#honestly actors are a different breed i could never

[nameless-formless-entity]

watching cynthia interact with the thespians is so funny to me as a stage manager/lighting tech doing theater in college. cause like. actors are so much /pos. last semester i was apsming a show and the director INSISTED that the stage management team participate in all the bonding games and exercises at the start of the production. and one of the exercises was the meisner exercise they’re doing in rotpl. and my (and the psm’s) reaction to it was “this is weird and very, very silly, why are we staring into each others eyes talking about our hair color.” and the cast was so into it.

like it’s so clear to me that all of these actors are just grown up theater kids (affectionate) and i’m just trying to imagine how god damn hilarious it was for ari to have to act like they were absolutely baffled by everything they’ve been surrounded by (presumably) a good chunk of their life. and nim had to be so god damn serious about a high school play and i just can’t. imagine being at your job and having to act like that person from high school.

also nancy’s line about not being an actor and not respecting the profession while thinking she’d be great at it sent me. because like. can you imagine being on a film set FULL of actors, including yourself, and having to say that completely deadpan. i honestly don’t know how tricia didn’t lose it entirely.

[wisteria-lodge]

badger-flavored bird primary + bird secondary

Hi there. I’m fairly sure I’m a Bird Snake, but I’ve never submitted an “official” typing request, and I was wondering if you could SortMe? I structured this off the ask the other day that asked what a SortMe submission should look like.

When I was a kid I was quiet, kept to myself whilst wanting to join in groups of other kids playing. I liked solitary activities, and I could spend hours by myself doing something I liked, to the exclusion of the world around me. I read constantly, fiction and non-fiction. I was reading and writing from 3. Initially I wrote stories about concepts I thought were cool - one was a short story about a girl who sleepwalks out of her room at night and is lured into a machine by a Shadow Man that steals her shadow. I think I was about five when I wrote that lol. Then, because I wanted my parent’s approval, a performance aspect snaked in and I started quite early writing things designed to make the adults around me ooh and aah about how precocious it was. I pushed past my anxiety to perform (there was an aspect of the attention I got from adults there.) 

To preserve my own creative outlet, I secretly wrote fic for the different media I was entranced by at the time. I knew it wasn’t the kind of thing the adults would approve of. I learned to hide things quite young. 

Okay. I’m definitely seeing signs of an external focus that makes me think Badger or Bird primary (“wanting to join in groups of other kids playing” and “wanted my parent’s approval”) Like yes, those are universal human feelings, but you’re choosing to highlight them. 

I’m also definitely thinking either Bird or Snake secondary. There’s the “you” and then there’s the “you” you perform to solve a problem or get something. And you’re… fine with it. A Lion or a Badger would be chafing more. 

One of my absolute favourite pastimes was to go on to these old breed standard websites and read every profile A-Z of each breed within a domestic species, cat, dog, horse, etc, and pick out the ones I would have one day. I had a similar list-like enjoyment of dinosaurs, sharks, planets, rivers.

Well, it looks like you - as well as every other neurodivergent apparently - either has or models a Bird secondary. And I’m leaning towards you’re just a Bird secondary. The collector instinct, the love of lists… Bird secondary. 

There was something very pleasing about designing your own life. I thought if I got to Heaven, I would ask God to design my own world, so I might as well start planning before I died, lol. 

This, this right here might be the most Bird primary thing I have ever read. 

I was not athletic at all, but I had a daring streak. Not out of wanting to act out but for the pure adventure of it, I used to arrange small rebellions or capers (I tended to have a Best Friend or else usually just preferred one buddy to do things with). Once I innocuously invited myself over to my friend’s house out of nursery, smoothly eliding the facts so that her parents didn’t doubt I had my parent’s permission. They double-checked with my parents when I got there and my disgruntled parents arrived at dinner time, haha. 

You’re explaining to me all the planning that went into your first mini-heist, and also the things you overlooked that made it fail. And there definitely seems to be quite a bit of planning, or “arranging” going on. Bird.

I remember the motivation was wanting to eat a certain type of green pasta that I knew my friend’s mother made that I didn’t eat at home. 

Honestly, the way that it was so pre-meditated makes me think Bird secondary more than snake secondary. 

I loved dressing up and costume. 

Not conclusive on its own, but Actor Bird secondaries almost always have a real thing for costumes. 

I have an ear for accents, huge tracts of dialogue from movies. I could do this thing where I’d watch a movie I liked intently, then when I was bored I’d access that movie in my mind and watch that inside my head. I had to learn to stop doing things like that, because watching the mental movies meant I would kind of zone out totally for hours (cos the movie was on! everyone shut up I’m watching my movies) and other kids found it weird. Learning What Other Kids Found Weird was a rough ride. I tried hard to learn the rules, although I was constantly frustrated by how one rule would contradict another and how shallow or hypocritical they were. 

Tell me about it. I did the movie thing too, although in my case it tended to be more radio plays from the 40s. Still use it to get myself to sleep sometimes. But all that really tells me is that you’re neurodivergent, which we knew. 

Discovering Pirates of the Caribbean at ten-ish changed my absolute entire existence completely and totally. That - THAT - is what I wanted to be. I loved POTC so much I wrote pages and pages of self-indulgent fanfic, before I discovered the existence of fic on deviantart (in search of yet more of POTC beyond my well-worn DVD set).

Seriously, are you me? What WAS it about that movie. It can’t have been all the Lion primary stuff, because I really don’t think you’re a Lion primary. 

I love to cook. Say, I ordered the shopping and the chicken arrives, but it’s skin-on bone-in thighs, not the fillets I ordered. Immediately I pull up a database of skin-on bone-in thighs in my head, and I see if the ingredients I have can be made into a dish. No? OK, what’s the expiry on the ingredients I have. What can I make today that will satisfy the household, whilst using up the stuff I bought that will spoil soon? Curry? Soup? Ah, tacos! I can freeze the chicken (which goes into the mental database as something I have stocked for when I do want skin-on bone-in chicken), and use the other ingredients to make taco filling, and finally use up those tacos in the cupboard that have been sat there for an age. Ahh. A win-win, no losses. My favourite type of win.   

Bird, bird, bird, bird. Rapid-fire Bird secondary.

This may sound irrelevant, but this is why I hate stuff like maths. In maths problems, you can’t use the numbers you have to hand. You have to find new numbers. OK, where? Well, you have to use the pre-existing methods to find the numbers you need. OK, but what if I don’t know the pre-existing methods? Or, what if I know one, but it’s not complete? Can’t I use what I know from working out half the problem to put together the pieces for the rest? NOPE, and you also fail the WHOLE question, because if you don’t use pre-existing method 9.0 AB345 then you show you haven’t understood the question and you FAIL. At this point I tear up my paper into shreds and eat them like a hamster. Then I go into English and study stuff that makes sense, like the equal weight of context and content, because only a sociopath believes in rigid, unequivocal methods. 

I’m a humanities teacher, not a math teacher, so I’m going to do my best to understand and re-phrase your problem. I think you’re bothered by the fact that you’re being forced to use a specific method, instead of coming at it sideways in the way it makes sense for you (because of course you’re right, there are so many ways to solve any math problem) you have to follow a very rigid series of steps. (Half of which seems unnecessary because your brain just does that.) All that tells me is that you weren’t taught math in the right way. 

This love of English and interest in the “equal weight of context and content” does speak to kind of a love of social engineering, that absolutely seems to come out in the way you deal with people.

When I’m making a difficult decision, first I consult my ethics. What is the most correct principle that my belief system tells me fits this case? Like a lawyer choosing the exact precedent for their case, this isn’t always a straightforward decision. I have to sift through competing belief systems in order to align with the right one - perhaps in order, it would go; religion> basic moral compass> rules I have written for myself. 

You wrote a flow chart. You’re a Bird primary. 

Usually, the correct principle is one that melds with my sense of self-preservation, my morality, the objective truth (or…subjective in my case, as I’ve decided my religion is the baseline of morality, but as that is as deep as my lifeblood I don’t tamper with that.) I would also consult internal systems to make sure I am landing on a decision that takes myself into account, so I can carry out the principle without breaking my back. 

That’s good to hear, especially because your built System seems pretty Badger-flavored (focus on community and community beliefs) and as we know, leaving yourself out of your assessment of the situation is absolutely a Badger primary tendency. 

Once I’ve done this, my mind is pretty set, and execution is the stuff I have to chew through next. I sometimes have red flags for certain decisions I make depending on the topic - this can be a person, for example I trust X with nearly everything, but I know not to trust them when making a decision on Y. These notes that I’ve made are very sound and I nearly always lose if I go against them - usually when I’m in a weaker mental or emotional state and my systems are blurry and grey-er. 

Bird primaries are still very much people, and this ^ is a good example of the way they DON’T follow their own System all the time. But they still want to, and following the system makes them feel strong and safe, and that’s what makes them Bird primaries. 

This is probably why I’m bad at giving specific examples for things - or job interviews! My reasoning is so subjective to myself I feel dishonourable to use my decision-making process as a standard for a situation. My reasoning and ethics are tailored to a set of situations, and those situations in the set may not resemble each other at all. I am the constant. So….maybe don’t rely on what I did off one data point? 

It’s unethical to give an example, because that’s only one (inherently flawed) data point, and the only correct thing would be to give me ALL the data points. 

I kinda think that *only* a Double Bird could have written that? Am I wrong? 

In my favorite fantasy, I am a survivor in a commune/closed community/fiefdom situation in a post-apocalyptic/high-stakes scenario that survives on my intellect, charm and ability to adapt to my situation. Within the commune is a peaceful community well protected by the walls, and I am a soldier/town librarian that keeps the people safe whilst cultivating a beautiful space to live inside the commune and protecting the innocent who come to our door, often making tough decisions where other people fail. The horrors of the world wax and wane outside the walls - we are making our own place out of beauty and love for humanity, and we stay strong. The travels and missions and relationships I have outside of the commune keep me grounded in reality and add a spark of adventure to my life.   

The fantasy is to have a closed system that you take care of (VERY Badger-flavored Bird) and you take care of it by making the tough, correct calls - which you so by using your skills, your social engineering, and your ability to pivot. (Very Rapid-fire bird.) 

Seriously, if you don’t watch Star Trek TNG, watch TNG. You’d really vibe with Picard. 

When I saw about what character do you really identify with… Man, this is gonna sound like such an ego trip, but - Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is a merry wizard, who travels Middle Earth making friendships with people he’s not supposed to be friends with and making trouble. He can be awkward, cryptic, naive, belligerent, put his foot in it, storm off and have a temper. He can also be wise, generous, deeply human, see everybody on the same level and lead his fellow creatures out of very dark places. He isn’t forgiven easily for his mistakes - the stakes are high, and when he slips up (like in the mines, like when he trusts Saruman, when he is unable to prevent Faramir from riding to battle…) there are consequences that hurt him. He also isn’t afraid to lie or garnish the truth to get what he needs - but his desires are rarely purely for his own benefit.

Okay. Gandalf is *very* powerful, and he’s very capable, and knowledgable. He’s a Bird secondary fantasy. Communities value and love him, but he’s not part of a community himself (this was also the case with the apocalyptic fiefdom scenario.) So the fantasy is not the community, the fantasy is protecting the community. Which would make me double down on Badger-flavored-Bird rather than actual Badger. If the Bird primary hadn’t already been like, really really obvious. 

What makes me feel powerful? Being able to, out of pure cunning, publicly present the unarguable facts with the sheer power of moral force, and win - that’s the stuff. And I don’t just mean public speaking, or sitting at the table and making the final, right decision. I mean wearing a pretty dress and knowing you are having exactly the effect you desired to have. It’s being seen, and then being celebrated, whilst you are in control.

You’re low-key using Snake secondary language (”cunning”) but the fantasy here is so Bird. ‘I want to have SO much information, and judge the space I’m going into so well, that I can go in and have *exactly* the effect I want… and KNOW I’m having the effect I want, in the moment.

[lemonnsss]

Eli Moskowitz x Male!Theatre Kid!Reader Headcanons

A/N: Sorry this isn’t a fic, I’ve been sick all week and I’m now starting to get over it, I plan to have the fic matching up with the HCs soon. Sidenote: I might make a part two. Without further ado

•Eli’s favorite musical has to be the phantom of the opera. I mean it gives an accurate representation of how shitty it is living with significant scarring in our society

•But TPotO’s soundtrack isn’t his favorite, that would be Heathers

•And even before y’all had met, Eli knew all of the lyrics to the entire soundtrack 

•When he heard that your school was doing Heathers this season he was so excited

•When it came time to go through… a completely different story

•Dimitri had to haul his ass back to school so he could watch it with his friend

•He was so nervous to go to the showing because he was scared that one of his karate bros would see him walk in and mock him for it

•Much to his surprise Miguel, Aisha, and Moon are all there and are about as shocked to see him as he is to see them

•Mrs. LaRusso would drag along all of the LaRussos there as well, just in a different section (We all know she supports the school & its students, even if she is a bit mortified after ‘Dead Girl Walking’)

•Even though he feels like he doesn’t need to be so guarded because he knows his karate bros are there and won’t mess with him he's still struggling trying not to sing (this man's initiative ended the moment ‘Fight For Me’ started)

•And when he first sees you, up on the stage, his eyes are glued to your figure. Mentally saying something along the lines of, “How can someone be confident enough to do that?”

•Babe, theatre kids are a whole ass different breed when it comes to being on stage

•Ngl thinks you’re really cute - everyone can tell

•When you look out into the audience during, ‘Me Inside of Me’ you don't expect to see anyone looking at only you, then you see him. 

•His eyes shine brightly with wonder, admiration, and attraction - so much so that you have to look away because of how flushed you are.

•Ram’s actor is just looking at you like you’re fucking crazy, “Bro, I thought Kurt’s actor and I were supposed to be the ay ones? Weird.” 

•After the show Eli always, and I mean always, checks when the next musical is gonna happen and what it’ll be

•The next show is Sweeney Todd, and this boy is excited

•When opening night hit he was practically vibrating with excitement

•Something he didn’t take into account is the burning rage he felt during the “Kiss Me” scene

•He ended up leaving early so he wouldn’t have to see you kiss someone (that wasn’t him)

•Later he felt bad for feeling that possessive and jealous over someone who wasn’t even his. It was then and there that he decided that the next time he saw you, he would ask you out

•Luckily for him when school starts up again the two of you share several classes

•And he never ended up asking you out every time he walked near your direction he chickened out

•Can anyone guess what happened after that…  he started dating moon 

•During their relationship, you never really ended up talking to him, although you were pretty good friends with Moon before the two of them started dating

•After Moon broke up with him though her immediate reaction was to call you and tell you he was single (and also to ask him out when he stopped acting like a dumbass)

•Once he started acting like he had a brain again one of the first things you did was ask him out

•Thank fucking God you did because  he would never, honestly he was so shocked that you’d even consider him after all the dumb shit he’d done

•I mean, honestly, why would any guy like you get involved with someone like him

•He ends up standing there so long that you think he’s rejecting you

•So once you start walking away he pipes up, “Golf N’Stuff, Saturday, 6 P.M. don’t be late,” to which you just nod your head

•He ends up being a few minutes late because of practice

•And y’all know that the entire dojo is non-discreetly stalking the two of you throughout the entire date until the two of you split up for the night

[herorps]

shadow and bone and racism

shadow and bone just came out so i can now finally break my silence bc holy shit do they go ham on the racism and me being me, i just have to tell you all about it. possible spoilers and triggers for anti-asian racism and microaggressions.

to preface, i was very privileged to receive a screener for the entire first season last month and i was actually excited to watch it bc i have friends who love the books and the show piqued my interest since it was announced. and i also have to say that i never read the books and i probably never will ( tho i’ve been told i would like soc ) but i did like the show overall. 

i think sab is a good adaptation and that the fans will like this show. i thoroughly enjoyed it and as someone who had very little to almost no knowledge about the books, i didn’t have trouble keeping up with the fantastical world. 

however that doesn’t mean i can’t be critical of it. 

i think the show can actually benefit from people being critical about it because so far, it feels like they took a very tone deaf direction and ran a marathon with it. 

what i’m talking about, is alina starkov being half-shu. 

now, i said before that my interest was piqued for this show when it was announced and one of the major reasons is the casting of biracial actress, jessie mei li, in the role of alina starkov. i can’t tell you how happy i was to see that a half-chinese actress was cast as the lead in a series based on such a beloved ip, especially since the creators of the show consciously changed alina’s ethnicity to be half-shu before casting calls were even sent out. ( for those of you who are also non-book readers, shu is the race of people from the country, shu han, and is based off primarily mongolian and chinese cultures ) 

so i was endeared with the idea that this character, that is coded white, was deliberately changed to be coded asian ( and coded mixed race to boot ) because the producers wanted to include diversity into the show. i commend that, i love that, i support that. but i believe the way they handled it, shouldn’t have been the way they handled it. and it’s because alina’s race is constantly brought up. 

