#i am obsessed with the really funny dynamic between these 2

[moonstoneraven]

i wish we could’ve seen them interact more

[dr-spectre]

Ok... is it safe to talk about Sonic Movie 3 spoilers yet? The movie is out on digital and it's been over a month.

Idk. Anyways.

I am both curious and utterly terrified on how they are gonna write Metal Sonic and Amy for Sonic Movie 4.

I will start off with my boy Metal first.

Metal Sonic to me is a very interesting character due to his goals and motivation. His goal to prove that he is the REAL Sonic and that he's better than the "fake" one. The way that he acts is a near perfect replication of Sonic's attitude, from the finger wagging to the poses he does in Sonic CD and the OVA, he is all about proving that he is Sonic the Hedgehog.

Metal Sonic is just not a simple robotic clone, he has depth to him and they expand upon GREATLY when he becomes Neo Metal Sonic and becomes SO OBSESSED with proving that he's the real Sonic by turning into a monster and trying to rule over everything, just so he can finally kill Sonic.

EVEN EGGMAN IS LIKE "Yeah naw dude we're fucked, we NEED the chaos emeralds to have a chance at beating him."

After his Heroes appearance, he became nothing more than a robotic clone used in spinoff games and in terrible mainline games like Sonic 4 and Forces. He only had splashes of depth to him in the IDW comics with this phenomenal scene.

So when i see Metal Sonic and a whole army of him in the post credit scene of Sonic Movie 3, i can't help but feel VERY WORRIED on what they are gonna do with him.

I mean don't get me wrong, the design is nearly on par with the game version, aside that fucking mouth piece thing, it looks AWFUL!!!! I HATE ITTTT!!

WHAT IS THIS!?!? WHY DOES HE HAVE AN ANGRY MOUTH!? ITS NOT SCARY AT ALL LMAO!

But now I'm just wondering, will they give Metal Sonic that depth he used to have? Will we actually see Neo Metal Sonic or will the main Metal Sonic be the coloured one we saw?

I don't want Metal Sonic to be like his appearances in Sonic 4 Episode 2 and Forces. I want it to rival his appearance in the OVA and Heroes dude. I want a fucking great antagonist, not a cheap robot that shoots out energy blasts.

I want a god damn intimidating robot Sonic.

Now... Amy Rose.

As some of you probably know, i like a character wrapped in pink, is hyperactive, wields a giant melee weapon and is always mischaracterized in the fandom they are from. When i was younger, i used to dismiss her or think she was just funny and move on. But as i've gotten older, i've actually grown to really like the character, especially in the older 3D games and with retranslation mods. Her story with Gamma was beautiful, her speech to Shadow, her jokes, her flirty/fangirl attitude towards Sonic. It's really fun to watch. Most media has a boy fall in love with the girl, but with Amy and Sonic, it's the opposite. Their dynamic is unique.

I also love how in some stories, Amy can get REAL PISSED OFF and have anger issues. Even roses has thorns.

However... in more recent stories like Frontiers, her personality has been mellowed out by a lot and her crush for Sonic is pretty much gone now. She's all about "sharing love with the world" now and her anger issues are gone.

Some say she's grown up and "oh she changed!" But we actually don't see this character growth at all. It's one thing to tell a story about how Amy learns that maybe her love for Sonic is too much and she learns to just be a good friend to Sonic. But it's another when the character has a MASSIVE personality change between Lost World, Forces and Frontiers. AND THEN THEY CHANGED GENERATIONS TO MAKE AMY LESS FLIRTY AND ANGRY LIKE.... HUH!?!? WHY!?!?!? THAT'S NOT HOW YOU WRITE A CHARACTER ARC!!!!! YOU GOTTA SHOW IT!!!! (A lot of Sonic characters have this issue too so it's not just an Amy problem.)

And them also doing the whole "Amy is no longer a damsel in distress anymore and her love for Sonic is over" is just... no dude. Amy was a damsel a couple of times and they never lasted that long. She's not on the same level as Peach. And the IDW comics tried to make her a Sally Acorn type character for some reason as well at first. Which was REALLY WEIRD! But maybe it's changed idk, i haven't kept up with the comics these days.

The only Amy that i really like in more modern stories is the one from The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog. Now THAT'S how you write Amy.

So now, when i see Amy come in with a hood on and destroying Metal Sonics with ease, I'm left wondering, "oh no... how are they gonna write her?"

Will they actually show Amy's crush on Sonic? Will Amy just have Sally's personality? Will they give her some damn thorns? Will they make it to where SONIC IS THE ONE WITH THE CRUSH!?!? PLEASE DON'T DO THAT! DO NOT GO THE GENERIC ROUTE PLEASE!!

If they make it to where when Amy takes off her hood in Sonic Movie 4 and immediately falls for Sonic I'll eat all of my words, but i doubt that would happen....

