she gives him a handjob while her hand is covered in her own brother’s blood (and yes, he did kill her brother).  It’s great.

The Worst Best Man is about a wedding planner who suddenly finds herself needing to work with her ex-fiance’s brother... who she holds responsible for her fiance leaving her at the altar.  Very fun and sexy contemporary.

The entire Four Horsemen series by Laura Thalassa.  In each book, the heroine falls in love with a literal embodiment of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who is here to bring the end of the world.  VERY heavy enemies to lovers.  Kinda dark at times?  Kinda fucked up at times?  I love it a lot?  It begins with Pestilence; War and Famine have already been released, but Death has not.

From Lukov with Love by Marina Zapata.  It’s a figure skating romance; a down on her luck skater pairs up with a male skater who is extremely successful, and who she’s known for years and hated.  Verrrrry slow burn, but fun.

Movies

The Proposal, of course, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.  You’ve probably seen this, but the setup is that she’s his evil boss, he’s her assistant, and she’s about to lose her visa so she bribes him into marrying her so that she can get citizenship.  But ruh-roh, they have to go to Alaska for his family reunion and he’s also got a great body and is like, an Alaskan Rockefeller?  

Obviously, Clueless which is enemies to lovers by way of former stepsiblings, and also by way of the only valid retelling of Emma.  Emma itself is not enemies to lovers, really, but Clueless amps that aspect up a bit.

If you want a super tragic version, warning lol--House of Flying Daggers.  It’s a wuxia movie, so melodramatic to the max.  She’s a blind daughter of the leader of a vigilante group, he’s a soldier who’s gone undercover to follow her to their stronghold.  Many reveals and one of my favorite dramatic love stories ensues.

Princess Diaries 2, duh.  Baby Chris Pine?  Anne Hathaway?  PLEASE BITCH.

365 DNI.  If you haven’t watched yet, watch it and thank me later.  The greatest cinematic contribution of the last decade.

Down with Love.  It’s a delightful take on like, 50s/60s sex comedies in which the heroine writes a book that convinces women to ignore love and men, which makes the hero look bad and makes it difficult for him to get laid.  So he sets out to basically.....  wear a different persona?  And seduce her?  It is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and I adore it.  Renee Zellweger and Ewan Macgregor have great chemistry in it too.

The Thomas Crown Affair, starring extremely hot Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo.  She’s an insurance investigator, he’s a billionaire who basically is suspected of stealing priceless works of art because he’s bored.  She investigates him and immediately begins fucking him.  Has a scene where she dances with him while wearing a completely transparent dress.  Then they fuck everywhere in his house.  I have never wanted to be between two people more.

The Painted Veil.  A socialite marries a dorky scientist for convenience, then cheats on him.  He finds out and basically forces her to go to China with him, where he is fighting the cholera epidemic, as an extremely long and petty murder suicide attempt.  But they get to know each other!  And the ice begins to melt!  Warning: tragic but lovely.

Casino Royale YES I SAID THAT.  The James Bond reboot movie that explains why he’s such a whore!!!  HE WAS BROKEN!!!  Basically James Bond is not like... a learned man... in this movie.  So he’s a cocky bastard and the Bond girl is impossibly sexy Eva Green as Vesper, who’s the “money man” on his mission.  They begin as bickering assholes and then fall in love.  But also!  Tragedy!

The animated Anastasia movie is one of the finest enemies to lovers movies of any time, I will defend this forever

Anyway....  Hope this gives you some ideas!  Lol

[luciana-galvez]

GIRL, I WAS WATCHING THE FINALE AND I KEPT THINKING ABOUT THIS BLOG AND I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE FINALE.. That's if you've see it yet, of course. Sorry for all caps btw I'm just shook-

GIRL, I GET YOU. Also, you thought of me when you watched it? I love you, that is so cool! 

And thanks for avoiding spoilers! (Even though I stayed away from Tumblr until after I had seen the episode, but still.) I’m in Europe so I actually only got to see it this morning, because it airs like 3am or 4am my time. I don’t really understand American TV schedules haha. :)

Anyway, under the cut you’ll find my two cents about the episode, because I feel like this is going to be a bit longer:

Speaking strictly from the perspective of an objective viewer, I really liked the episode. It wasn’t the strongest one of season three, but it made for a satisfying season finale imo, especially with the dam crashing at the end. Now, as an emotionally invested viewer that’s a whole other story but I will get to that in a minute. 