obviously of course race is going to be brought up at some point. alina in the show is surrounded by white people when we first see her, and her home country of ravka does have a hostile history with shu han----i get it. racism is going to play a part in alina’s story. but it doesn’t necessarily need to go so far as to constantly remind the audience that she is shu in almost every interaction she has with someone she meets. 

and that’s a big part of the issue, is that nearly everyone she meets will bring up the fact that she’s part-shu. and a lot of the time, it’s said with hostility. now i’m not exactly sure if i’m just being particularly sensitive because of certain recent events, but the anti-asian racism hits differently these days. idk. 

because that’s what it is, at the end of the day. it’s racism. alina is often the target of very hostile racism and it seems to mainly be directed at her character and her character only. 

and honestly, on a surface level it makes sense, i sort of understand what the producers are trying to do. ravka has a turbulent history with shu han and were involved in wars with them and they’re often seen as the enemy so obviously that would affect a shu-mixed person growing up in ravka, a very white country. but on a deeper level, it reminds me a lot of the anti-japanese sentiments during wwii. the production team even created a banner that i felt called back to those anti-japanese propaganda of that era. ( mind you it was shown multiple times, in main focus, and acknowledged by characters that were coded shu ) 

but on the other hand, they’ve done a considerable job to diversify at least the ethnic makeup of ravka. there are black and brown grisha at the school and there are people of different cultures ( noted by costuming, etc. ) in ketterdam and there’s even a shu-appearing trainer that teaches the grisha to fight. so my question is, why is this very hostile treatment primarily geared toward shu people and geared toward alina specifically? it just doesn’t make sense to me. 

and when i say it’s specifically geared toward alina, i mean that it’s very apparent that they’re targeting her specifically, because mal  ( played by a possibly mixed-race archie renaux ) is also coded to be of mixed shu blood. while it is not explicitly stated that mal is shu, it is heavily implied that he is mixed, but he is never subject to the treatment that alina is, and the only times he is subject to racism is when alina is also present. in scenes where we see alina and mal as kids, they are often both referred to as “mutts” or “half-breeds”. but when they are older, only alina is continuously called those things. 

this isn’t even touching the microaggressions she faces after she’s at grisha school and this one line that made my gut wrench so viscerally i had to pause the episode and replay the part so i could confirm what i heard. [ episode 3 spoiler warning ] i’m trying to avoid posting screenshots or from spoiling parts of the show but there’s a scene where alina is being cleaned up and made presentable by servants and one of them says “I’d start by making her eyes less Shu.” [ end episode 3 spoiler ] i don’t think i have to explain to anyone how offensive that is. and i understand that the intention was to show how racist this servant is, that the entire point of of this weird racism plot is to show how the people of ravka can be racist and ignorant, but to have that line be written by a white writer, approved by a white showrunner and said by a white character to the face of an asian actor/character feels very tactless. it feels like another antagonist alina has to go against is racism itself. 

what also turns me off about this scene is that jessie mei li revealed that this scene is what actresses had to audition with. “...the sides that they sent for the audition, like Alina is talking to Genya and they’re talking about her eyes and they’re talking about her Shu ancestry.” having actresses of mixed-asian ancestry come in and act out that scene for white producers doesn’t really sit right with me. and i know that there’s an argument to be had about how it’s important to show the minutia of what it’s like to be ethnic in a world ruled by white supremacy and that it’s important to show how alina’s race affects her story, but i don’t think that going this far is necessary to the development of plot or character. 

and i don’t personally know jml, i don’t know how she feels about the show apart from what she’s probably briefed to talk about in interviews, but it is perfectly valid for me to feel iffy about the microaggressions while she feels that it’s necessary for character development ( again, this is just an example, i have no clue what she thinks of the racism ). our experiences are different, our upbringings are different, but we’re both happy to see representation and i’m happy that she’s happy to see an actual mixed-chinese character on screen as the lead. 

i’m glad that the producers were open to diversity and were open to making the lead a person of color, but it’s things like the treatment of shu characters and exchanges like “Tell her...Oh, I don’t know...good morning.” “I don’t actually speak Shu.” and “I didn’t know the Zemeni had such talent.” “She’s Suli.”  ( zemeni is a race of “dark-skinned” people and suli are coded south asian/mena/wena so this exchange is just white people mixing the brown people up )  that remind me the majority of the writers and producers are white. 

now i’m not saying that you should boycott the show or that this show is the most problematic thing to ever grace my retinas, because i really enjoyed watching it and i want to see what season 2 has in store ( more crows content please ). but, i want you all to please keep all of this in mind when you watch the series and think critically of what kinds of unconscious biases these producers had. you’re allowed to have nuanced opinions, you’re allowed to be critical of the media you enjoy so long as you understand where some people’s criticisms are coming from---where my criticisms are coming from. i just hope in future seasons the treatment of alina gets better and that she actually learns to love her shu side because otherwise it’s just going to be problematic as the show continues. 

[tobi-smp]

Headcanon anon here:

Thanks for the quick answer!

I totally agree that "No explicit yes means no" is not something that I wish was a fandom wide attitude.

The reason I said the dream smp was "Rpf" was bit badly phrased. What I meant was that we look at real faces through facecam. So every fanart etc of c!Tommy often portays the appearance of cc!Tommy.

If I were to use actors as example: "If I make Spiderman fanart he would look like Tom holland but Tom Holland isn't Spiderman (cuz spiderman is not real)"

And that's where most of my culture shock comes from "How much should I use another person's appearance when making headcanons or the like"

It's one of the main reasons I like white streak Tommy designs the they put a sort of distance between the actor and the character.

Or tubbo scar designs.

context: [Link]

of course !! I imagine I'm probably answering this one a bit slower since I was away from my computer when it was sent, but I usually try to answer asks right when I see them (I unfortunately tend to forget otherwise fjkdsl)

and don't worry, I didn't think that you specifically meant it that way, it was just my thoughts on it in general in this context as an extension of the previous conversation. I think it's a very respectful stance to take

that said, you did mention that you weren't in a lot of fandoms that used real actors, so I understand how that'd feel different but I don't necessarily agree.

not in that you aren't right about c!tommy fanart being based, at least in part, on cc!tommy's design. but in the idea that that's unique to this medium (which I don't think you were implying as a hard rule or anything, just that it feels different to you).

dream smp character designs are, at their core, fleshed out versions of their avatars. people tend to borrow heavily from the real people to fill in those gaps because of how Simple minecraft avatars are, but in that sense you could say that dream smp is half animated.

dream smp character designs are some of the most diverse I've seen in any other fandom. while other fandoms have people who push the canon designs on purpose, dream smp has both a simplified canvas And a complex reference with both acting as Suggestions which breeds creativity.

tommy's one of the most consistent characters throughout because his avatar is based on him (same with wilbur). which means that any abstraction of his real face is going to bare some resemblance to a more complicated version of his minecraft skin, at least in the broad strokes. and people are likely to take influence at any rate because it's an easy reference guide. a spit fire kid with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a red and white shirt. simple, recognizable.

but then line different versions of that design up next to each other, and you have a world a variation. put those designs in context of how those artists draw other characters and its pushed even Further.

face shape, height, body type, clothing designs, hair design and length, eye shape, how he caries himself, the impact the world has had on him, all of it can come through without changing the core of what makes tommy recognizable as himself. that's honestly what makes dream smp so brilliant. a million different dream designs ranging from "normal guy" to "eldritch monster" and I've never had a moment where I didn't recognize him as himself because they had the markers of the simple avatar in them.

c!tommy is very often shorter than cc!tommy, sometimes just by comparison to the Enormous hybrids and monster designs around him, sometimes because he just is short. this is used to highlight his age in comparison to other characters, to make him Look younger and Feel more vulnerable. whether that's in service of making him the spitfire underdog child, or the starving abuse victim under dream's palm in logsted.

he's near universally given scars of all types, from his death, from the wars, from logsted. his chin is drawn without the divot he has in real life more often than it is with. his hair has gotten longer and longer in fanart ever since exile. he'll be given things like prosthetics, things like freckles. there's a million human ways to make c!tommy differ from cc!tommy without looking entirely separate from him.

that's not even getting into the wealth of Inhuman design choices. there isn't one cohesive design like there are with other characters (certainly not ones that've overtaken the human design like there have been with other characters) but that leaves the door open for creativity and there's a Lot of it.

raccooninnit, avianinnit, moobloom, mooshroom, mothinnit, devil horns and tail, post-revival zombififcation, Tons And Tons of little creature designs (which I'm happy to report had a sharp uptick after it was hinted that tommy could've been made in a lab), etc.

you'll see other fandoms make monster aus, but I've Never seen any other fandom go "this character is a goat actually" and keep up with it so consistently that the guy writing and acting that character goes "if you say so," and yet here we are. this fandom is In Love with creature designs and I'm right there along with all of them.

of course, this is all the more pronounce in characters without face cams or with characters whose avatars aren't human to begin with. it's so rare to see techno designs based on the real man that they just look Wrong to me when I see them. and antfrost is cat, don't think I have to expand on that one.

I think we're more Used to see streamers faces (provided they have fan cams) because the medium means that they stream for hundreds of hours with a camera pointed at their face. if you watch enough of one streamer you're going to be more familiar with them than you are for a character in a movie you like. but as far as the designs themselves they're honestly much more varied and Free than most other fandoms are, even ones that aren't live action (maybe even especially ones that aren't live action).

doesn't mean that you have to feel any different about it of course

[penname-artist]

You know what while I’m looking at those horse AU designs-

- Cabbie most likely is a lot whiter than the design I gave him. He’s likely that kind of grey that grows lighter and lighter as he ages, and considering he’s, what...fuck I have no idea, “old”, let’s just call it what it is, he would be light enough that if he did have dapples they would be extremely faint. My gut tells me he would also be way stockier, likely Percheron or Shire (although I need to double check that Shires can be dappled, otherwise totally just going with Percheron). I’m keeping the short-cut mane and tail because that also makes a lot of sense, and if/when I redesign I’ll need to add scarring. Big boy’s been in some fights after all.

- Windlifter is probably a cross between an Appaloosa and a larger draft because otherwise he wouldn’t really be that tall. But I could see him being like an Appaloosa warmblood of some kind, I’ll have to see what’s out there in terms of what the coldblood breed is. I went with that dark brown-grey since horses aren’t, you know...green...but honestly I might change it to a bay. His hair is also easily the longest of the team members, they’ve probably never cut it but they might braid it up oftentimes (listen we are fully ignoring the fact that as a mounted rescue team their ruling is likely the same as mounted police because if that were the case none of them could be under 16hh, they had to be only geldings, and they would have to have their manes cut short. But I’m gonna have my fun, damn it). He probably also wears painted markings on his body.

- Blade was likely a television show horse before mounted rescue so he’s likely trained some otherwise “odd” things. If you’ve ever seen videos of actor horses, they teach some really interesting things to them like how to look out of control while also perfectly controlled, everything from head tossing to rearing and bucking to making a fake lunge at someone. (Note: not all TV horses are trained that way but the good ones are done right. Otherwise *cough cough* most horse trainers are fucking stupid *cough*) Not that those come in handy to his different line of work, but they’re probably still in there somewhere.

(I’ll make more observations later lol)

[noona-clock]

What’s Your Sign?: Aquarius

Genre: Future/Space!AU

Pairing: Yunhyeong x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: None

Words: 6,180

Author’s Note: Since I’m so fascinated by astrology, I decided to do a Zodiac series! I will be writing a one-shot fic for each sign featuring different members from different groups (and even an actor!). Each story will be posted on the 5th of the month during that sign’s season. Please reblog, comment, or send in an ask with your feedback! Thank you for your support 💜

Yunhyeong’s eyes blinked open as the soft trilling of his alarm clock began to gently float through the air, and as he did every morning, he forced himself to sit up to decrease the chances he would fall back asleep.

As the alarm began to get slightly louder as the seconds passed by, Yunhyeong cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak the first words he spoke every morning: “Computer, turn off alarm.”

The trilling cut off and the eerie silence of outer space settled in his bedroom.

Honestly, he should be used to the absolute quietude of being in space, but... somehow, he wasn’t. It still put him on edge and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Computer, what’s the weather like on Earth?” he asked as he swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood up, sliding his feet into his slippers.

“Please specify a location,” the computer replied, and even though it was literally a computer, Yunhyeong was pretty sure he detected a hint of sass in its tone.

“All right... how about... Paris?”

“Please specify. There are fifty-three locations on Earth named ‘Paris.’”

Yunhyeong pursed his lips in slight annoyance before retorting, “What’s the weather like in Paris, France?”

“It is currently three degrees Celsius in Paris, France, with a 36% chance of precipitation, 68% humidity, and winds of 14 km/h.”

Well, it certainly didn’t spark any romantic images of the City of Love in his head, but it was interesting to know, at least.

I guess.

“Thank you, Computer,” Yunhyeong murmured as he turned around and bent to make his bed.

He didn’t start every morning asking the computer in his living quarters what the weather was like on a prominent Earth city, but maybe now he would. Maybe he would have to add that into his usual morning routine, right in-between getting out of bed and smoothing his sheets down over his mattress.

I mean, it had been a full two years since he’d lived on this space station, so it was probably time for a small change... right?

As long as the change didn’t get in the way of his research, of course. That’s the whole reason he was out here in the first place, alone on a privately-funded space station: to research and, hopefully, breed new species of plants.

Climate change was (and had been) really taking a toll on Earth, but technology in the last few decades had allowed most, if not all, humans to immigrate to various other planets and space stations in the Alpha quadrant. But living in space and on non-Earth planets meant having to figure out whole new ways to farm and live off the land -- even when there was no actual land.

So, Yunhyeong had been delegated by the government to conduct research and experiments on a fully-equipped space station to try and grow new edible plants.

It sounded boring, yes, but it really wasn’t! I mean -- not for him, at least, because Yunhyeong loved to cook. More than anything, really, he loved cooking.

He just felt at home in the kitchen, and nothing excited him more than experimenting with ingredients and coming up with new recipes. Even if the dish turned out to be basically inedible, he never felt defeated or like he should just give up. On the contrary, cooking energized him! And it felt that much better when he got a recipe right.

Honestly, that’s the only reason Yunhyeong had accepted this position even though it had meant living by himself for... who knows how long? 

He was an outgoing extrovert, but being constantly alone was overshadowed by the fact he was constantly cooking and growing his own ingredients -- and being paid for it!

...Still, though. Sometimes he did have to admit that it would be nice to have some company. Someone with different taste buds who could try his recipes and give real feedback.

When he’d asked his manager why it had to be a solo mission, the reasoning had made sense: adding another person into the mix increased the probability for conflict, and it was pretty vital that Yunhyeong stay focused on his end goal.

Totally understandable.

But that didn’t stop him from daydreaming at night just before he fell asleep.

We... won’t get into that, though. The day had just started, after all!

After making his bed (and, today, hearing about the weather in Paris, France), Yunhyeong ducked into his closet to change into one of his government-issued suits. All of his clothes were basically the same, and while it had bothered him a bit after first moving here, he’d gotten over it pretty quickly. No one else was here to see him, so what did it really matter what he wore? The clothes he’d been given were perfectly fine, and he would have plenty of time to dress a bit more flashily once he returned home.

As he always did, Yunhyeong quickly but thoroughly brushed his teeth after getting dressed, ran a comb through his hair, then set off toward his hydroponics lab.

Once he began his work -- taking cuttings of new plants that were growing, jotting down observations of changes which had happened overnight, experimenting with the sand from a nearby planet and seeing how its cellular structure changed when different liquids were added to it -- he realized that today would be just a typical day. Another day as same as the ones before it.

It had actually been quite silly of him to think that something so trivial as asking about the weather conditions on Earth would somehow have an effect on his day.

Except... it kind of had. Nothing major, of course. He still got his work done as he always did, and he was still incredibly focused. But he also found his mind had been slipping, daydreaming about Paris, France -- especially centuries ago when films were in black and white and men walked around in suits with hats every day. 

Paris back then seemed so romantic, didn’t it? He imagined the whole city had a sort of candlelit glow about it even though there had definitely been electricity at that time. But candlelight made it dreamier and, even though he was a botanist by trade, Yunhyeong was a total sucker for anything dreamy.

(Did this have something to do with the fact that an old girlfriend had once told him he had very dreamy eyes? Perhaps.)