Anyhow, those were my thoughts, i know that it's too early to make a definitive statement on things but i just wanna voice my concerns due to other recent Sonic stories not landing in the characterisation department for me.

[ender1821]

shinyduo/gempearl post-SL is sooo funny because before SL they were the typical "friends who like to do pranks with and against each other, partners in crime, really adorable sometimes" and then SL happened and they became OBSESSED with each other (really obvious from pearl's side since gem was more subtle) and innuendos started to appear left and right. now after WL they are not only obsessed they are also 10x times freakier and flirty. it's gem's fault a lot of the time but pearl enables it and digs herself into a deeper hole so she gets a wack too.

i am pleading to the sky for the fated shiny duo alliance to happen this year because 1) i am sure gem's possessiveness would get multiplied by 20 even if she tried to not show it and that'd be really fun + pearl would like it 2) their dynamic is so complex that they could be anything (codependent or healthy or possessive or die for each other or kill for each other or-) and 3) the aftermath of them teaming would be funny asf and the streams would be horrendous

thank you for coming to my ted talk 🙏

the freakier being in bold and italic is really getting to me for some reason lmao. anyway

you are right in the shift of them pre and post-SL, like, they are STILL giving cute partners in crime but also they’re. so. abnormal about each other??? thats not to say they weren’t flirty/making innuendos before the life series but god did all of that get worse after. also, it has kinda been shown how Gem is the one saying most of the questionable things, but Pearl definitely contributes a lot as well. lets not forget the pickles

of course we’re all manifesting for them to properly team up. its not even subtle at this point they both know that. the only things stopping it from happening really are luck and Gem’s homophobia (/j) cough. i mean. they would definitely get time to resolve what they failed to address back in WL if they’re allied together and can have time to talk. it could also make things worse but we’ll be seated either way. and then we’ll be questioning our existence again when the streams inevitably come

BUT. imo the alliance i really want is them + any other player. yep. i want a third wheel. it can literally be any other player because i think having someone else to affect/witness their dynamic is always entertaining, allows for exploration of new potentially fun dynamics between Pearl/Gem and another player while still offering plenty of opportunity for them to be. weird (/aff), and generally just gives the team a new spin instead of just Murder Camel 2.0. like. i’ve put way too much thought into this so there’s a whole ramble under cut about some of the potential trios and why i think they could be cool for a new life series

Jimmy: originally my life series s6 team predictions was pearl/gem/jimmy </3 mainly out of wanting more pearl + jimmy interactions, but i think having gem there helps just keep the team together. i thought they would be a nice team for jimmy in terms of support (think the SL scene where jimmy finds out he’s not the first out and they’re the ones there cheering him on) but well. thankfully we still had bamboozlers… anyway gem’s ego will get even worse if she had this team, and don’t we all wanna see that

Lizzie: PLEASE. impossible minecraft sent me to the point of no return because now i’m BEGGING for more pearl/gem/lizzie interactions. please. the girlies. we just need more gem + lizzie interactions in the life series imo, and we’ve already seen what happens when pearl + lizzie are together. i can’t tell you for sure if i think any betrayal will happen in this team but it would be really funny if there was, mainly just so lizzie and gem can bicker while pearl is just. There like a sad puppy. it’s cool if there isn’t though, i can see them thriving straight to the finale. cmon. think of the yuri

Ren: hey. hey. remember that one ren stream? you know the one. the wedding. do you see where i’m getting at. do you see the dynamic. it’s so funny to me ok. and we haven’t even mentioned the times where ren has mixed them up. i think it would be a horrible time for him to have to deal with these two and that’s so entertaining. if i picked jimmy because i thought he would have a nice time then for ren it’s for the complete opposite reason. make him suffer with these weirdos

Martyn: HE is the one who’s going to make them suffer. HE will be the one to make it worse. and it will be hilarious. let the man get some form of revenge for them terrorising him back in SL. they’re going to be insufferable and it’s going to be great. you might as well start the “hump duo” counter now …also i may just have a personal preference of wanting to see more pearl + martyn and gem + martyn interactions

Cleo: i mean. cmon. this one doesn’t need that much explanation. the people want a pearl/gem/cleo team

Impulse: same as cleo— SOUP GROUP ASSEMBLE!!!