The one thing I didn’t really understand is why Alicia gave up her lone wolf mission after two minutes and joined the thugs and just left her new friend like that? I mean I get that the writers needed a way for her to reunite with her family but I feel like that really undermined the moment two episodes ago where she took a stand and said she needed to be alone, which I really liked. Was there some kind of explanation that I missed for why she abandoned that plan right away?

Anyway, the elephant in the room: Troy. Man, I have very conflicting thoughts about this. On the one hand, if he had to die, I feel like the way they did it was beautifully done. If anyone had to do it, it had to be Madison. I’m pretty sure I would have been upset if anyone else had done it. There was this little moment after she hit him for the first time where he looks up at her and there’s this short moment of genuine surprise and disbelief on his face, a nanosecond of ‘how can you do this to me’, which really got me. Daniel Sharman played that beautifully. Just in general the conflict that they had was bound to happen and I thought it was very telling that she hit him right after he said ‘you understand. you understand and you see thing’ (something along those lines). Maybe I’m reading to much into this but as much as Nick and Troy shared the same self-destruction, Troy and Madison shared more than she would like to admit as well. Growing up with alcoholic parents, an abusive father. If you disregard the whole racist-parents-and-isolated-environment situation, I think Madison might also see a small glimpse of herself in Troy, of what she could have turned out to be if she wouldn’t have been able to get out of her situation by killing her father. Because after Jeremiah died we didn’t only see Troy upset, but also relieved (that whole ‘he was a drunk’ scene at his grave with Nick). And the moment Troy reminds Madison of how alike they are, of their shared ability to make the hard calls, she kills him. I just think story wise that was the best way to do it. 

But that being said, obviously I had hoped that they would keep Troy alive. Listening to my morals it was hard to root for him when he brought up that the ‘Indians’ did not deserve the land, but as a viewer, I would have loved to see what the writers would do with his character in the next season. Troy was by no means the good guy, but no good TV show consists only of good guys. You need conflict, and having an arch for Troy next season (even if it’s not a redemption arch) would have definitely given the viewer interesting conflict. I feel like every single scene with Troy was interesting to watch, mostly because Daniel Sharman did such a wonderful job with the character (I’m actually convinced 80% of the sympathy for Troy stems from just how great Daniel Sharman plays him and how much charisma he brings to the role, at least that’s the case for me. I didn’t even know Sharman before, so I started season 3 hating Troy’s guts haha). I loved the dynamic between Madison and Troy, and I loved the dynamic between Troy and Nick even more. I feel like Nick and Troy understood each other in a way that Madison or Alicia would never be able to, just because they are so alike. And I feel like (that was also something they touched on in Talking Dead) Nick had been given so many chances every time he fucked up that he wanted to give Troy a chance too, you know? If he could manage to help Troy redeem himself, maybe he could be redeemed as well. Saving Troy and saving himself by proxy, basically. I think they could have both been good for each other, especially now that Troy was away from the ranch and the toxic environment there, so I’m mostly sad we don’t get to see that. 

Also, writing for his character so much I also realized that I had become much more attached to him than I had expected, so even though I expected him to die I was surprisingly hard to watch. I just hope that with my stories I can turn him into someone worthy of a redemption arc.

Speaking of, what I really, really loved about season three was how well all the characters were written. Contrary to season two (or one even) there was so much ambiguity and morally gray areas. It’s the apocalypse, and I love how they don’t have clear bad guys (except Jeremiah, he can choke) and good guys, because that’s just not how an apocalypse works. As opposed to TWD where you have the Governor and Negan who are the all time evil villains, season three gave us Walker, who we thought was the bad guy and then turned out to be the one in the right. And Madison, who is arguably the main protagonist and the ‘good guy’ of the show manipulates and kills and does things that would technically define her as the bad guy. I absolutely loved that because it was so much more interesting to watch. If you’re in the apocalypse, who’s to say who is the bad guy and who is the good guy? Everyone is just trying to stay alive, and I think FTWD has portrayed that amazingly this season. 

I also really like Madison. I know there is a lot of hate for her going around, but I just think her character is so interesting. I loved her development from season 1 to now, and for me it’s so refreshing to see a female lead that is not portrayed as the lovey-dovey good guy, but as a survivor who can make hard calls but who we still get to see soft moments with (how much she loves/protects her children, even though I think we can all agree it’s clear who’s her favorite lmao). That scene with Nick after she had killed Troy was amazing and so definitive for both of their characters. When Nick questioned/stated that she would put even him down if she had to. What an amazing moment. And again, it also made me wish Troy would still be around, because just as much as Nick loves his mother and feels he owes her, you can tell how hard it is for him to be around her for long periods of time. With Troy he seemed almost at ease, like he could be himself without having to pretend to be strong and responsible all of the time (like he feels he owes Madison).