By the time his mid-day meal break rolled around, he’d gotten plenty of work done and made plenty of progress with his modified Thyme plant; he also found that the almost-ancient song “La Vie en Rose” had become stuck in his head.

Since he didn’t have to work for the next hour or so, Yunhyeong asked the computer to play the song through the station’s intercom system.

A warm but immediate thrill emanated through him as he heard the opening notes, and he told himself he would have to play music more often -- any music. He hadn’t realized until just now how lifeless this space station truly was. 

He lived here, but was he really living?

It’s not like he expected this situation to turn into some sort of romantic film where a beautiful stranger happened to be passing by and fell in love with him at first sight. He was level-headed enough to realize that would never happen! 

But he could still have fun, couldn’t he? Off the clock, of course. His job was too important and time-sensitive to risk losing focus because he wanted to have more fun.

No, he could absolutely wait until he’d finished work for the day before turning on some music and letting loose.

Oh, boy, he could just imagine it now: some good music flowing through the intercom -- maybe some Jazz music. A nice glass of wine. And his mother had sent him a very nice pair of silk pajamas recently that he hadn’t yet worn --

...Wow.

He was, apparently, at the age where jazz music, wine, and silk pajamas was considered “fun.”

Wonderful.

But, to be fair! He was in outer space! On a space station! By himself! Growing plants for a living! What other kind of fun could there be?!

It’s not like he could just go out to a restaurant or a club with some friends and --

A sudden and very loud banging interrupted his thoughts, and Yunhyeong was so startled that he almost dropped his glass of water.

His brow furrowed immediately as he took a few steps out of his kitchen, craning his neck past the doorway to look toward the entrance to the station.

The station didn’t really have a “front door,” per se, but for all intents and purposes, someone had just knocked on his front door.

More than knocked, actually. They sounded like they wanted to smash the door right off its hinges!

“Who in the world could that be?” Yunhyeong muttered to himself as he cautiously crept toward the entrance. He hadn’t received word that a supervisor was coming for an evaluation or anything, and he couldn’t imagine someone would come all the way out here for an unannounced visit.

Just as he reached the keypad to unlock the inner door, his mysterious visitor knocked loudly again, though they sounded more desperate this time.

Yunhyeong quickly typed in the code, and after hearing the hiss of the door unlocking, he turned the handle and opened it.

You rushed in as soon as the gap was wide enough, barreling past Yunhyeong and nearly knocking him over.

“Whoa!” he cried, startled and very, very confused. “Who --”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain,” you answered after you’d just barely come to a halt a few feet away from him. “But the police are probably going to be here soon, and I need you to tell them you don’t know anything, okay? You’ve never seen me before. Where can I hide?”

Yunhyeong stared at you, blinking slowly in astonishment.

...What?

“I -- I’m sorry?” he stammered.

“Where can I hide?” you repeated, your voice hurried but quiet. “Please, I must hide. I’m fairly certain they’ll be here any minute now.”

“...Who?”

“The police! I just --” you hissed, though you stopped yourself short and took a deep breath. “I can explain everything later, I just need somewhere to hide.”

Yunhyeong stared at you some more, and now that you weren’t blabbering on about hiding from the police (seriously?! Hiding from the police?!) he was able to take a few moments and gather up the situation in his head.

You -- a complete and total stranger, of that he was sure -- had just showed up at his space station asking to hide from the police.

...This couldn’t be real. Right?

And what made it even more unbelievable was the fact that you were actually quite beautiful.

If he had to be totally honest, your attractiveness was one of the very first things he’d noticed.

He was an adult male who’d been living entirely alone for an extended period of time, okay?! Can you blame him for noticing that someone was incredibly pleasing to look at?!

But then his thoughts of your looks were interrupted by his thoughts of what you’d said.

You needed somewhere to hide, and even though he absolutely should not let you hide in a government-issued space station... his romantic sensibilities took over.

I mean, hadn’t he just been thinking a very short while ago about a beautiful stranger somehow appearing on the station?! And how he’d never considered that it would actually happen because things like that don’t ever happen in real life?

But it was happening now! A beautiful stranger had somehow appeared on the station!  You were most likely a criminal, and there was a very good chance he would lose his job if anyone ever found out he’d helped you...

But, I mean, come on. You can’t blame him for thinking this was just a tad exciting!

So... yes, he was going to help you! And if you ended up staying here and falling in love with him, then so be it!

“My lab,” he said, nodding toward the door behind you.

You let out a soft breath and murmured a thank you before turning on your heel and darting into the room.

He followed you, pointing out the small storage room where he kept his extra equipment and watching carefully as you rushed over to it.

As soon as the door slid closed behind you, there was yet another knock at the station’s entrance.

Yunhyeong’s eyes widened slightly for two reasons: 1) He hadn’t had any visitors in a very long time, and now, all of a sudden, he was about to have two? 2) You had been eerily correct about the police showing up any minute -- if this was, in fact, the police. 

He wasn’t sure who else it would be, so he made a hasty retreat out of his lab and back toward the entrance.

Again, he quickly typed in the code to open the door, and he had just barely touched the handle before the new visitor -- or visitors -- let themselves in.

“Excuse us, Sir,” said a middle-aged but very fit man in an Intergalactic Police uniform. “I’m very sorry to disturb you, but we’re looking for a wanted criminal and thought we’d tracked her down to this area.”

Yunhyeong gulped, nervous that he wasn’t a good enough liar to help keep your cover. But he would do his best!

“A -- a wanted criminal?” he asked as he knit his eyebrows together in worried confusion. “What -- no, I haven’t seen anyone. It’s just me here. I haven’t had any visitors for... well, quite some time. Or ever, really. I’m doing government research, you see, so I don’t really have time for anything except my work.”

The policeman nodded slowly, and the younger woman in uniform behind him let out a short huff of breath, obviously frustrated their lead hadn’t taken them any closer to catching you.

“Understood,” the woman murmured before adding. “So sorry to bother you, Sir. If you catch word of anything, please contact us as soon as you possibly can. We believe she should be considered armed and dangerous.”

...Excuse me?

Yunhyeong’s mouth fell open slightly, and his brain was starting to yell at him to tell these police officers the truth. He hadn’t seen any weapons on you when you’d come in, and you had certainly seemed more panicked than dangerous... but they were saying quite the opposite!

Except... he hadn’t seen any weapons on you when you’d come in. 

If he remembered correctly, which he had to assume he did since you had just come in a few minutes ago, you weren’t wearing large or baggy clothing, so there really wasn’t any place to hide a weapon -- unless it was a very small weapon. In that case, Yunhyeong felt almost confident that he could manage to take it from you somehow.

Plus, your beauty was definitely clouding his judgement, and he wanted to get the chance to actually talk to you before letting you go and never seeing you again.

So, instead of coming clean and being a useful, helpful citizen, Yunhyeong simply nodded. “Yes, of course,” he assured the officers. “I will keep an eye out.”

The officers turned to leave, but the man stopped before he could turn around all the way.

“Actually, would you mind if we just did a quick search?” he asked in a very polite tone. “Just protocol, of course. Plus, she might have beamed in without you knowing, and we wouldn’t want to leave without knowing for sure you’re not in any danger.”

Yunhyeong raised his eyebrows but then took a step to the side and extended his arm out into the station to allow them inside. “Please, be my guest.”

The female officer headed back toward the kitchen where he’d been putting together his lunch not even ten minutes ago while the male officer basically made a beeline for his lab.

“Ah, that --” Yunhyeong said, following him and peering into his lab over the man’s shoulder. “That’s my lab.”

“What did you say you do again?” the officer asked curiously.

“I’m doing research,” Yunhyeong answered. “Plant research. For the government.”

The officer let out a low hum of understanding and continued to stand there, presumably eyeing his equipment and searching the room for any signs of an intruder.

But the longer he stood there, the more quickly Yunhyeong’s heart began to beat.

Finally, the officer took a step back and turned on his heel to search other areas of the station.

Yunhyeong let out a soft breath as soon as the officer was out of sight then went back to the station entrance to wait for them to finish.

After only about five minutes, both officers met him at the door, thanked him for his cooperation, and wished him a nice day before stepping into the small chamber separating the inside of his station from the void of outer space and beaming themselves out.

Yunhyeong closed the inner door, turning the handle to lock it and letting out an anxious breath. But he didn’t have time to lean back against the door and gather his thoughts because there was currently a wanted criminal hiding in his lab.

He practically ran to the doorway of his lab, grasping the doorframe and calling out, “They’re gone, you can come out.”

A few seconds later, the door to his equipment storage room opened, and you peeked your head out.

“They searched the station and just left,” Yunhyeong explained, his heart fluttering inside his chest upon seeing you again.

You let out a breath and stepped fully into the lab, closing the door quietly behind you. “Thank you,” you murmured as you began to make your way over to him.

“Sure...” he replied expectantly, waiting for you to start explaining the situation.

When you stopped a few feet in front of him, a cautious and bashful smile tugged at your lips. “So...” you started, your voice a bit shaky. “I, uh -- It’s really not as bad as you might be thinking.”

Yunhyeong couldn’t stop from smirking -- just a tiny one. “Well, the police said you’re a wanted criminal who should be considered armed and dangerous, so what I’m thinking is pretty bad.”

Your eyes widened and you held your hands out in front of you, waving them a little to assure Yunhyeong he had it all wrong. “No, no -- I’m not armed, I swear! And definitely not dangerous. Just -- This is going to sound like I’m making it up, but I promise you, I’m not.”

Well, now Yunhyeong was really��intrigued. “Go on,” he pressed.

“I... Well, for the last couple of years, I’ve been working on a... project.”

“That doesn’t sound shady at all,” Yunhyeong chuckled.

“I was trying to create a clone,” you explained hurriedly. “Nothing shady, exactly. It’s kind of a long story, but I got a research grant and decided to try cloning but it didn’t turn out like I expected because my clone kind of went rogue and she is the armed and dangerous one. Not me. But the police don’t know it’s a clone, obviously, so they’re looking for me when it’s really all just a big mistake!”

Your story did sound a bit far-fetched, and Yunhyeong shouldn’t have believed it.

But... for some reason... he did. There was just a look in your eyes that told him you were being truthful. A timbre in your voice that emanated sincerity.

So, he believed you. Despite logic telling him he shouldn’t, he did.

One corner of his lips lifted into a half-smile then, and he said, “Well, you’re welcome to stay here for a bit. Are you hungry?”

A look of pure relief washed over your exquisite features, and you held out your hand toward him. “I’m Y/N, by the way. That’s my real name, you can look me up.”

Yunhyeong let out a soft laugh as he shook your hand. “Don’t worry, I believe you. And you’re safe here. I’m Yunhyeong.”

“Thank you, Yunhyeong,” you replied, your hand gripping his firmly. 

But then, suddenly, your grip loosened, and you wavered a bit where you stood.

“Oop!” Yunhyeong uttered as he reached out to steady you. “You all right?”

You grasped onto his forearms, and when you tilted your head to look up at him, he saw your complexion had blanched quite a bit.

“Yes, I --” you murmured. “Sorry, I guess I haven’t eaten in a while, and the adrenaline’s worn off, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, come eat,” he said as he moved to slide one arm around your back and then began leading you toward the kitchen.

You continued to apologize as he helped you down the hallway, and once he’d pulled out a chair at the small table, he assured you there was absolutely nothing to be sorry about.

To be honest, this whole situation was quite thrilling for him. A mistakenly wanted criminal who had almost fainted from hunger? He had never cooked a meal for a mistakenly wanted criminal who had almost fainted from hunger before, but he now felt like this was what he’d been meant to do. Born to do.

I mean, he’d always loved helping and taking care of people, and he certainly loved cooking.

(Plus, you were just so gosh darn beautiful. It was his absolute pleasure to have you in his home and serve you a home-cooked meal!)

He whipped you up the quickest but heartiest thing in his repertoire: a ham sandwich. But his ham sandwich was not just any old ham sandwich. Of course, not! He used only the best mayonnaise, only the best lettuce and tomatoes grown right here on the station, only the best bread he’d baked himself last night, and only the best ham... which was not really the best ham because, living in space, he had to use his food replicator. And he hadn’t yet found one single food that was quite as good when using the replicator. It was fine, but it just didn’t taste exactly the same.

Oh, well. He hoped the rest of the fine ingredients would make up for the slightly less than average ham.

“It’s not much,” he said when he set the plate in front of you just a few minutes later. “But it’ll do the trick.”

“Oh, no, are you kidding? This is wonderful,” you said breathlessly, your eyes widening slightly as you gazed at the sandwich. “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been eating the past couple days. This seems like a feast compared to that.”

Yunhyeong couldn’t help himself; after hearing that remark, he pulled out the other chair at his table and slid into it, his brow furrowed with curiosity. He set his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his palm before asking, “What happened?”

You took a huge bite of sandwich first, closing your eyes with pleasure as you chewed. And then you began your story.

You told him all about how your clone had gone rogue for reasons you still hadn’t figured out. She had replicated weapons and gone on a crime spree, robbing and killing anyone she could get her hands on. You actually got choked up as you told him, and Yunhyeong had to resist the urge to reach out and put his hand over yours.

Of course, you had tried your best to stop her, but that had only made it easier for the police to confuse you for her and make you their target.

Once you’d realized the police were on the hunt for you and not your clone, you’d gone into fight or flight mode -- and you had chosen flight. You’d hidden anywhere you could find, only staying in one place for a few hours.

“How did you end up here?” Yunhyeong asked, taking your empty plate and standing up to make you another sandwich. You’d eaten this one so quickly, and if you really hadn’t eaten much real food over the last few days, there was no doubt you had to be famished.

“Honestly... pure happenstance. I just found a small space station on the map, punched the coordinates into my transporter, and beamed right in.”

A smirk tugged at Yunhyeong’s lips but he turned to start making your sandwich before you had the chance to see.

Pure happenstance. Luck. You hadn’t come here by design; you’d just picked his station and beamed yourself in unknowingly.

“Y’know...” he began as he took two more slices of bread. “It’s funny because I’ve been on this space station by myself for quite a while now, and just this morning I was thinking about some beautiful, random stranger just happening to pass through. But, obviously, I was thinking about how it wouldn’t happen.”

“That,” you said before clearing your throat. “That’s a strange coincidence.”

When Yunhyeong glanced over his shoulder, he saw your expression had turned shy, and it made him feel a little shy. Which was odd because he was rarely ever shy.

“Very,” he murmured in agreement after turning back around and continuing to make your second sandwich.

It was comfortably silent for the next minute or two, the only noises that of Yunhyeong spreading mayonnaise on bread and tearing up the lettuce to fit better on the sandwich. But then, when he turned back around to join you at the table and set the plate in front of you again, you murmured a soft but earnest “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Yunhyeong replied before once again sliding into the chair across from you. “And... you’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like.”

You had just picked up the sandwich to take a bite, but upon hearing his words, you paused. Your brow knit together, forming deep wrinkles in your forehead. “Oh, no, I --”

“I think you’d be safer here than anywhere else,” Yunhyeong interrupted gently. “The police have already been here, and there’s no logical reason they would come back here to look for you. At least, not for a while. And maybe we could get this all squared away in the meantime. Find your clone and clear your name.”

You stared at him in slight confusion for a few moments before shaking your head a little and asking, “But... why? Why would you... help me?”

Yunhyeong let out a soft chuckle and lifted his shoulders into a shrug. “I guess... it’s been a long time since I’ve even talked to another person face-to-face. And you’re innocent. I can’t just let you go and risk you getting caught and arrested when you’re only guilty of an experiment gone wrong.”

For a split second, he thought about adding on the fact that you were incredibly nice to look at, and he was becoming overwhelmed with an urge to take care of you. But when he remembered the shy look you’d gotten after he’d just said the word beautiful, he decided against it.

For now, at least.

You slowly put the sandwich back down on the plate, and before Yunhyeong could try to distinguish the expression on your face, you burst into tears.

“Whoa,” Yunhyeong murmured, his head jerking back in surprise. “No, please --”

“I’m sorry,” you sniffed, bringing your hands up to cover your eyes and cheeks. “I just -- It’s been difficult the past few days, and I thought --”

Without hesitation, Yunhyeong got out of his chair and crouched down next to you, resting one hand gently on your back and the other on one of your wrists.

“It’s all right,” he assured you in the gentlest voice he could manage.

“I can’t even remember how many times I thought I was going to die,” you admitted, your voice muffled and interrupted by sniffling sobs. “And you have absolutely no reason to help me, but you are, and I’m so relieved, and I just --”

Yunhyeong shushed you, rubbing your back and watching with concern as you began to wipe your cheeks.

You then turned your head and looked over at him, tears still brimming in your eyes.

“Thank you,” you choked out.