Etho: pearl + etho interactions are great. gem + etho interactions are great. boom. gem gets to bully them both, then they either make a really successful trap or perform the greatest fumble ever! i see nothing but wins here

BigB: nosy neighbours… what if we tried again… plus i’m pretty sure there was a temporary gem + bigb team in RL, so why not give them a whole season. i think it would be fun. it’d be interesting to see how this team shifts with bigb’s general play style in the life series. i wonder how the base(s?) would turn out

Mumbo: listen to me. they have the funniest opportunity here to fluster this man to the high heavens. think about SL ep 5. think about it

Scar: so like. remember that 2v1? yeah. crazy, right? no but okay i don’t think if they teamed up there would be that much more emphasis on the 2v1 after all that in WL, but there WOULD be good times. i know this deep in my heart. the pearl/gem/scar interactions would go crazy. i hope they go on a hunting spree

Joel: i think this one is the least likely (on account of the fact that pearl has teamed with him in SL, and then gem doing the same in WL) but there could be beautiful world where pearl and joel build an even bigger and better car and gem just watches and sighs

Scott: insert manic laughter here. Pearlescentmoon you are about to have the worst time of your life ever

[39nyx]

young Sebastian Stan…….. is going to be the death of me…. gahsjdjsjbsakns

so i watched Captain America: the First Avenger for the first time today. if you told me-from-a-few-months-ago that i would get randomly attached to the walking american flag marvel character, i would probably laugh and think you’re a liar. frankly, if you even told me from, like, one month ago that i would find Chris Evans attractive I’d think you’re a liar—

but the MCU has so far made me face… many revelations T-T

cue more of me talking about steve n bucky being hot > the actual movie probably:

no but seriously I had like no interest in Captain America before i entered my Bucky obsession thanks to Marvel Rivals and even then I was like “meh, anyways, bucky 🥰” at the thought of Steve Rogers but ???? SOMETHING HAPPENED ??? AND NOW I THINK I REALLY LIKE HIM ??? like first of all just character wise he’s quite cute…. it’s just so interesting to think about suddenly becoming this big muscular attractive guy while you’re still very used to seeing yourself + everyone else seeing/treating you as the opposite? like that’s crazy!!!

also just “idk how to talk to a woman” LMFAO

IDK HE’S CUTE !!! DYNAMIC BETWEEN STEVE N PEGGY IS CUTE

speaking of which….

she’s so real for that, me too, god daMN—

fun fact: i, legitimately prior to getting into marvel, was seriously questioning if i was attracted to men or not. because i had rarely found guys attractive, never found a celebrity man attractive, never understood celebrity crushes and all that. I ESPECIALLY WAS NOT ATTRACTED TO MUSCULAR MEN/DID NOT UNDERSTAND THE APPEAL.

IDK WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED BUT A SWITCH HAS FLIPPED AND IT’S SO FUNNY TO MEEEE

LIKE/- RDJ WORKING ON HIS SUIT IN A TANK TOP IN IRON MAN? SHIRTLESS CHRIS HEMSWORTH IN THOR..,,, once again THIS:

christ almighty i got thrown back into the bisexual label so damn hard—

this is not what this post was supposed to be about but this movie made my brain short circuit a little. i was prepared for Sebastian Stan but i was NOT ready to randomly find Chris Evans hot ok

anyway the actual movie was good 😭 im not much of a movie person i just kind of enjoy most things i watch so forgive me for the things i actually feel like typing out being…,,, mildly irrelevant—

but i want 2 full hours of just steve bucky friendship i did NOT get enough before my man fell off the damn train SPEAKING OF WHICH. DID NOT EXPECT THIS TO MAKE ME SO SAD? which i guess makes sense, actually, knowing what happens, because now i know how they could’ve been..,,,., and things will probably never be the same (i dont know how most of the movies end and i would like to keep it that way lmao)

just…. 1940s Bucky my heart :( i know this movie made me feel things bc i immediately got the drawing bug after, except i’m still really bad at drawing manly men so T-T i also totally got distracted midway watching 2011 Sebastian Stan interviews bc goddddd he’s so prettyyyyy aghrhdhdjsjshsj

anyway this post is a mess and partly me having a straight crisis for, like, the 3rd time this month buT IM REAL EXCITED FOR MY FIRST EVER AVENGERS MOVIE NEXT YIPPEEE

i am currently trying not to think about the winter soldier movie and how close i am to watching that, actually, or i WILL combust thank u very much oh god i could literally feel my chest tighten at the thought— BUT ALSO IT’S CRAZY THAT I’M THIS CLOSE TO IT CAUSE I WAS FROTHING AT THE MOUTH THINKING ABOUT HOW LONG IT’D TAKE TO GET HERE WHEN I STARTED WATCHING ALL THE MOVIES

this is also probably really funny to read if ur a marvel fan cause i’m just here in the year 2025 figuratively gnawing at my desk over a 14 year old movie HSJSJS

[hetacon]

So you guys know how the most recent thing I posted was a Sidlink fic? That was because I actually got into BOTW about a year ago (it’s been one of the fandoms that kind of just simmers in the back of my brain at all times), and that was pretty much my only knowledge of Legend of Zelda, just that one game…

Oops, now it’s all of them!!