Anyway, I have rambled on for quite a while now, so I’ll stop. Thank you for asking! I would love to hear what you thought of the episode as well, none of my friends watch FTWD so it’d be nice to discuss it with someone! :)

[anyway-i-love-vanderwood]

I really love your writing and now I'm pan for vanderwood i hope you're happy >:3 If it's no trouble, could you please write rfa + minor trio reacting to a usually hyper and happy mc feeling really down (because they feel misunderstood or got triggered)? I hope I don't bother you with that request, I could just really use some love and care from the baes ^^;; Love and hugs, have a wonderful day!

✿  *cracks knuckles* Boy, it’s been awhile, huh? I polished off my finals a few days ago, and while I won’t be churning headcanons out at a super fast rate, I thought it was time I give this blog some TLC!

Yoosung

His brain goes into terror-alert mode when you don’t tackle-hug him the minute he gets home from work. Living with you is sort of like living with a hyperactive puppy, and his first thought is, oh god, are you dead? Did you slip and fall in the shower? Did aliens kidnap you and are now experimenting on your lifeless body? W h e r e a r e y o u.

The answer to “where are you” is “in the bedroom, having a lie-down”. He breathes a sigh of relief when you turn over and look at him, but still, that weak way you smile as you say hey leaves him concerned.

He immediately asks you what’s wrong. Are you feeling sick? Should he get you anything? Do you have a cold? Have you been eating enough fruit? Have you…–??

This manages to make you laugh a bit, and you sit up enough so you can pull him back down to the bed. You just want a hug, you say. And some comfort.

Yoosung is happy to oblige. After all, he’s a vet, isn’t he? He’ll always take care of you, his adorable little angel.

Zen

When Zen finds you staring absently out the window, his first cheer-up attempt is to call you by every pet name he knows. Starshine! Sugardrop! Love! Darling! Gooey-sweetie-snuggle-bottom hunie bear!

(you smack him lightly for that last one.)

Next, he tries every pick up line he knows. He compares your beauty to the moon shining on the lake, he recites poetry, he even sings you a little sonnet, and when he finally gets you to smile a little, he asks you what’s wrong.

(he wanted to make whatever it was feel a little less fresh before you talked about it, after all.)

He takes you on a motorcycle ride after, since that always helped distract him - though he obeys all the road laws on this one, because his precious, precious blossom is with him right now. He takes you out to one of his special places, and he helps you forget whatever it was that upset you.

It’s hard to be unhappy when the warm wind is on your face and a handsome man is at your side.

Jaehee

She finds you in the closet of the bakery, and you apologize, because you wanted to be better before she found you. You didn’t want to bother her. You know that you’re supposed to be the happy one, the cheerful one, the person rooting her on and keeping her sane when the world is building up around her.

She tells you that’s nonsense, brings you a cup of tea and a new cake she’s working on, and asks you to tell her what’s wrong.

Jaehee is so good at listening. She’s careful, attentive, and treats everything you say seriously. She never makes fun of you, or tells you that you’re overreacting or silly.

Jaehee would probably dropkick your problems if she could, but she can’t, so she settles for hugging you, petting your hair gently, before bringing you another drink and some of the flowers from the rosebushes outside.

Jumin

You try to smile at Jumin when he comes home, and you’re doing so well, but then everything cracks apart, your smile falters, and you find you’re sobbing on the couch with a baffled Jumin in the doorway.

He only stands still for a moment. He literally VAULTS OVER THE CHAIR because it is the FASTEST PATH TOO YOU, and if you weren’t emotionally compromised, it would have been hilarious to see this man in a ten-thousand dollar suit act like a college track star.

He basically scoops you up, much like you’re a cat, and he tells you to tell him e v e r y t h i n g. When you say you don’t want to trouble him, you know how much it means to him to have you waiting at home for him, all cheerful and happy, he says that is NONSENSE. It isn’t you being cheerful that makes him happy, it’s you being you that does. And sometimes you’re going to be sad.

And he’s going to make you feel better when you are.

707

Seven knows immediately that your smile is forced. How could he not? He’s faked so many smiles over his years of being alive that he’s become all-too able to recognize the same expression on someone else’s face.