Yunhyeong’s lips curved into a smile, and he moved his hand to your shoulder, squeezing you there. “You’re welcome. You’re going to get through this, okay? I can help. I work for the government, so I bet I can get in touch with someone who can straighten this all out.”

You shook your head a bit and gulped down the large lump of emotion obstructing your throat. “But I -- I can’t do anything to repay you --”

“I told you that I’ve been living here on my own for a long time, right?”

You nodded.

“Honestly, having some company is repayment enough. Just... be my friend,” he said with a tiny shrug. “For as long as you’re here, that’s all I ask in return. Be my friend.”

Yunhyeong’s heart burst when he saw the corners of your lips lifting into a small smile, and it began to glow in his chest when you nodded again.

“If you’re going to keep feeding me delicious food, I can definitely be your friend,” you assured him.

“Hey, if it’s delicious food you want, you’ve come to absolutely the right place,” he grinned before squeezing your shoulder one more time and then standing up to let you eat your sandwich in peace. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work soon, but feel free to look around and make yourself at home. There’s not much, really, but there’s a shower and some extra clothes.”

“Okay,” you said quietly, nodding and wiping away the last of your tears.

As you turned back to the table and began to eat your sandwich, Yunhyeong quickly made one for himself to take back to the lab. Since he’d been interrupted by... this whole situation, he hadn’t been able to actually have anything to eat during his lunch break. But as long as he turned away from the plants and equipment to eat, it should be fine.

“I’ll just be in the lab,” he said after completing his sandwich and heading out toward the hallway. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” you answered just before he stepped through the kitchen doorway. And then you called out, “Thank you again! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this!”

Yunhyeong simply smiled to himself.

Hopefully, he would be able to get back into his work mindset -- at least for a few hours or so. He needed to try his best to get as much work done as possible because he had a sneaking suspicion you were going to become more and more of a distraction the longer you stayed here.

Even though he had been given no parameters as far as work hours when he’d started this position, Yunhyeong had set a schedule for himself to try and keep some semblance of a normal life. He, like most people, needed time to unwind after working all day, but if he had no specific clock out time, it was very possible he would work well into the night.

So, from his very first day on the station, he’d set an alarm for six in the evening so he could force himself to stop working and enjoy his evenings.

And, unsurprisingly, his evenings after work always started off with cooking.

But, unsurprisingly again, this evening was a little different than most.

Or... all. It was different than all of the evenings he’d had on the station thus far. Every single one.

Over the past several hours, he’d only heard your presence on the station a few times. He must’ve been too focused on work to notice much else -- either that or you’d just been incredibly quiet. But, apparently, you’d been up to a lot because when he locked up the lab for the night, he caught sight of you standing by the window in the living room across the hall. Your hair was wet and you were wearing a pair of his pajamas, something that unexpectedly tugged at his heart.

“Hey,” he greeted as he stepped into the room. “I’m all done with --”

He trailed off when you turned around to look at him. Your face had been scrubbed clean, and even though you really didn’t look much different -- if at all -- the sight of you standing there, fresh-faced with damp hair and wearing his pajamas... it made his heart jump up into his throat and his breath catch, for some reason.

Truly, it had been far too long since he’d had any social interaction.

You must have thought he was staring at you for reasons other than that, though, because you bashfully looked down at the pajamas and said, “I wasn’t sure if it was okay -- I can just wear my own clothes if you --”

“No, no,” he interrupted hastily, taking a step closer to you. “No, it’s fine. Sorry. Wear whatever you want, really.”

Your lips curved into a soft grin, and you gestured behind your shoulder with one hand. “I was just admiring the view,” you told him before turning back around to gaze out the window.

Yunhyeong joined you, taking several large steps to come and stand next to you.

He glanced very briefly out at the scenery before him, finding his eyes were of a mind to settle on you instead.

Either he had forgotten just how beautiful you were or the relief of being safe had melted your anxiety and heightened your attractiveness because... wow. The slope of your nose and the curve of your lips were stunning and enticing. Your eyelashes, your cheeks, the way your hair framed your face.

“It’s so beautiful,” you said, your gaze fixed on the stars and planets visible from the window.

Yunhyeong almost laughed because you had voiced aloud his thoughts almost exactly.

“Yes,” he agreed with his eyes still locked on you rather than the outside view. “Yes, it is.”

You continued observing the scenery for a few more moments -- long enough for Yunhyeong to get his wits about him, thankfully, and when you turned to look at him, he was fairly certain it wasn’t obvious he’d been staring at you.

“So,” you stated. “What can I do to help?”

“Well, you’re in luck,” he answered with a grin. “I mean, unless your idea of fun isn’t quite the same as mine... But I was planning on making pasta for dinner and then breaking open some wine, putting on some music -- Jazz, if you’re into it -- and just... relaxing.”

And, now, if you were there, he could actually have a chat. A good, old-fashioned chat.

But... if you liked to create clones in your spare time, then you most likely weren’t the type of person to label that type of evening as ‘fun.’

“That sounds... amazing,” you replied, somewhat breathless.

Oh!

Well!

Color him surprised!

“Yeah?” he asked, trying to tamp down his excitement. “I’ve come up with a pretty great recipe for spaghetti sauce. I can teach you how to make it?”

Your lips curved into a smile, and you nodded quickly. “Yes, please. I would love that.”

As Yunhyeong led you to the kitchen, he found himself already daydreaming about... well, so many things.

Cooking with you. Drinking wine with you. Listening to music with you. Chatting with you. Getting to know you better. Allowing himself to open up to you so you could get to know him better.

Then, of course, daydreams about all that led to daydreams about later on down the road. Cooking with you and sneaking kisses in here and there. Drinking wine and listening to music and snuggling on the couch with you. Chatting with you those really deep chats that only surface when you’re fully and entirely comfortable with someone.

He still hardly knew you, of course, but at this moment... he could imagine himself falling in love with you. And even if that never happened -- or even came close to happening -- just the idea of it was enough.

He wanted it to happen, of course, and he was definitely going to try as long as you were willing.

But, if today had taught him anything, it was to never assume. Never assume things can’t or won’t happen. Never assume that, just because every day previously had been the same, today wouldn’t be different. Anything could happen!

And he knew this had absolutely no bearing on the events of today, but... Yunhyeong planned on asking the computer what the weather was like on Earth more often.

Just for fun.

OTHER SIGNS: ARIES, TAURUS, GEMINI, CANCER, LEO, VIRGO, LIBRA, SCORPIO, SAGITTARIUS, CAPRICORN, PISCES

[orionsangel86]

Just saw the gifset of John Boyega and Oscar Isaac and the tag about Jenmish being like that some day and it got me thinking. Everyone on spn who has been asked about their character's sexuality has never had a problem, speight, Mark S., even Jim when asked about kissing Mark S. he seemed really comfortable talking about it. But Jenen can't even address it considering how Dean flirts with men he could just say Dean could be bi. I find it rather peculiar that it makes him uncomfortable.

So the thing about Jensen is this. There is still A LOT of misinformation floating around fandom, encouraged by Destiel and Bi!Dean haters (usually bronlies) about how Destiel and Bi!Dean makes Jensen “uncomfortable”. I have seen a post just today in the Destiel tag doing the rounds talking about how “its such a shame Destiel makes Jensen uncomfortable” because of this misinformation and it drives me crazy every time I read yet ANOTHER post about it.

Where? Where has he said specifically that it makes him uncomfortable? You know what makes Jensen uncomfortable? Antagonistic “fans” at conventions asking him leading questions that he knows will either get him in trouble with the network (for giving away spoilers) or with fans as there are a bazzilion different factions in fandom and Jensen wants to please them all. (I’m willing to bet money that Jensen is fully aware of the “Sunday crowd” at US cons and adjusts his tone and responses accordingly).

When I said in my tags on that FinnPoe post that “i hope JenMish are like this one day”. I meant, I hope that they are able to speak openly about this relationship between their characters without worrying about backlash from either network due to spoilers or rabid fans. I did not mean “I hope that Jensen gets over his homophobia and discomfort talking about the gay” because I don’t think that Jensen has any discomfort or homophobia towards Destiel or Bi!Dean.

You have to consider that Jensen’s first introduction to shipping was via Wincest. Now, Sorry to Wincest fans that may find this next thing that I say offensive, but well, its the damn truth. Incest is gross. Imagine being a young actor and finding out that all these women (usually heterosexual older women) read and write pornography of you fucking your onscreen brother? Imagine finding out that they invented a genre about you and your costar IRL where you fuck like wolves and you get “breeded” by a giant wolf penis?!?! (imagine finding out recently that you are getting namedropped in a court case on this very topic!!!)

Now put Jensen’s years worth of dismissal of shipping (in general) into perspective. He thought Destiel was the same as Wincest. Even Misha jokes about Destiel being about the porn, he generalised and didn’t like the idea of being fetishized by fans, because thats how Wincest made him feel.

HOWEVER, when it comes to discussing the DeanCas canon relationship Jensen has no problem talking about this thoughtfully and with care and consideration. Especially recently.

I have been to cons, I have seen first hand the care Jensen gives towards Destiel shippers. I spent time comforting my young lesbian friend who had such a heartfelt conversation with Jensen about coming out and how Dean helped her that she was overwelmed and in tears by how lovely he was. Another friend, wearing a top that clearly said “Destiel exists” received big smiles and even bigger hugs from Jensen who not once dismissed her (she came away from that experience feeling that Jensen had subtly encouraged her to keep shipping it).

I am of the very firm belief that both Jensen and Misha have been told not to talk about romance between Dean and Cas. I still think they consider it spoilers (since I’m still a “its going canon” rare unicorn of a fan these days). Jensen in recent years has been very obviously using the Misha Collins approach of addressing Destiel - by making jokes.

Sometimes his jokes fall a bit flat. Last years jibcon he tried to rile up the crowd and joke with us about it. It was a fantastic atmosphere when he shouted ��destiel is real” and then made fun of us by asking “where is it real?” but guys, ignore the antis on this point. The whole thing was a joke and he was laughing and playing with us. It wasn’t meant as a dismissal at all. Honestly I think he was most likely poking fun at his former self on stage grumpily shouting “destiel doesn’t exist” because he was having a very bad day that day and I truly think he regrets saying that. Especially with how encouraging he has been towards the ship recently. (even going so far as to basically confirm Dean is attracted to Cas)

Jensen (and Misha) are both very much aware of how important their onscreen relationship is to us fans. They are aware of how popular it is, and they do imo, exactly what Oscar and John did in Star Wars, in that they perform their characters as if they are in love. I truly believe that once SPN is finally over, we will get the same level of confirmation from Jensen and Misha about Dean and Cas’s relationship as we did from John and Oscar about Finn and Poe, and I also happen to think that canon will very much confirm the romance as well.

TL;DR: Destiel does not make Jensen uncomfortable. He supports it, he supports us. He respects his LGBTQ fans, he is not homophobic, and he genuinely understands and appreciates the deep and “profound” relationship between Dean and Cas in canon. Please do not encourage rumours that paint him in a different light to this, you are only encouraging a rhetoric circulated by haters to put fans off of shipping Destiel.

[beclynn-herondale]

Thoughts on Cassandra Clare ? Are u pro cc ?

dear Anon,

So I am gonna start this out with I wouldn't say I am pro CC,

do I enjoy her writing? Yes

Do I think she does ignorant and hurtful things? Also yes

Do I think it is okay to criticize her In a non hateful way? Yes, i don't approve of hating on someone that's something you can never take back, nor do I support pulling people apart cause let me tell you it fucks people up I have experienced this it is one of the worst things you can do to a person, you make them doubt everything about themself and for some you can fuck them up mentally and it can lead to more extreme measures.

Criticism doesn't need to be hateful or mean, it can be civilized and educational instead, in my opinion we need to educate and explain why it's wrong not hate them or cancel them that's not gonna solve anything, it's not gonna erase what the person said or did, you're only causing more pain and hate and let's be honest there's enough of that already.

Do I agree that she doesn't handle her POC well? YES

Do I acknowledge she said some islamophobic things? YES

Do I agree she may fetishises? Yes

Do I acknowledge she mistreats her wlw ships? Yes but also I do understand that LGBTQIPA+ rep is harder to get in cause publishers can be assholes and the world is still not as accepting of LGBTQIPA+ as we wish it would be.

Do I think it's wrong that most of her POC are half white? YES, and she needs to acknowledge it and give better representation.

Do I think her incest fetishization is wrong? YES, but also I wish you all would stop bringing Clace into this I have my reasons on why I love them but also keep in mind they were teenagers who Valentine manipulated and tried to take away what they loved most, he saw how much they loved each other and used it to try to destroy them cause he knew how powerful they are together and that together they could take him down, but also he saw that he was losing control over Jace and an abuser can't stand that, I know cause I have abusers and everytime I do something that's out of their control they do something to get it back. I saw through it from the beginning and maybe that's why, but it was never a story about incest, was some of it wrong? Yes but also they loved each other so much and you can't just stop loving someone with the snap of a finger, if you did then It wasn't really love, it would be lust, so the fact that Jace and Clary never stopped loving each other proved how much they did love each and that it wasn't lust. Listen I'm not saying it was right or that CC handled it well but I am saying that I get Clace and Valentine knew what he was doing, also CC is who you should be criticizing, as you can see Clace is actually later on a healthy couple and we need that for Heterosexuals just like we need healthy mlm and wlw relationships, the world is so negative right now so why do we have to make it more negative?

So instead of focusing on the bad parts (I'm not saying to not acknowledge them cause I do, but i also acknowledge people grow and change ) let's focus on the good parts as well like how much they love each other, Jace showed me that I can heal from my abusive past and that I can love and be loved in return. They showed us to never give up. Jace showed us Family isn't Blood. Clary showed us that you can be both a warrior and still be whatever hobby you like. Even Simon said in City of Heavenly Fire that they are a team and that's development and in my opinion what a relationship should be. Emma Carstairs said that they are girlfriend and boyfriend but also best friends again an important part of a relationship. Let's acknowledge the fact that Jace went from and Ignorant, angry, broken, mentally unstable boy to as he says a happy man and he isn't who he was at 16, he has grown a lot and it's time to acknowledge it, you wouldn't hold other characters to their past mistakes so why do you do it with other characters? And yes in order to acknowledge the growth we need to acknowledge the mistakes but I have done that myself and I love Jace cause he wasn't perfect, he wasn't automatically a the best person, he had to grow, he had bad qualities and that is human, and I don't think we are gonna hate people for being human? Jace showed abuse victims they can be happy and heal. And honestly I hate how I have to explain personal things for people to understand how important he is to me, and I am tired of hearing how I should find a different character to love this much cause Jace is shit, well I will say I am very much like Jace so i guess I'm shit too then, but also I have sadly tried to not but I can't help but love this character cause he came into my life when I was not great and I needed him and he's always there for me in my darkest moments along with Clary, I could be having a panic attack and guess what I see fanart of Clace and I feel better and it calms me down. Also of it weren't for Clary's bravery I would have had something really bad happen to me recently but because I remembered how brave Clary was and still is I made the brave decision and saved myself from bigger trauma then I already have. Recently Clace is one of the only things keeping me going. So just be respectful and try to understand. Also again it wasn't incestuous. Also when you say Jace is terrible it makes people like me who love him and relate to him feel evil and like we are terrible people for liking him, at least for me it does, i am constantly doubting myself after someone told me Jace is shit and a terrible person. Keep in mind when wording things what you are saying and how it will effect others. (Please be civil about this and remember that we all interpret the story differently, I saw things a lot of people didn't see) also we need to keep in mind that TMI Gang were all teenagers except Magnus and Alec and Alec was a young adult at the time, when they all went through all that stuff and had to save the world, they had to things Teenagers shouldn't have to do and make decisions they shouldn't have had to, and let me tell you as someone who has had to do things as a teenager that I shouldn't have had to, it sucks and you don't know how to feel about it or how to act about it.

Do I think some of her POC are stereotyped? Yes, but also some people like the characters for that, and some see other things in them that. I am no way saying your opinion is invalid, you can be offended and hurt by the stereotyping and feel unrepresented, that's your right. And I really do hope she does better in the future, cause I want POC to feel as represented as i do, and you all deserve it.

No CC's books are extremely important to me, but I can also acknowledge she can be problematic, but everyone can in their own way, and sometimes we need to be called out. So we should criticize her in a none hateful way. Hate Breeds Hate.

And do I think she should give her LGBTQIPA+ couples explicit scenes? Yes but I can understand how CC may not want to mess it up and maybe she is trying to handle it right, and publishers don't always allow LGBTQIPA+ explicit scenes. CC did have to fight for Alec to be Gay in the time she was writing him. Am I hoping for better rep? YES!! And maybe TLBOTW will give us that but I don't know.

Also even if you don't agree or don't understand, Listen To POC When They Say Something Is Racist! Hear their opinion and take their opinion and thoughts into consideration.

I would also say to stop whitewashing characters and find models, actors/actresses, singers, that are the same race and ethnicity and use them for reference for art and edits, and writing descriptions in fanfics and books. Educate yourself on it and ask people, get other prospectives.

But no I wouldn't say I am Pro CC but i am not Anti either, I acknowledge her mistakes and ignorance, I acknowledge her mishandling of POC and wlw and her problematic ways. But I also enjoy her books, I can criticize the author and still love the books.

So in conclusion Listen to POC when they say something is Racist and take it into consideration. Acknowledge that you may not know why someone loves a character, and respect them. Try to be more sympathetic towards others. Remember you can criticize the author and still love the books. Educate yourself and try to learn. Try to understand others. Ask yourself if what you are saying is the right way to be going about things. Just try to be nice and respectful and listen, try to see where the other person is coming from.

( again like I always say you don't have to have the same opinion and you don't have to agree that is your right however you can be kind and respectful and civil)

( I will add more later )

[shellku]

Film Challenge

Okay guys. Finally did it. As requested.

Have you ever left a theater before the movie was over?

Yes. Only once.

If you ever left a theater what was playing: Savages

Craziest (Random) movie you’ve ever seen:

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

“And thanks for all the fish” -Dolphins

Most disturbing film you’ve ever watched:

Crimson Peak

A film you only watched because (Tom Hiddleston ) was in it: Crimson Peak

A minor role (or movie) with a major actor you greatly enjoyed: Sebastian Stan as Jefferson/The Mad Hatter in Once Upon A Time.

A minor role (or movie) with a major actress you greatly enjoyed: Emma Watson as Pauline Fossil in Ballet Shoes

A movie everyone should see at least once: The Princess Bride

A movie you thought everyone has seen but apparently not: Who framed Roger Rabbit?

A movie you’ve tried multiple times to watch but never get through it: Silence if the Lambs

A movie that legitimately surprised you:

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. While it came out in 1980 I didn’t see it until much later obviously. I wasn’t even ten when I watched it the first time, I and was genuinely shocked.

Movie that you enjoy, that surprises people you enjoy: Scream (1996)

A movie you associated with Religion and it turns out that tracks: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

A movie you watched a lot as a kid but your not sure why exactly you watched it so much:

Hook. (And) The Sandlot.

My first movie that made me question my sexualité: The Priâtes of the Caribbean.

Sections

Anime

First Anime: Fruits Basket. Vampire Knight.

Anime I watched with my (brother): Full Metal Alchemist

Anime I tried to get into and couldn’t: D Gray Man

Anime I was surprised I enjoyed: The Neverland Promise. (And) Soul Eater

Anime I always liked (even when it confused people): Black Butler

Anime that makes me cry: Your lie in April

Anime that I love but now makes me sad too: Sword Art Online

Anime I’m just not into: One Piece

One that was recommended that I enjoyed:

Blue Exorcist

One that was recommended that I was ehh on and did not finish: Attack on Titian

One I probably should watch: Pandora Hearts

One I watched Randomly : Castlevania

One that I did not watch until (college) that everyone seems to have watched: Sailor Moon

Cartoons

Cartoons Everyone should see:

- The Peanuts.

- Garfield.

- Scooby Doo.

- Tom and Jerry.

- Pink Panther.

Cartoon I never liked: Spongebob

Cartoon I hate now: Kiayu? Idk. The one with the bald kid that whines a lot. Ugh.

Cartoon I can make myself ‘watch’ with the (niece/nephews): Paw Patrol

Films you would Recommend:

80s: The Breakfast Club

Book Adaption 80s: The Outsiders

Murder Mystery:Murder on the Oriental Express

Jim Henson pick: Labyrinth

(Suicide) Satire:Heathers

Romance: Titanic

‘Horror’ Movie: The Lost boys

Horror Movie: The Nightmare on Elm Street

Spy Flick: Saint (1997)

Mind trips: The Sixth Sense.(1999) Donnie Darko.

Stephen King: The Dark Tower

Stephen King Miniseries: Rose Red

Studio Ghibli: Howls Moving Castle. Or. Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Action Comedy: Miss Congeniality

Adventure Comedy: Jumanji

‘Dark’ Comedy: The Addams Family

Romantic Comedy: Legally Blonde

Tim Burton

Tim Burton Animated: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton Live Action: Edward Scissorhand

Tim Burton Musical: Sweeney Todd

Dreamworks

Favorite Dreamwork’s Film:

Rise of the Guardians (and) How to Train your Dragon

Disney:

Unpopular Recommendations:

The Black Cauldron (and) The Great Mouse Detective

One that is still rather disturbing: Pinocchio

Best Soundtrack (Golden Age): Fantasia

Best Soundtrack (Modern): IDk?!

Classics (Golden) everyone should see at least once: Snow White (and) Bambi.

Wartime Era Pic: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.Toad

Silver Age or Bronze Age: Both!!!

Disney Renaissance or Post Renaissance: Both! If I absolutely had to choose though, Renaissance.

Moana or Lilo and Stitch: Lilo and Stitch

Frozen or Tangled: Both

Soul or Monsters Inc: Monsters Inc

Toy Story I and 2/ or/ 3 and 4? Toy Story I and 2.

Underrated: Candleshoe

Disney Holiday:

Live Action Halloween - Hocus Pocus

Live Action Halloween Series- Halloweentown

Animated Halloween- Frakenweenie

Live Action Christmas- Miracle on 34th Street (and) Eloise

Animated Christmas- Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas, (and) Winnie the Pooh: A very merry Pooh year.

New: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. (2018)

Disney Reimagined/Live Action:

First that made you rethink the story: Maleficent

Favorite ‘Princess’ Story: Beauty and the Beast

The Surprise: Cruella

The one you worried about but we’re happy with in the end: Lady and the Tramp

The one you worried about but ending up enjoying anyway: Aladdin

The one that was good but you could have done without: The Lion King (which really surprised me!!!I like it but I didn’t love it. Which for me was so strange since I’m a fan of the original and the play.)

The one you had high hopes for and had a mixed reaction too: Mulan. (Ended up really liking it, but I miss Mushu. )

‘Modern’ Shakespeare Adaption:

10 Thing I hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew)

Clueless (Emma)

and

The Lion King Series. (Kid appropriate)

The Lion King: Hamlet

The Lion King 1 1/2: Rosencrantz and Guildenstein

The Lion King 2: Romeo and Juliet

Vampire Pictures:

90s: Interview with a Vampire

2000+: Twilight Series

Tv Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Vampire Action Series: Underworld

Classic: Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Dracula with a Twist: Dracula Untold (2014)

Fun Supernatural Flicks :

Witches: The Craft

Male Witches: The Covenant

Fairytale: Red Riding Hood (2011)

Ghost Hunters: Ghostbusters

Multiple Supernatural: Van Helsing (2014)

Werewolf Romance: Blood and Chocolate

Kid Friendly Live Action: Casper

Kid Friendly Animated: Hotel Transylvania

Supernatural Series:

Multi: Supernatural

Animated: Sabrina The Teenage Witch. (And) Scooby Doo.

Witches: Charmed

Fairytale: Once Upon a Time

Darker Fairytale: Grimm

‘Superhero’ Movies:

90s: Batman. (And) The Crow.

Series: Marvel’s Cinematic Universe

Classic Animated: Batman the animated series

Modern Animated: Harley Quinn

Girl Power: Wonder Woman. (and) Birds of Prey.

Something Different: Deadpool

Younger Audiences/Nostalgia: Teen Titans (animated)

Harry Potter

Favorite Film: Idk. Can’t choose honestly.

Least favorite character portrayal: .. Ginny Weasley?

Someone you loved: (so many..) McGonagall

Someone you loved hating: Bellatrix LeStrange

Someone you just hate: Dolores Umbridge

First time you cried: I cried for Sirius and Remus in Prisoner of Azkaban.

First time you jumped: Snakes or Basilisk. Chamber of Secrets. (I think I was 12?)

Someone who was so spot in acting on you can’t see them as anyone else now: Luna Lovegood

Someone who was so good even if the look wasn’t perfect: Emma Granger as Hermione OR Alan Rickman as Severus Snape.

Someone who’s injury hit you harder than the books: Colin Creevy.

Someone who’s death hit you harder than in the books: None. They hit but not as much as the books.

A scene you found just breathtakingly pretty: Christmas at Hogwarts

A scene you found creepy (even when you knew it was coming): Nagini uses a corpse as a mask.

For any Potter heads. Some things that bothered you about the Harry Potter films:

- Where is Charlie Weasley?

- Where is Peeves?

- Where are Neville’s parents?

- The green/blue/brown eye thing. (This is not against Radcliffe. Some special effects could have fixed this easily)

- HarrY DiD YOu PuT YoUR NaMe IN tHe GoBlET of FIRE?! 🔥

- In Sorcerers Stone, Why did you change the snake at the zoos breed??

- “Voldemort” versus “Voldemor”. The silent t.

- Hermione’s. Yule. Ball. Dress. Color. Blue. Not pink. She specifically changed the color.

- Fluffy. Hagrid’s adorable Cerberus was originally bought from a Greek man. Why change it to Irish? I like Ireland but it was a Greek man due to where Cerberus’s initially came from right???

- Harry’s first Weasley sweater color

- Why does Harry only see his parents in the Mirror of Eirsed? Where’s the rest of the family?

- The Underage magic rules aren’t well explained in the movies making the 3rd year summons even more bonkers sounding

- The Patil Twins Yule Ball Outfits. They could have been soooo beautiful. Like this is the Yule Ball! The Twins would have (in my opinion) much more elaborate traditional Indian styled dress robes?? Idk.

- Love Movie Hermione! But some moments take away from Ron. Like when Ron defended her in the Chamber of Secrets. Hermione didn’t know what the slur “Mudblood” meant in the books. Ron had to explain it.

- Dobby needed more screen time. Some stuff Dobby did went to Neville because so many Neville scenes were cut.

- Where’s all the secrecy from the books when communicating with Sirius- “Snuffles”? Something Harry’s godfather insisted on to keep him safe.

- Snape’s title of “The half-blood Prince” is not explained. Neither is it made clear that Severus was also abused horribly at home throughout his childhood. Also that like Harry Dumbledore did nothing to help Severus when he was a student. (Or maybe Tom Riddle when he grew up in an orphanage. I’m sensing a pattern)

- Dumbledore should have still spelled Harry during Dumbledore death scene. No way would Harry just stand there if given the choice.

- Ron was not quite as ‘dumb’ in the books and a lot of his funny moments were cut from the movie. Which makes his jealousy moments all the more unbecoming. He also comes off a bit more arrogant in the movies. (This is not against R Grint. Who is awesome) The movies gave Ron the short end of the stick.

- Weasley/Malfoy Fued. Who else wanted to see Arthur and Lucius have a fist fight in a bookstore? Exactly.

- Albus Dumbledore isn’t all Sunshine and Daisys. He does some really messed up stuff yet no one ever seems to question this.

- Remus was the last Marauder. Yet his and his wife, Tonk’s, deaths are barley acknowledged.

- Also Teddy. Harry’s Godson.

- Harry’s and Ginnys relationship is not built on. It’s just there. Ugh. Heck Movie Ginny isn’t that great. You don’t know much about her except: She’s the only girl in Ron’s family. She’s the youngest Weasley. She’s obsessed with Harry. She’s a good Quidditch player. She has a temper. She was possessed by Riddle’s Dairy when she was eleven. She’s obsessed with Harry.

- Draco is essentially Harry’s antithesis. Where is he in some critical scenes in the movies?

- Where’s the Luna love???? Harry’s pretty rude to her in some scenes.

- There is no S.P.E.W. And Hermione’s more ruthless side is gone.

- The guys hair in The Goblet of Fire. Get a hair cut. Please.

- Some of Molly’s less than Stellar Moments. (Ex. When she believed rumors about Hermione and so treated he coldly. How horrible she was to Fleur. Ect)

- Fleur. Fleur and Bill still get married but the objections to the wedding aren’t as presented in the movies. Not is Molly’s and Ginny’s extreme dislike of Fleur. Or when Arthur apologizes to Fleur. Or really any of Fleurs best moments. The whole courting process is skipped.

- House Elves. The House Elves of Hogwarts.

- Percy Weasley. The ‘betrayal’. The returned Weasley sweater. Him turning to protect his family and fight for Hogwarts at the last minute. All gone. Which involves being forgiven by the Weasley Twins not an hour before Fred dies.

- The connection of the Black sisters. Specifically Adromeda - mother of Tonks. Who is Sirius cousin. Who married Remus Lupin. Tonks and Remus the parents of Teddy.

- Dean Thomas is pretty much gone.

- Rita Skeeter. Illegal Animagus. Hermione kept her in a jar.

- The movies didn’t allow Radcliffe to be sassy and sarcastic enough. Harry Potter is one of the sassiest boys to ever walk through the halls of Hogwarts!

- Harry didn’t fix his wand in the last movie.

- The history of the Marauders.

- The history explaining why Snape could never be comfortable around and trust Remus Lupin.

[btsandvmin]

Hi I m a hardcore vmin shipper. But recently i watched a vkook video to compare and it was an analysis video in which they say that actually vkook are sharing a room in their new dorm and trying to hide it and it seemed very real and i have been very upset. There are lots of moments made sense like jk's henna tattoo in malta, v showing ILY symbol behind his back to sick JK on burn the stage, them sharing a room and even blanket in malta, Jk's dog being in making video of winter bear. I m confuse

I would to know the thoughts of a fellow vminie on this. Please do respond since i am literally breaking apart at the thought of vmin being just a cover for vkook.

Hi, I think you might be the same person who just sent me another similar ask about this, and I added the end of that ask which had one more thing that this ask didn’t. I hope that’s ok.

First of all I am sorry that you feel so sad about this… There is a certain emotional danger with getting too involved with shipping and especially seeing a ship as real in a romantic way, as it can set you up for a lot of struggle with your feelings about the members and their relationships.

Before anything else what I want to say is that Vmin’s bond is lovely and special and they truly love each other. Even if it’s platonic or even if they are together with someone else nothing is going to change that. That’s why the best thing to do if possible is to simply love them and support them without having a need for it to be something “more”. Especially since it’s unlikely we would ever find out even if a ship is real. So regarding the extra part of your question, namely “vmin being a cover for vkook” I really don’t see how that is possible or at the very least how that makes Vmin’s moments any less real.

Here’s my take on this issue, no matter which ships. If a ship is real I don’t think it makes sense to hide them by faking another gay ship. The only way I think this can to some extent be possible is if it comes from the members themselves and they for example do a lot of fanservice (which is still genuine) with all or many members to not make one person stand out. Even so I think the members do show that they do a lot of both genuine and more played up (but still on their own terms because they enjoy it) fanservice. Basically what I am saying is that even if a ship that isn’t Vmin is real it doesn’t make Vmin fake. They are not a cover up, they do the things they do because they enjoy it and they certainly love each other.

As for the part about tae/kook I know what analysis you are talking about even though it’s been a while since I watched them.

Nothing in any analysis I have ever seen has had anything we can call proof. Because even if all those things you mention are true the meaning behind those things is all just speculation. Who says Tae and JK can’t do these things platonically? Just like people argue about weird things for other ships, even if we can prove something has happened or is real, we can’t know if there is a romantic purpose or not. Like with the hand gesture (and tattoo of it), it could just be a platonic inside “joke” for example. Or a way to show support for each other. Like a secret language it could be special between them, but even so it still doesn’t have to be romantic. They also have their handshake which has the same gesture (ILY in sign language) and we have seen Taehyung teaching Jimin this. Also if it’s some sort of secret signal to JK, what’s the point if JK is turned away and can’t see it? Then it doesn’t even really count as a secret sign because JK can’t receive it. 

You have JK and Jimin doing the “You are me and I am you” which shippers see in one way but which easily just could be an inside joke. Likewise the hand sign could be something JK and Tae does, and maybe it is to show love and support, but does it have to be romantic? If all ships have weird things about them, how are we supposed to know what everything means? We can’t, which is why I think using the word “proof” which is kind of ridiculous to begin with. Who decides what is romantic or not? Only the individual shipper, which means it’s always going to be biased and remain a speculation until they actually say something (which they probably would never do).