He doesn’t want to force it out of you, so he turns off the lights suddenly, leaving the star-shaped lights you have suspended from the ceiling as the only thing illuminating the room, and then pulls you up to dance.

He twirls you, spins you, is surprisingly graceful with you, despite being a total and complete nerd - though, he was a former secret agent, perhaps dancing came with the job. And you don’t have to pretend, you don’t have to say anything, you just have to… dance.

It helps. And when he holds you, during the ‘slow dance’ portion, you tell him what’s wrong as he rubs your back gently. And then you dance some more, because the world keeps spinning, despite the trials and tribulations you have to undergo.

You reminded Seven that he had a future, and now it’s his turn to remind you that you have one too.

V

V sits with you quietly and never blames you, even though you know he’s been through so much already and shouldn’t have to deal with your shit. You should be happy! You should be cheerful! You ARE genuinely happy and cheerful most of the time, taking him on dates and bringing the world to him, but today you just… can’t.

You can’t. You feel guilty, but you can’t.

He tells you that it is not your fault. You are human. You are allowed to be sad. You tell him all these things, and the same applies to you, too. He bops your nose with his finger when you try to protest, and you lean against him, letting him hold you and gently rub your shoulder.

After awhile, he brings out his phone, and he shows you all of the cute animal photos he’s taken over the years. It’s hard for him now, but he has so many memories captured on his various memory cards, and he shares them with you in a quiet room and a fond voice.

Unknown (Saeran)

Saeran doesn’t know how to comfort you, so he makes a dozen pancakes using the container of Bisquick you have into the cabinet and then shoves one into your face like a burrito.

“What was that for,” you ask, after you’ve managed to chew and swallow, and he just puts another directly into your mouth, effectively using it as a fluffy batter gag.

You eat that one too, staring directly at him the entire time.

“Are you feeling better,” he asks once you’re finished, and you reply that you’re mostly just really confused. 

One of the websites he’d read said that making pancakes for people was an expression of love, so he figured that would be enough to make you feel better, right?

You eat fruit to get better from a cold, so love should help you get better when you’re sad… right?

Right, you say, because Saeran is a prickly moron, but somehow his deranged antics make it hard to stay depressed.

Vanderwood

Vanderwood is really bad at this gooey, lovey-dovey shit, so when they notice you don’t have quite as much pep in your step as usual, they aren’t really sure what to do. They do know, however, that they should do something, so they decide to tell you a joke.

“Knock knock,” they say, and you do a bit of a double-take, because Vanderwood isn’t really the type. But you’re intrigued enough that it momentarily distracts you from what’s making you gloomy, so you ask, “Who’s there?”

“Etch.”

“…Etch… who?”

“Bless you,” they say, in a perfectly flat voice, and you laugh at how stupid it is.

“Knock knock,” they say again, hands in their pockets, and you’re delighted at this point.

“Who’s there?”

“Seven.”

“Seven who?”

They clear your throat. “Seven, you motherfucker, you know I don’t speak Arabic, so open your goddamn door.”

(You cover your face and snort.)

“Knock knock,” they say a third time, and you notice they look a bit shyer now.

“Who’s there?”

“Al.”

“Al who?”

“Al…” They rub their mouth, averting their eyes. “….Al give you a kiss if you open the door.”

You, sufficiently cheered up by this ridiculous display, peck them on the lips and thank them for being wonderfully embarrassing.

[viduamor-moved]

Ok but I'm seriously confused! Is Nat a ballerina? Or was fed in the false info that she's a ballerina after the whole serum thing? Pls explain

OF  LOVE  /  OF  DEATH.    hi there !!    don’t worry about being confused,     because canon hasn’t really done much in recent years to make it  NOT  confusing.     basically,    all the confusion that people have comes from all the retcons that have been done to natasha’s origin story over the years.    there’s basically  TWO WAYS  that one can view natasha’s backstory.    the FIRST origin story was that natasha was a ballet student in the bolshoi before she willingly joined the KGB.     the SECOND origin story,     which is the one that fanon & comic writers nowadays like to follow,     was that natasha was raised in the red room & brainwashed to believe she was a ballerina as a cover story to hide her being a covert ops agent.      i’m sure all of you know by now that i really quite DETEST the second version,    because it takes all agency from natasha & pretty much erases all the 20+ years of history that the comics established for her in the silver / bronze ages of comics from the 60′s - 80′s.     so,    since this blog prefers giving natasha the agency she deserves & the developed back story that wasn’t lazily put together by writers with a vendetta against russians having a conscience,     i prefer the first story,    which is canon for this portrayal.     BUT,    i do throw a little bit of the second one in just to tie up loose ends.     since i can’t walk into marvel’s hq & give an extensive powerpoint on why they’re all idiots,      here’s the basic origin that is canon for this blog:

ALSO,    a note before i actually get into things:   BALLERINA DOES NOT MEAN ANY FEMALE BALLET DANCER.     a ballerina ( or in full,    prima ballerina ) is the top female dancer in a ballet company.     any other dancer that does not hold the ballerina or ballerino title are simply ballet dancers.     this is a common misconception !!

natasha was born in 1928 in stalingrad,     russia.     she was orphaned during an imperialist attack,    & saved by a soviet soldier by the name of ivan petrovich.     he raised her until she was nine / ten years old,     put her in a soviet orphanage / training facility for youngsters wherein she stayed for about three years under the care of a taras romanov  ( who was not related to her or the dead royal family by blood )  until he was killed by logan howlett & she escaped into the wilderness.     ivan found natasha,    & continued to raise her as his own.    canon does not say exactly when she first took up dancing,     but i’d take a guess & say between the ages of 11-13.    she had to put her ballet aside when the germans broke the treaty with the soviets during world war 2,     & so she fought in the war against the germans,    fell in love with a boy named nikolai on the battlefield,     got pregnant but lost the child as well as nikolai & the rest of her squad in 1944.     she was 17 years old when the war ended in 1945.   when the war did end,     her & ivan remained together & basically worked as guns for hire or soldiers wherever they were needed.     but natasha did return to ballet as well as her studies,     & she was loyal to her practice & her instructor,     & quickly became the best student in the company,     as well as best scholarly student at whatever higher education schooling facility she was in.      NATASHA WAS TO BECOME PRIMA BALLERINA OF THE BOLSHOI,     but she joined the KGB to save ivan’s life & further serve her nation before she could officially take up the position.     her beloved instructor at the bolshoi,     oksana bolishinko,     gave her a medal as an indication of her love & value for natasha as an individual & as her best student,    & natasha still keeps the medal to this day.

in the red room,     though she remorsefully was no longer a ballet dancer,     they did brainwash her with a cover story that she still was a ballerina.     after all,     she had the skill,    & was allowed to keep that skill fresh with practice.     but,   regardless,     she only thought she was a ballerina at the time,    & was not indeed one when she was in the red room.      when she defected,     the brainwashing eventually crumbled & she did realize that she was brainwashed to believe she was ballerina in the red room,     but she also did acknowledge all the actual training she had before she joined the KGB.     & ever since,     she’s kept her skills alive with practice,      has used the ballet dancer cover from time to time,      & also dances in productions when she has the time.

regardless of how her mind was manipulated over the years,     ballet is still a passion of hers,     & even if she does use it for a cover story sometimes,      she loves to dance herself.

IT’S ART,    STEVE.     & ART IS FOR EVERYONE.     BUT MORE THAN THAT,     IT IS ABOUT THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY…  THE ASPIRATION THAT WITHIN US ALL,     WE ARE EACH CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING A MOMENT OF PERFECTION….    THE RIGHT MOVEMENT,     IN THE RIGHT MANNER,      AT THE RIGHT MOMENT.       natasha romanova,     captain america: sam wilson #7

keep in mind that the canon these days,     which has been retconned beyond recognition & belief,     holds to the raised & brainwashed by the red room story,     so if you’re wondering why everyone & their mom thinks this is canon despite all the history that’s been established in past decades,    it’s because technically it is canon.     but i say SCREW CANON.     paul cornell & marjorie liu were the last writers that remained loyal to natasha joining the red room herself,   & being an actual dancer,    but the last they wrote of natasha was in 2010.     natasha’s two most recent runs by nathan edmondson & mark waid  (2014,   2016,   respectively)  have abandoned that origin story & unfortunately retconned it the final time     if you want to read for yourself the comics from which i compiled all of the information for MY CANON,    you can find them here:

BLACK WIDOW:   DEADLY ORIGIN (2009).BLACK WIDOW:   NAME OF THE ROSE (2010).SOLO AVENGERS #7 (1988).     short story is in latter half of issue.CAPTAIN AMERICA: SAM WILSON #7 (2015).      short story is in the last ten pages of issue.

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