As for the part about sharing a room I thought it was said that JK and Taehyung both sleeps in the living room, but with a wall between them, aka sharing room but not really? Which explains the same floor and saying they have rooms “next to each other” etc. It also seems recently that they might be spending less time in the dorm in general. But to be fair as I said I have not watched any shipping analysis in a while so there might be more proof of them sharing and hiding it. Who knows. But even if they do sleep in the same room (a claim basically all shippers try to add to their ship) again it doesn’t have to be romantic. BTS could simply be that close and like to be that close but choses to keep it lowkey, perhaps because of the shippers. I mean, Jimin, JK and Tae all slept basically naked together on Jimin’s first day in the dorm, I am sure they are way beyond what most people see as normal boundaries by this point.

Also when it comes to sharing rooms people really seem to magically ignore Vmin who has many times showed that they like and want to share a room. Just look at Bon Voyage. If you say JK and Tae sharing in Malta and using the same blanket was a big deal, what makes it different to what Vmin did now in BV4?

In Malta there are 3 reasons I believe Vmin truly wanted to share a room. First, Jimin is excited and interested in where Tae will end up even before he gets there. Second when Tae arrives he asks about the rooms and tries to find clues and Jimin spills some beans by far being the most invested in Taehyung’s room situation, Jimin also asks if Tae wants to share with him. And third they say it straight out and it looks very genuine to me. The reason Tae went to JK’s room at least to me looks like it’s because he misinterpreted Jimin.

Because I think if they both knew they wanted to share then Tae probably assumed that when Jimin said “you can’t look” about the room upstairs he was trying to stop Tae from picking that room because Jimin wasn’t in it. Basically I think Jimin screwed over himself and made Tae believe the upper floor couldn’t be Jimin’s. I really don’t think they are that good actors to fake the interest at several points during the trip and that whole choosing room moment just to cover for Tae/kook. Not to mention how glued together they were. So at least to me I don’t doubt that they really wanted to share. Why make that up? If there was no problem with Tae/kook sharing the whole part with Vmin messing around just becomes unnecessary.

On top of that we have Vmin actually confirming sharing a hotel room as late as march 2017 (though they didn’t show it initially but fans noticed Tae’s slipper in a Jimin tweet) and we have Tae telling us about going to sleep with Jimin when he had a bad dream. He seems very consistent with his lie of preferring to share a room with Jimin, which makes me think it’s not a lie. 

In fact, once we start doubting everything the boys say and do as fake or covering up then basically everything can be fake or a cover up. Then the ILY sign can be done just to confuse people into thinking Tae/kook is real etc. You see the problem? All ships have weird moments, but they mostly become weird because people assume they are romantic and that they are hiding because they are together, which they don’t have to be. There could be other reasons behind the things they do and I don’t want to question every little thing they do and not trust them when they say something. For me if they are lying to us I think it makes more sense to not tell us things rather than fake and make up things that they probably wouldn’t be able to fake and keep track of.

In the recent season of BV Vmin also slept together three times, and I think that’s what they wanted as Tae picks the bunk bed knowing Jimin had picked the one under when he could have chosen the same room as JK. Same in the last house, they didn’t have to share because the order wasn’t for who they were with but simply in what order they would get to pick. If Jimin picked a room then Tae could have picked another one. In both cases Vmin also slept very close and shared blankets. So maybe it’s just not a big deal for maknae line in general?

Vmin has shared a room at times when they didn’t have to by choice so I think if we look at things we know and not at what people speculate about there is a good case to be made for Vmin really liking to share rooms. In fact they are some of few members in general that has said that they want to share with a specific person. Also in the Canada episode when they all end up in the same room then why is JK so incredibly happy about getting to share with Jin? Or JK sharing with Hobi and basically cuddling doesn’t mean anything, but Tae and JK sharing a blanket does? To me I think it’s because when so many people say it and see it, and when it looks “suspicious”, it creates room for such a narrative. But when it comes to Tae/kook in general, even though I don’t know of course, it always seemed to me that Tae has favored Jimin above JK in various ways, and that’s not something I think they would be able to fake, especially not for many many years.

As for the last one about the Winter Bear MV and Gureum possibly being the dog, I say possibly because I am not 100% it is the same dog, they were at the same location as for their Summer package, so even so it wouldn’t be weird if another member came along.

But as for the dog the reason I am unsure it even is that dog is because the snout seem much longer on the dog in the Winter Bear making. It honestly looks like a different kind of breed both in body shape, nose shape, ears and type of fur. But it is difficult to tell because of the angles and also because the pictures are old and Gureum could have gotten fatter or gotten his fur trimmed etc.

Either way, again, why does this indicate romance between V/kook? For me Taehyung’s behaviour towards Jimin is the biggest reason I think about Vmin being possible and that’s also one of the reasons why Tae/kook always have made the least sense out of the three maknae line ships.

All this being said, who knows. I don’t think you should put too much focus and hope into any ship being real but rather enjoy their bonds and be open to whatever could be the truth.

95z is love, that’s real no matter what. Love isn’t a competition where we as fans place our bets on the most likely romance like it’s some sort of fanfiction or drama. All we can do is support our boys and whomever they may choose to love. I want to point out again that this is not a blog to prove Vmin, but that I do find things about them odd or suspicious at times, but the same can be said about other ships too, so I’m not going to tell you Tae/kook is impossible, because it isn’t. Personally I think it’s less likely than Vmin, but I know I can be wrong and that’s fine.

I don’t know if this post will bring any comfort, but I want to try and be as honest as I can. Hope you can feel better and love Vmin no matter what.

Thank you everyone who read this and don’t get disappointed or angry with me. 95z is love!

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Senator Armstrong

(WARNING! This analysis contains MAJOR SPOILERS! Hell, just knowing Armstrong is the ultimate final boss is kind of a spoiler.)

The Metal Gear series is known for quite a few things: ridiculous over-the-top characters, complex and entertaining villains, awesome boss battles, and just generally being absolutely insane while also being very philosophical and deep. Now imagine, if you will, if all of those things congealed together into a single character. That, my friends, is Senator Armstrong, the final boss of Metal Gear Rising and easily one of the greatest characters in the entire franchise. He only has the cutscenes prior to his boss fight to establish himself, but I guarantee that you will never forget this man after you’ve beaten him.

Actor: Armstrong is portrayed by Alastair Duncan, who you may know as Alfred Pennyworth from The Batman, Mimir from the 2018 God of War, or Councilor Sparatus from Mass Effect. To say he does an incredible job is an understatement; his performance is easily the most hilariously quotable one in a franchise where nearly every single character is hilariously quotable.

Motivation/Goals: For a villain who comes almost entirely out of nowhere, he sure does deliver a very well thought out speech about his true motives:

"'I have a dream.' That one day every person in this nation will control their own destiny. A nation of the truly free, dammit. A nation of action, not words, ruled by strength, not committee! Where the law changes to suit the individual, not the other way around. Where power and justice are back where they belong: in the hands of the people! Where every man is free to think — to act — for himself! Fuck all these limp-dick lawyers and chickenshit bureaucrats. Fuck this 24-hour Internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit! Fuck American pride! Fuck the media! FUCK ALL OF IT! America is diseased. Rotten to the core. There's no saving it — we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. BURN IT DOWN! And from the ashes a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed! The weak will be purged and the strongest will thrive — free to live as they see fit, they'll make America great again! ... In my new America, people will die and kill for what they BELIEVE! Not for money. not for oil! Not for what they're told is right. Every man will be free to fight his own wars!"

Now, for those who don’t quite understand, let me explain: Armstrong wishes to end war as a business and create a Social Darwinist utopia, where all the citizens of America fight their own battles and the strong survive while the weak perish. From a certain point of view, his arguments actually do make sense, and considering America, and by extension the world, were until recently controlled by the whims of the Patriot AI, it’s not hard to see where he’s coming from. For what it’s worth, he very much despises the Patriots; in fact, Armstrong is ideologically quite similar to fellow Patriot-hating politician George Sears, AKA Solidus Snake, who coincidentally Raiden also fought. Hell, much like Solidus, Armstrong also has some connection to the creation of child soldiers.

Of course, it needs to be noted that while Armstrong definitely makes a good case, he is also a bonafide anti-villain. For those who need clarification, TVTropes describes an anti-villain as “a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately villainous. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there are evil. Alternatively, their desired ends are evil, but on a personal level they are far more ethical or moral than most villains and they thus use fairly benign means to achieve it, and can be heroic on occasion. They could also be someone or something whose desired ends or means are not necessarily ‘evil’ at all, but their actions simply conflict with that of whoever seems to be the protagonist.” While he does have good intentions and seems to genuinely want to better his country, the fact he resorts to terrorist actions, child soldiers, and ridiculous levels of violence makes him clearly the bad guy.

Personality: Armstrong’s personality is very, very intense. He is a man capable of delivering the most impassioned, honest speeches you will ever hear from a politician… and according to him, he doesn’t even write his own speeches! He is loud, he’s brash, he’s proud, he curses up a storm, but he also has lines he won’t cross and shows nothing but respect for those he fights, and when he beats Sam in the DLC storyline and when Raiden defeats him, he has nothing but respect for the men. It’s honestly impressive how they could cram so much nuanced personality into a man that is maybe onscreen for twenty minutes tops.

Final Fate: Of course, as is the fate of any politician who thinks he can beat Raiden, he is not only killed, but has his heart ripped out by Raiden and crushed in his hands.

Best Scene: The entirety of his speech to Raiden, where he explains his entire plan. Mostly for the fact that Raiden is likely as stunned by all of this as any first-time player.

Best Quote: Literally everything out of this man’s mouth is golden; there’s a reason he’s one of the most quoted, meme-worthy characters in one of the most quotable, meme-worthy games of all time. But credit where credit is due, his immortal words to Raiden as he kicks him like a football and apparently rips a hole in the fourth wall that lets in the cheering of a stadium crowd stand out:

“Don’t fuck with this senator!”

Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: Armstrong is an easy 10/10. But why is that? Well, beyond his personality, which basically consumes your attention, there’s a lot of symbolism to his final match with Raiden.

Firstly, there is the fact his philosophy is very similar to Raiden’s mentor’s philosophy. Much like Solid Snake, Armstrong sees a world where soldiers fight and die for causes they don’t believe in, and citizens being suppressed by meaningless, trivial garbage. The philosophies fork from there: Snake wished for a world of peace, where there would be no need for fighting anymore, while Armstrong wishes for a world of freedom, where all people choose to fight the battles that they want, where they decide what is worth fighting for and what isn’t. Armstrong knows he could never end all war; he just wants those who put their lives at stake to be doing it for good reasons, and not to line the pockets of bureaucrats. As Raiden carries on Snake’s philosophy in his own way, this is sort of a test of Armstrong’s ideologies, to see whose vision is truly worth upholding in this world.

This brings us into the symbolism of the fight itself, which is set up like a political debate, though of course one tailored to Armstrong’s “Might Makes Right” philosophy. Armstrong is running for president in 2020, so is it not fitting that he defend his viewpoints the way he believes they ought to be defended as the final great debate on the way to the presidency? There’s also the inherent symbolism in the weak vs. the strong, with Raiden representing all the long-suffering American people and Armstrong representing the politicians who prey on the weak. He is still a politician, and his philosophy outright values the strong over the weak, so Raiden is something for a voice for the voiceless, a hero to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. Raiden in the battle represents what true strength should be: a tool of justice, used to protect those who cannot protect themselves, while Armstrong of course represents his own philosophies.

And of course, there is the fact that in the end, Armstrong s very much the shadow archetype to Raiden, a dark reflection of what he could be. As you may have noted, ultimately Raiden and Armstrong’s philosophies aren’t entirely different from each other. This is even pointed out in the song that plays over his battle, the epic “It Has To Be This Way.” The lyrics are as follows:

Standing here, I realize

You were just like me, trying to make history.

But who's to judge the right from wrong?

When our guard is down, I think we'll both agree

That violence breeds violence,

But in the end it has to be this way.

I've carved my own path, you've followed your wrath,

But maybe we're both the same.

The world has turned, and so many have burned,

But nobody is to blame.

Yet staring across this barren wasted land

I feel new life will be born beneath the bloodstained sand.

Beneath the bloodstained sand!

Armstrong isn’t just brilliant because he’s a hardcore badass whose every line is quotable and who is souped up on NANOMACHINES, SON! Armstrong is brilliant because of how he symbolically contrasts Raiden’s own philosophy and, even if he is ultimately defeated, has passed on some of his philosophy to Raiden in a way. Did Raiden not prove his philosophy was the correct one by killing Armstrong? Did Raiden not just fight for what he believed in, fought a war to prove the superiority of what he believed in?

Alongside Ocelot, the antagonizing forces of the Metal Gear series just didn’t get better than this.

[in-tua-deep]

How do you think things would have changed if Five has come back even younger than in canon? Like if he came back as 7 or 8 or even younger? Also, I love your writing. You’re an amazing writer and I love reading your stuff.

first of all that would be hilarious because as much as media has tricked you into thinking older child actors (who are easier to work with) are younger (I mean case in point, Five is supposed to be thirteen but the actor is fifteen and those two years can make a big difference at that age) or animated movies can’t decide on a size for their character, but for real seven-year-olds in real life are BABIES

that’s like. the equivalent of a second grader?? I think i was about to go into year three living in the netherlands. I thought the year six kids were ancient. I didn’t care about bodily harm and would just hurl myself into cartwheels and handstands (nowadays not so much)

That was about the age I was losing teeth for the Very First Time and also the age I almost gave myself a concussion playing on the playground equipment (I blacked out and woke up in the nurses office lmao) and I thought the singing talents of Sandy from Hamtaro were the greatest in the world (the twirling ribbon song was formative for me)

seven was also the age for me that i realized that romance was The Worst because my best friend george decided that the pulling pigtails version of bugging me was a sure fire way to get my attention or something like that. but like,, george and me had chicken pox together. we pretended we were cheetahs in our treetop bunkbed nest together (we had a very loose grasp of the difference between cheetahs and jaguars and other big cats, admittedly). He was my best friend he didn’t need to pull my hair or anything rip

like can you even IMAGINE if five came back as a second grader?? yeah like maybe someone would serve thirteen-year-old Five black coffee but no one is going to just hand this baby child anything with caffeine are you kidding me

his feet wouldn’t even be able to reach the peDALS OF THE CAR

wow this would inconvenience him so much

i can’t even find a picture of my brother that young smh but here’s him and me when he was? probably about nine or ten and I was actually probably about six and smiling with a closed mouth to hide the fact that i was missing teeth or something smh

that is TWO WHOLE BABIES right there i’m just genuinely dying at the thought of Five popping out and he’s just. a gradeschooler. that suit would have been swimming on him and he’s got little chubby cheeks built to absorb shock and whatever atrocious child haircut he had at that age 

(i have posted before about my genuine shock that five was ten in the comics. ten!! that’s a whole baby! a child! W H A T)

but?? does he pop up from jumping through his portal and look in the mirror and find that he’s missing some teeth? Can he whistle air through the gaps? i’m just picturing seven-year-old five getting socked in the face and losing some teeth or something and diego is right there to patronizingly tell him that it’s okay they’re probably just baby teeth and five is about to punch diego’s teeth out in a second if he keeps that up by jove

imagine five jumping and standing on the counter and he still can’t reach the marshmallows because they’re on the top shelf of the cupboard do you know how angry that would make him?? he would have about 60% less time for his siblings bullshit than normal because his small stature can only hold so much emotion at any one time and he has decided to go with seething rage for the foreseeable future

can you imagine how difficult that would be for Allison though?? Five at thirteen was bad but Five-at-around-Claire’s-age??? a billion times worse and she’s probably going to either be super avoidant because it’s painful or full on protective mama bear

it would definitely change a lot of plot stuff because i mean. no one’s going to let this tiny child drive. he can’t reach the pedals, duh. however, he might persuade one of the siblings (diego and klaus, probably) to drive him to griddy’s instead? Because with the options being “so help me i will walk there myself. alone. at night. as a small and innocent looking child” and driving him and keeping him company i think the latter wins out

(i’d nix griddy’s altogether but i’m way too invested in hazel and agnes getting together tbh)

hey wait does being that young mean that five doesn’t have his umbrella tattoo?? huh. well regardless if diego and klaus accompany him then the plot point of agnes telling the assassin squad about the tattoo can still happen so i guess it’s a moot point

but honestly the drama of having this tiny child just. completely annihilate the hit squad is hilarious to me, and it would also hit home the fact that hey! five might be telling the truth about everything and isn’t messed up by time travel! i mean whomst the fuck else would walk into a room and zero in on the seven-year-old no one else knows exists or is assumed dead by literally the whole ass world (and even if they didn’t he’s supposed to be 29) and demand he come with them and shit like man

Klaus: hey five what do you have

Five, stabbing his own arm to take the tracking device out: a knife

Diego: NO

other fun points include: the siblings bodily picking five up and five behaving like a very aggressive small breed of dog while simultaneously being super touch-starved and secretly appreciating being carried but would never admit it (whilst sober that is)

either they kept the old uniforms and five wears that or they have to scrounge up whatever they can find which means that five is dressed in some of claire’s clothes allison found stuffed in the bottom of her suitcase until they can go shopping and i’m not sure which is better tbh

hazel and cha-cha assuming that five is actually either diego or klaus bc those were the two adults in the coffee shop with the umbrella tattoo and eventually being confronted with the fact that their legendary adversary is a gradeschooler

five just being. so tired. all the time. my bedtime at seven years old was probably like. 8:30PM. kids need a lot of sleep!! so just five trying to keep himself awake because he has important stuff to do!! but doing the nod and bob because he can’t keep his eyes open

the trying-to-be-helpful but mildly-condescending strangers who stop five or talk down to him increase by tenfold. Teenagers out an about on the street along? eh. a seven-year-old? five is going to get so many concerns “where are your parents, sweetheart?” that he IS going to snap and kill a well meaning middle aged woman in the middle of the street

in a similar note the number of people who assume that he is the child of whatever sibling he happens to be in proximity to also increases tenfold and five does Not Appreciate This (and neither do half the siblings tbh bc now they have to pretend that they are responsible for this tiny feral child)

“FUCK” five says, loudly, prompting gasps from the delicate natured passerbys. 

“you can’t fucking say that, dude, you’re like. a baby.” klaus says, equally loudly and making everyone in earshot 70% more scandalized

“I am not associated with them” diego informs the masses with an edge of desperation

luther is just. so massive next to this tiny version of five. he could hold him in like, one hand. and maybe luther at one point was really good with kids but with his new body he’s awkward and it’s very sad

no one bats an eye at child Five toting an Entire Half of a Mannequin that is probably as big as he is around. Billy’s kid is currently emotionally attached to a brick he found in the alley behind his school. Gertie’s granddaughter refuses to leave the house without an old sock filled with pebbles tucked under her arm. Gary’s stepkid found a piece of driftwood on the beach and now it’s in their bed every night. Kids are weird and at least Five’s has a face for him to talk to i guess??

instead of luther threatening dolores he just looks at five with this gun that is way too big for him to have a hold of really and just. reaches out and scoops five up under his armpits and he’s just furiously wiggling and growling and luther is like “nope not putting you down until we agree that murder is not a solution”

every interaction with the handler is probably about 112% more creepy honestly but also what about the job?? either five a) gets an appropriately child sized desk like the ones you find in an actual gradeschool or b) he gets some kind of boosterseat for his chair and just has to sit at this desk that is comically oversized for him

the squad go to a restaurant and the server brings over the menus and hands five a children’s menu. without a word klaus just plucks it from five’s hands and substitutes it for his own because they have been kicked out of six whole restaurants and he is willing to eat the children’s chicken nugget meal if he had to god damn it

the apocalypse doesn’t happen because vanya is literally incapable of hurting a grade schooler right in front of her regardless of how pissed off at her family in general she is. that is a whole child. vanya works with children for her job. she can’t hurt an entire child in front of her?? like she can destroy the world and all the abstract children but this one child right in front of her? who is also her long lost brother and former sole confidant as children who wasn’t there for any of the general bullshit she just went through?? not so much

but like. even after the stop the apocalypse there’s still the issue of what to do with this entire child. like at least as a teenager five would be able to be somewhat independent but seven-year-old five can’t reach the sink to wash his hands without a step stool 

just the squad coming together to look after five without quite letting five know that’s what they’re doing because they don’t want to wake up to a knife in their chest or anything smh

five and claire meet and become an unstoppable duo of terror. patrick is an actually competent parent who is so exhausted 24/7 from raising his daughter that he just accepts five immediately because?? his brother-in-law being a time travelling 58-year-old in the body of a grade schooler who is partially feral from over forty years alone and probably has untreated ptsd? okay might as well happen

patrick “i didn’t trust allison with a child and yet i still trust her way more than the rest of you so i’m going to schedule five a doctor’s appointment or something because god knows he’s probably not up to date on his vaccinations and he’s hanging around claire and i doubt any of y’all even thought about that” hargreeves

the hargreeves all go to an amusement park as a family bonding activity. the mistake becomes clear when it’s revealed that five is too short to go on half the rides. the resulting meltdown gets them all kicked out and Diego just has five tossed over his shoulder still hurling insults at the ride attendant as they hoof it out of there

the family has to figure out everywhere they can go within walking distance because there’s still a cold war going on between allison and five over whether he has to be in a booster seat for any car rides or not

it’s basically just shenanigans with the family and five trying to figure out how to coexist and compromise and also look after one another when it’s been every man for themself pretty much all their lives

[anindoorkitty]

Benedict Cumberbatch on Playing Thomas Edison in “The Current War” 

(source)  photos: Dean Rogers

Competition breeds innovation. History is full of rivals who, by working against one another, continuously pushing to be better, have inadvertently contributed to the greater good. Apple versus Microsoft is one such example, paving the way for computing as we know it today. There’s Elon Musk’s SpaceX versus Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin – the modern day space race. However, few rivalries have changed the world as much as the War of Currents. It was a battle of entrepreneurial titans, of AC versus DC, of George Westinghouse versus Thomas Edison. Now, Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon are bringing the story to the big screen.

Now, with The Current War, the story of this famous rivalry is coming to the big screen. The Sorcerer Supreme himself, Benedict Cumberbatch, explores the very real kind of magic in Thomas Edison’s use of electricity, while the versatile Michael Shannon plays successful businessman and entrepreneur George Westinghouse. Slated to release on October 25, 2019, The Current War explores this famous rivalry of the two titans of electricity. We had the opportunity to discuss with Cumberbatch  the various aspects of his character and this historic conflict.

Innovation & Tech Today: What did you do to prepare to play the man who’s been called “America’s Greatest Inventor?”

Benedict Cumberbatch: Well, I read much as I could… There was an excerpt of his diary, which is a little known publication (I think out of print now) that production managed to get a hold of for me. That was a wonderful insight…

I researched into specifics to do with his deafness, to do with the electric current and its distribution. I was speaking to people who know a lot more about these things, including our art department on the film itself in pre-production, who were pretty fantastic. I always find that leaning on some of the experts around you is an incredibly helpful thing to do. Then the book itself that it’s inspired by, [War of the Currents]. It’s an amazing story of three men, three titans of invention.

I&T Today: Did you learn anything about him that the average person might not know?

Benedict Cumberbatch: I guess the regrets or the understanding of what he’d sacrificed with his family, how hard he worked and what cost that had on the intimacy that he had, and lacked, with his family. Not to judge the man, but I think he ended up repeating his mistakes, if they were mistakes. Or is it just his nature? But I think it still tortured him as well as being something he decided to do. That work always came first. That was an interesting thing to explore… He was very fond of coffee. He’d often sleep in the laboratory and work through the night.

He was very fond of his men, he treated them honestly and truthfully and, at times, harshly, but there was a lot of celebratory machismo and backslapping, and it was a proper communal work environment in Menlo Park. That’s the first blueprint for the research and development departments we now have in a lot of industries in the Silicon Valley. There was a lot of comradery and I think there were certain pressure points in this race for the control of the current where he probably didn’t behave at his best. There’s a human element to that. It’s not all just good natured thigh slapping. There was a lot of hard work and a lot of spilled milk.

How ferocious a reader he was, I didn’t know. I don’t know how general knowledge that is about him, but it’s gobsmacking. I mean volumes of literature all the time. He never stopped reading. A lot of the diaries, accounts of passages, fiction, as well as a lot of history, and of course science and nonfiction actual works. He’s extraordinary. He writes about books as mood enhancers as well, how they transport him. He writes about his daydreams and his dreams, and however racy they get. He touches upon a fantasy life as well. He’s just very funny, and takes great delight in the brilliance of other people as well.

I&T Today: The Current War is revolved around this rivalry, specifically between Edison and George Westinghouse, played by Michael Shannon. How has it been working with Shannon as your rival, as your opposite?

Benedict Cumberbatch: Well, it’s a bit like the famous scene in Heat where the two rivals operate in such isolated opposition or polarity that they really are arguing two completely different cases. They don’t crossover much, that’s the great thing. Sadly, I only got two instances where Michael and I were on the same set, but obviously one of those is a big scene, a lot like the café scene that’s between De Niro and Pacino.

Michael is an extraordinary actor. I’ve been a huge fan of all of his work, and for a long time. He has such command of characterization, of how to achieve so much with seemingly so little, but inside he’s fearlessly intelligent and very heartfelt.

I&T Today: Edison isn’t the first scientist you’ve played. You’ve also portrayed Alan Turing in The Imitation Game and others. How has this experience compared to that of Alan Turing?

Benedict Cumberbatch: I think Edison obviously has an eccentricity: the workaholic nature, the excessive nature, the competitiveness, and what were rumored to be issues of hygiene because of that. I still think that he operated on a very different plane from the other scientists I’ve portrayed, and Turing in particular. Personality-wise, he’s bombastic, he’s a salesman, he’s confident up front. He’d be as confident in front of a podium as he would be in his workshop. Entertaining and regaling with facts and amusing anecdotes and funny asides. You know he was a very public persona.

Whereas Alan Turing was a very awkward, retiring, quiet, and shy man by comparison. Often, people say “you play lots of scientists.” Yes, but I also play lots of different human beings, and they couldn’t be two more different human beings in my opinion.

Alan was lean and trim, a very competent long-distance runner. And I think Edison would not be a competent long distance runner. He was energetic, but I don’t think it went too far in the direction of cardiovascular workouts.

And the lure for this wasn’t just another scientist, but it was another extraordinary human being. It was tempting, had some aspects that I had never played before. I always try to look for work that gives me something new to think about.

I&T Today: How has playing Edison compared to some of the fictional intellectuals you’ve played? Like Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Strange?

Benedict Cumberbatch: The Wizard of Menlo Park and the Sorcerer Supreme. I think what’s extraordinary about what Edison did was this was magic we’re still living with. I’ve got two, very young, children. And to see the look in their eyes when lights go on and off for the first time, and they really take that in. It’s a very bold and frank reminder of what an extraordinary thing it is. Doing this Promethean thing of lighting unlight with light, and creating daylight, and interrupting circadian rhythms, and bringing convenience to every part of our lives so we can evolve physically and intellectually, in a different way. These are incredibly real things, and to be part of storytelling or a storyteller trying to imagine and envision what that would be like to be at the forefront of that invention is terribly exciting.

I&T Today: As you studied this historic rivalry, do you think there are comparisons to some more modern rivalries? Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs, for instance?

Benedict Cumberbatch: Of course there are. How can there not be? I think there have been rivalries in all areas in industry. Of course now, a lot of these powerhouses in Silicon Valley, these men, captains of our modern tech industry, Noskin and Jeff Bergin, Gates and Steve Jobs. You know they’ve become as iconic as their products in many ways. And rightfully so. And I think the men and women who are captaining those areas of industry now always acknowledge their debt to people like Westinghouse, Edison, and of course, Tesla.

[moviegroovies]

y’all i saw terminator: dark fate!!!!!!!!!

GOD i loved it. i think i’ve admitted before that the only way i really rank exciting plot points in movies is by how much i anticipated them/wanted them to happen, and terminator: dark fate did NOT disappoint. fuck every writer or director who makes weird shit happen in their stories just to give the audience a story they couldn’t possibly have anticipated. (cough avengers endgame cough.) sometimes the best ending is one you can see from ten miles away, because that means it’s been set up EFFICIENTLY. 

obviously, i think the new terminator did that. there were a few things i wanted to happen that didn’t (mostly regarding the life of one or two key characters), and a few things i legitimately didn’t see coming that i really liked, but ultimately the story was solid, awesome to watch, and very faithful to the original. i haven’t seen any of the sequels past judgement day, and i have no plans to change that anytime soon (lmao), but i’ve heard that it discounts all continuity past the second one, and that’s completely fine by me. the actors were great. LINDA HAMILTON was great. and i am sexually attracted to old soft arnold schwarzenneger. 😔

i was debating on whether or not i should make a separate post to talk about the time travel in the terminator franchise or if i should just go crazy go stupid and lump it in with my review and ultimately i think it can just go here, because i have some things to say re: the way it ties back to the originals. 

personally i think the neatest example of time shenanigans in the franchise comes from the very first movie. that one sets up time travel in their universe as very “you already changed the past,” insofar as, without the time travel elements, there is the very real sense that the future the terminator came from would never have existed. kyle reese, from the future, becomes the father of his superior officer john connor. without the time travel, there would be no human resistance for skynet to fear. not only that, when the terminator’s arm is left behind intact, even after sarah destroys the machine, they set out the idea that skynet itself was DEVELOPED FROM THE TERMINATOR’S TECHNOLOGY, so if there was no time travel, there was no skynet, and no apocalypse... etc. at the end of the movie, the picture of sarah that kyle comes back with is taken by a child at a gas station, and it seems like a clue that everything is happening on track. sarah will give birth to john connor, the machines will rise up, the resistance will rally, time travel will ensue. the events of the first movie are a closed time loop, and ultimately, i find that really satisfying. 

However. 

from a narrative perspective, i think the changes in those time travel mechanics are super interesting. 

basically, in judgement day, there’s still some implications that the timeline is a closed loop--the terminator’s hand is actually shown to be the basis of what will become the skynet computer, which is being built right then and there. the apocalypse could indeed be on, and everything seems fixed. then, though, they find the creator of the computer, and miles bennett helps them to destroy his work in horror at what he will create. skynet never happens. they change the future. 

by dark fate, that ability to change what is “written” becomes not only a plot point, but a sort of rallying cry. the skynet apocalypse is officially off--now the dark future is controlled by a very similar breed of computer known as legion. sarah’s efforts changed the future, permanently. there’s the feeling perhaps that the future can only be changed to an extent (the skynet apocalypse being canceled, but replaced by a very similar robo-hell, for example--almost like the timeline is trying to set itself right), but that feeling is tested and challenged as the movie progresses. in that sense, dark fate is the full culmination of the trendline that their “trilogy” represents: sarah’s fate was sealed in dark fate, but with john’s influence in judgement day, things were officially set off course. dark fate represented dani’s turn, and she took everything into her own hands--she personally stood up and refused to run, refused to let the bad future win out, refused to take things lying down. sarah felt a kinship to her, based on the position that she found her in, but it’s like she realizes--dani is not sarah. sarah’s realization is that “she’s john,” which is closer--she’s the leader of the resistance, humanity’s only hope, but i think the message is pretty clearly telling us that she’s not john connor either--she’s dani ramos. 

and she fucking OWNS.

one thing that i was a little iffy about at the start of the movie was the “white savior” thing. i don’t think that was an unfounded reservation to have--based on the formula from the first movie, a terminator is sent back to kill, and a hero is sent back to protect. this time, the “hero” is a white girl cyborg named grace, while the character in danger, who the movie clearly wants you to think is in the same boat as sarah connor, ie the mother mary role, literally important not for her own self but for her womb, is a mexican woman. that could have reached unfortunate implication levels like hella fast, but honestly (and i will disclaim this by adding that i’m white, so if you felt differently about it i would appreciate hearing why), i think the rest of the movie subverted that pretty beautifully. for one thing, grace being fundamentally human underneath her augmentation meant that she wasn’t an unstoppable machine ready to continue on until her metal frame was torn to shreds. she was a BADASS, obviously, and in the first fight, grace did prove herself a worthy successor to the “uncle bob” terminator in t2 with her kickass skillz (sorry kyle reese you’re just not that cool), but soon after that we got to see grace’s limits. if it hadn’t been for sarah connor, grace’s plan on the bridge finally boiled down to “when the terminator starts to kill me, run.” soon after that, grace’s power is shown to be fallible even more thoroughly when she hits her limit and starts to convulse, a byproduct of her augmentation. grace can do more than what a human can do, but she can’t do it forever like a machine could. very quickly in the movie, the tables were flipped, and even though grace came back through time to protect dani, dani was the one who had to take over the driver’s seat (despite never having driven before), and the one responsible for getting grace to medicine so that she could be resuscitated. and all that was BEFORE the big reveal.

a note: there were two scenes in pretty quick succession in this sequence that made me sob. the first of these was the death of dani’s brother diego, because in his last act, he was reassuring his sister that he was okay, despite being impaled by a metal pole. that line gave his character some depths that i hadn’t expected, and it really made dani’s pain after the car went up feel palpable. diego didn’t get a lot of screentime, but we saw him flirt lamely with a neighbor, we saw him dream of internet fame, we saw him joke at the factory even as his job was being replaced. we saw how much dani cared about him when she told him to take her job while she sorted out his replacement by machine parts. their relationship was a solid brick in the movie’s foundation, and his loss felt a lot more real than many comparable losses in movies. you know that whole “show, don’t tell” adage? they didn’t have to tell me that losing diego (and her father) was like a knife in dani. i saw that for myself. the second scene was at the pharmacy, when the employees and the other customers reached out to help grace even after she and dani had both lashed out and threatened them with the gun in fear of what was happening. y’all ever get emotional over the way that people are essentially good and will help each other when they can? god i fucking love that.

anyway, the reveal. the reveal was awesome. 

i started suspecting that dani wasn’t the mother of humanity’s last hope, but rather, humanity’s last hope herself, during the conversation on the train telling us exactly the opposite. sarah makes some assumptions and projects her experience onto dani, telling her flat out that she’s pretty much a walking incubator for humanity’s last hope. there’s a sense that sarah might be bitter about having that role handed to her, and perhaps even more so because it was then taken away--she lost the son that she risked everything for, fought two terminators for, and for nothing: for some machines in a future that no longer existed. in that scene though, crucially, grace never says anything to confirm sarah’s assumptions. the one character with knowledge of the future doesn’t impart it, and it shows. sarah knows things that dani doesn’t simply because it’s not her first rodeo, but she’s also wrong sometimes, too. again in the kitchen later, the “carl” terminator asks about grace’s mission, but she doesn’t share it or give any information on who dani is going to turn out to be. the absence of information can often be an answer all in itself, and the reveal had some EXCELLENT groundwork throughout the movie--both in grace’s actions and in the brave and heroic actions of dani herself.

dani’s nature and grace’s past being revealed in the plane was one of the best scenes in perhaps the entire franchise. i said i sobbed at those scenes i outlines before, right? yeah, that was nothing to how hard i was crying and also cringey stimming during the reveal. we got to see a peek of dani ramos some twenty years in the future, and she’s incredible. she’s fearless, she’s tough, but crucially, she’s still kind. she takes no shit, but she not only saves a child’s life, but she offers a new one to the thugs who were chasing her. in just one scene, the way that dani bands a resistance together is obvious: she’s the best of us, and she uses that for good.

god, i love dani ramos. 

the way that ultimately, dani takes the “hero” role over for herself (much like sarah did, honestly) and the way that we get to see grace’s weaknesses make them a very balanced pair. they’re both badass women in their own right (hell, sarah is, too), and they counter each other excellently. grace is augmented, and has physical capabilities that dani can’t match. at the same time, though, dani is willing to make risks that grace isn’t, because while grace’s concern rests on the fate of one woman, dani wants to find the best outcome for everyone--including herself, but not ending there. grace is willing to drop dani at the bottom of a mineshaft, if that’s what it takes to keep her safe. dani is willing to sacrifice her safety to face the confrontation that’s looming, because that’s what it takes to move forward. 

i think one of the coolest things about the movie is that both grace and sarah come into the action with more experience in combat than dani, and more knowledge about the situation than dani, but ultimately the movie shows that they aren’t infallible, and there’s never a moment when dani is punished for naivety or made to feel stupid because she wasn’t as informed as them. both grace and sarah, in fact, are openly shown to be wrong about dani in different ways--grace knows who she’s going to become, intimately, but that closeness makes her too reluctant to put dani near the front lines, choosing to run indefinitely from the terminator rather than face it head on and use every advantage they can get to beat it. sarah, meanwhile, respects dani’s agency more, but in a way she sees past her at the start of the movie, dismissing her importance in a way that reads as sarah dismissing her own--she’s attacking herself and using dani as a proxy, but sarah’s wrong, because dani isn’t her. i love how both grace and sarah are good characters, and they’re both doing what they think is necessary and right, but they’re allowed to be wrong and misguided. ultimately, if it wasn’t for dani’s own agency and choices, the terminator would not have been defeated, and there would be no hope for subverting the bad future everyone is waiting for.

fate, believe it or not, is a very present theme in dark fate. obviously, i talked earlier about how this movie is the culmination of the “you can’t change the future” ->  “you can change the future?” -> “you can change the future.” chain of events represented in the good terminator movies that i will acknowledge, but it’s more than just that. through the character of the “carl” terminator, we also get to see the blatant subversion of one’s nature for the better, and that was just. really epic. ngl.

in terminator 2, i enjoyed how john connor was protected by the reprogrammed terminator “uncle bob,” but i was a little disappointed by the execution. having uncle bob be a protector to john was exactly what i wanted, but the explanation that he had been programmed to do so rubbed me a little the wrong way. what i didn’t realize until i watched dark fate was that this pinged as wrong because dark fate gave me what i wanted: a terminator that didn’t change sides because he was taken down and forced to change, but rather, a terminator that actually made a conscious decision to be better because of what he observed in humanity. carl saw a familial dynamic and realized that he had taken that from sarah, and reached out to her, giving her a purpose like his family had given him a purpose, because he chose to. and that was the sexiest thing he could have done.

can you tell i LOVE what they did with the terminator. his arc and sarah’s were such awesome continuations for sarah’s general history and the progression of terminators played by arnold schwarzenneger. part of me was hoping for an ending where we saw sarah and carl drive off together, waving to dani and preparing to live out the rest of their years saving the future. yeah, well, we didn’t get that, but there were several scenes that hinted at forgiveness from sarah (an almost impossible feat given how she felt and what she lost) and trust between the two of them, and i loved that too.

dark fate was a good movie, y’all. it was so good. 

there’s probably a million other things that i could talk about going down this vein, but this post is already a monster. i’ll just sign out by saying: one last thing i thought was epic and cool was how the protagonists cross the border from mexico into the us and at no point is such an action demonized; in fact, it’s necessary for them to reach essential aid in the form of carl, and the man who facilitates the action, dani’s uncle, is never treated amorally or like a criminal. i know, i know, the bar is on the fucking floor, but in the political climate we’ve got, for a blockbuster to take that stance felt like a pretty solid statement to me. 

also, i liked the terminator’s line about texas. watching that in a theater in texas, i must report that it got the biggest audience reaction out of any line in the whole movie. folks, there were wolf whistles. ciao.

[totallynotagentphilcoulson]

A post I’ve honestly meant to write for years but kept putting off because I was overly concerned about whether or not people would be interested but I honestly don’t care so ANYWAY: my Star Wars OCs

gonna toss this under a read more though especially since I plan on reblogging this a few times, so yeah

Also guess I should also have some semblance of organization, so I’ll do them in order of when I conceptualized them. The first four are all my core characters whom I’ve conceptualized as all generally hanging out on various escapades.

Deak Idanian

- Male Human of Corellian, Socorran, and Alderaanian descent

- Attended Coronet City campus of Corellia University with a major in xenoarchaeology focusing on anthropology with a senior thesis analysis of Pre-Republic primitive lithic weaponry points and their use. Also took correspondence courses in basic starship systems and was a hobbyist racer for extra spending money.

- has always had a passion for galactic history, particularly in those parts of the GFFA considered to be backwater. Unfortunately for him, Deak is prone to occasionally neglecting to fill out all pertinent legal documents before an excavation because of being too enthusiastic. Sometimes this neglect is rather more intentional than it should be especially if stealing it from under the nose of the legal claimant coincides with that legal claimant being a dickish private collector. This puts Deak solidly in the very large category of “semi-legitimate field researcher,” which wasn’t exactly his plan but there’s worse he could be stuck doing.

- Related to the above, while he tends to try to work only for actual accredited institutions or for communities seeking repatriation, economic realities in the galaxy do lead him to working for less-than-legitimate clients as well. Or sometimes just for the hell of it. Retains a small personal collection of art and antiquities that he uses as a good source of income when jobs are few and far between.

- likes to think of himself as some sort of crack shot with a blaster. In reality, is more along the lines of Uncharted’s Nathan Drake and goes for the “try to aim when I can but otherwise just shoot vaguely in the enemy’s direction and hope for the best” school of firearms training. Has a small collection of blasters he considers his own including  Blastech A180, DL-44, and rifle model DH-17; and both a Merr-Sonn Power 5 and Model 434 Death Hammer.

- Hella bi, not a lot of past relationships but not exactly a dearth of them either. Has largely retained amicable relationships with his exes, though he doesn’t talk to one ex-boyfriend who sold a Pre-Clone Wars Corellian battle helm Deak was preparing to donate in order to fund the downpayment on a new airspeeder.

- Eclectic tastes in fashion by some standards, is a big fan of the finer end of galactic fashion when it comes to dressing for business but often opts for basic durable spacer garments for casual settings and field research

- [started life when I was in middle school as basically me but as Indiana Jones as Han Solo. Last name was shamelessly stolen from the Legends EU while the first was taken from early drafts of the first movie. Now visually less brown haired white guy if you couldn’t gather from his ancestry and the general trend in the ethnicity of the actors who have portrayed canon characters from those planets (hint: Han is Corellian, Lando is Socorran, and Bail Organa is Alderaanian)]

ELE-47G6

- Began life as an RA-7 protocol droid, externally still largely remains as such due to sheer number of potential surplus bodies in the galaxy. Internally upgrades wiring alongside each major generation of protocol droid, tosses an eclectic mix of military-grade wiring and sensor systems in when the occasion calls for it. Droid brain consists of a core of a Synthtech AA-1 Verbobrain with a TranLang III communications module with T-series tactical droid combat-analysis software installed in place of superfluous language software (which, for ELE, is anything that isn’t linguistically related to Galactic Basic or Hutteses) mated to an Intellex VI R4 astro-agromech computer. There are at least three spares of this modified computational core squirreled away both on and off ship. Most notable external differences are the heavier duty torso plating and bulkier aftermarket legs that increase both height and mobility, and the fact that ELE sometimes wears a utility vest.

- Can interface with the ship directly in a secondary body of their own design. Said secondary body is an R4 unit with an old Clone Wars-era commando droid head and the arms of a KX-series security droid unceremoniously welded to one of the engineering station’s stools.

- Does not bother with and was never programmed to have a specific gender; through decades of life with very few memory wipes of any sort has become rather fast-talking and fluctuates between feminine and masculine vocal modules within the same conversation and often the same sentence.

- Gets flirty with the crew and the passengers that tag along on certain jobs, both for the hell of it and to get something they want. ELE does generally consciously choose a gendered vocal module in these cases, going for some form of old fashioned holofilm stars and starlettes’ affected Mid-Inner Rim accent. Knows this works most often on Deak and regularly uses this fact to their advantage.

- [ELE was conceived of in my last couple years of high school, initially as a droid character in a potential fan film in which only one organic being survives a freighter crash on a deathworld that’s also in the middle of a war zone and finds the head of one of the ship’s droids conscious but damaged enough to have fluctuating vocals as the deuteragonist. Obviously never made the fan film and actually fleshed out the droid character into something far better than that, I hope]

Kolgrahgth the Hutt

- A relatively young Hutt by his species standards (approx. 250 standard years old) Kolgragth is the owner and sometimes operator of both Krazy Kol’s Certified Pre-Owned Speeder Emporium and the Rusty Sparnacle tavern, a family-friendly dining establishment with tasteful Mon Cal oceanside resort decor. He is strictly above-the-table and by the books in all business and prides self on being a completely legal business-being of the highest breeding to the obvious point of personal flaw. Much to his chagrin however, his celebrity doppelganger is a younger version of the infamous Jabba and this perception does not only apply to members of other species who are prone to lumping all Hutts together, but to other Hutts as well. Kol does not enjoy this fact.

- while he himself sticks with the letter of the law in all business, he has no compunctions about the other crewmates operating in a less-than-legal manner as long as he doesn’t get roped into their nonsense. As such he does not wind up taking part in very many major misadventures space-side

- Is the head of the local HOA, VERY vocal about violations in the color of exterior house trim and lawn ornamentation

- Kol is also an avid Loth-cat fancier and owns about 15 felines. He would never admit it to himself or the other cats, but his favorite is actual an elderly one-eyed neutered mixed-species former stray feline named Grand Admiral Biggles.

- [Came up with Kol roughly the same time as ELE, also much more one dimensionally. Originated from the thought “what if there was a Hutt whose biggest dick move was instating and running a homeowner’s association”. On another note that doesn’t technically apply in-universe the same way as the rest of his backstory, despite the Disney-era Canon now stating that Hutts exist as a species in which some individuals produce one sex gamete or the other I have and always will personally stick with the old Legends EU approach of “Hutts are giant sapient gastropods and as such are hermaphroditic”]

Jasna Vintrakahs

- A Devaronian female who started her career path solidly on the wrong side of the law due to growing up in a poor formerly industrial city and the costs of genetic and hormonal therapies on Devaron being, at the time, exorbitantly out of range and the off-world options being more effective in a shorter time-span but still very expensive. Her greatest shame was stooping to bounty hunting and mercenary work to expedite her financial growth after transitioning, though she certainly appreciated and kept the skills and fun little toys that come with working in that field. Does now balance professional life on both sides of the legal line, but genuinely enjoys the rough and tumble fringe spacer life at this point due to more adventure and more interesting individuals. Also because it’s generally more accepted for a fringe spacer to nonverbally respond with the good old fashioned “fuck you” that is a pair of knuckledusters when some stranger asks why she’s a female Devaronian with horns than it would be for an accountant or a trader.

- Depending on the particulars of the job, will often undercut her competitors’ bids on smuggling runs to the point of intentionally being deeply in the red. Doesn’t do this out of a need to repent for her past but rather out of a deep sense of the rights of all beings to live a comfortable life free from external control by privileged outsiders and class traitors. Can usually count on Deak to find one of his less-than-legitimate antiquities obtainment jobs along the way or after delivery given the parts of the galaxy a lot of these vaguely humanitarian smuggling runs tend to be in.

- Captain of our merry band, or as much a captain as anyone can be in an eccentric group of friends and acquaintances. Okay, it really just boils down to she’s the one who owns the ship, but when they’re on-board everyone defers to her hard-earned experience. Passengers can be dicks, but that’s what turning down the inertial dampeners in the guest berths during rough patches of flight is for.

- Met ELE by purchasing the droid as a gift to herself for retiring from bounty hunting, manumitted them after modifying them from near-stock protocol droid and gave them back-pay for the year it took to get to that point.

- Original ship was the Moldy Mynock, a twin-seat variant Incom Z95 Headhunter. Managed to keep this starfighter in such good repair and with a nearly pristine interior that a collector of vintage ships wound up paying close to double the original price. This made it pretty damn easy to purchase the ship that became the Starry Loth-bat, which started life decades ago as a YT 1200 freighter. By the time Jasna obtained it the ship had already become a haphazard blend of the base YT 1200 and a stock YT 1300, and eventually became a hybrid of a number of various YT models with some auxiliary gun ports on the forward starboard and port sides that were once TIE-series cockpits.

- When at home enjoys leatherworking (made Deak’s favorite satchel and ELE’s vest), traditional Devaronian blacksmithing (it’s handy to have a few blades on hand to use for barter in the Outer Rim), and pulp holoadventures. Which Jasna regularly takes the piss out of them for unrealistic tropes but is sincerely an avid fan of them.

- [Jasna started life as an unnamed female Twi’lek, then a male Twi’lek, around 2011-2012. Shifted to being Devaronian a couple years later, then shifted back to being a woman a little after that. Naturally, much like ELE, I am a bit nervous about having this character as she is. I’m cis and as far as I can tell will always identify as such, so y’know not exactly on the forefront of having the life experience of being trans to build off of. But on the other hand half the people I consider friends are trans, more trans characters need to exist, and gender as a whole is a fuck so I’ll be honest as a whole I’m pretty comfortable with Jasna being trans. I’m sure someone out there will read into the whole “gender of the character changed multiple times over the years I conceptualized her” thing alongside me quantifying my cis status as being “as far as I can tell”, to which I say...-shrug- eh, whatev. I wanted a trans OC]

A few unnamed ones that sort of exist in a void of “there for world building, may expand their characters later

Torgorian barkeep with the equivalent to Janus cat syndrome, a Barabel mechanic, Fonzi Kaz and the Boys (a Rodian singer, Bith Dorenian Beshniquel player, Weequay touchboardist, and Gungan lutenist), and a Chiss lawyer. There’s also Jasna’s partner whom I have not yet come up with a name for but she’s a cis Twi’lek artist with prosthetics. And I’m trying to come up with a good compelling Yuuzhan Vong OC too, though considering the dearth of them even now a full two decades after the NJO series began to be published I could probably go for a less compelling more stereotypical one for the first one and create a second one but yeah what I’ve got right now is extremely bare bones