Somehow I wound up getting invested in Linked Universe because of a Sidlink fic and now it’s the only thing on my brain as of the past month and a half! Unsurprisingly given how I got into it in the first place, Wild is my favorite, but I must say that they’ve all weaseled their way into my heart, particularly Twilight and Legend (and outside of the chain, Ravio as well)! The LOZ mania has gotten so intense that I actually bought and am playing through A Link Between Worlds right now and am legit making a Ravio cosplay, help-

All of the poses I drew here were from @mellon-soup’s wonderful references, I love using them for inspiration when I’m not quite sure what to draw, and when I saw the first one, I just knew I had to draw Legend and Ravio!

I’ll put a few of my thoughts on the drawings under the cut if anyone’s interested in hearing about them

1) I love Ravioli so much, their dynamic brings me much joy. I’m very proud of how Legend’s expression turned out

2) I’m absolutely obsessed with the fairy Hyrule headcanon, there are so many cute pieces of art people have drawn of him! I’m surprised I managed to get so much detail on his face given how tiny he is. Also Sky is a total sweetheart and the thought of him protecting Hyrule from the rain was simply too adorable for me not to draw the two of them!

3) I am very emotional over Twilight and Wild’s sibling dynamic! The idea of Twi getting caught sneaking food while Wild’s cooking dinner was very funny to me and so I drew it! I really like all of the little details in this drawing, Wild’s scars are probably my favorite detail. And though I’ve never drawn a wolf before, I think I did pretty good! Originally I was just going to draw Twi taking a small piece of meat or something but then I thought “Nah, it’s gonna be an entire fish!” I headcanon that whenever he’s in wolf form, his metabolism increases and so he needs to eat more food to maintain his energy. Since he mainly transforms to fight, track, or comfort Wild, he’s earned an entire fish! Also it’s important to me that you know that the fish is specifically a staminoka bass :))

4) If you find the pose reference I used for Wind, you probably will notice that I actually flipped it so that he was holding the Wind Waker in his left hand. As a leftie myself, I really love it when characters I love are also left-handed!

Also on the topic of hands in general, can I just say how proud I am of all the hands in these 4 drawings??? They’re so good, we love good hand days

[nemastraea]

Doormat extraordinaire: Andrew Graves is down horrendous for his own sister | Part 1

Or as I like to call it, actual literal word vomit attempting a proper character analysis!

Here's a link to the AO3 version for archive purposes: The doormat extraordinaire has a bit of a romantic streak,

Content warning: This will heavily feature spoilers from Episodes 1 & 2 of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Trigger warning: Abuse, cannibalism, child neglect, codependency, harassment, incest, murder, self-harm, and suicide. Disclaimer: I will occasionally reference an extremely normal essay from Sufficient Velocity commenter Leyleyfication (here). It would be a lot easier to read this essay first as Leyleyfication does a pretty good job establishing the following: - Ashley is dependent on Andrew to assure and validate her of her own insecurities, and - The game heavily implies that Andrew wants to fuck his own sister.

Anyway: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! A game in early access where a pair of siblings are stuck through a seemingly never-ending quarantine together, desperate not to starve to death. When their cultist neighbor dies in a ritual gone wrong, they rationally resort to cannibalism. Fun!

I am definitely going to assume that you read Leyleyfication's extremely normal essay (I am on my knees, begging you to read that). Which is why this essay immediately starts with, "yeah, Andrew definitely wants to fuck his sister" as its baseline.

What I will be adding to that funny little cauldron of fucked up sibling dynamics in a horror visual novel are the following: Andrew's fixation and sexual attraction manifests as his desire to control, dominate, and possess Ashley. And it is framed as a fatalist attraction and the totality of his existence (for worse or even worse).

Because of Tumblr's limit for 30 images per post, though, I'm going to have to split this extremely normal and reasonably lengthy essay into... multiple posts! Yeah! I have no idea how long this will fucking go!

So first things first: how can we tell that Andrew is even attracted to Ashley in the first place?

Nemlei (Devlog 05). Note the hickeys above and below Ashley's choker and her left inner thigh, and Andrew's left hand creeping into her right thigh.

As Leyleyfication points out, the game primes us to believe that Andrew is a pushover and Ashley is his abuser. This occurs in the Steam page as it explicitly says Ashley is "in fact, very bad" and Andrew is a "doormat extraordinaire." Moreover, it's very easy to tell that Ashley is, on some degree, obsessed with Andrew:

She's happy to hear that Julia broke up with Andrew over the phone;

She repeatedly accuses him of finding the Lady from Room 302 attractive and he 'tried anything with her;' and

Her flashback to wanting to punish her friend Nina ("the Bitch in the Box") for crushing on Andrew.

Episode 1, dream and memory. Leyley previously said that Nina should know better than to 'steal from another woman,' referring to herself. The implication that Andy is hers is toyed with after this moment, when she says she'd put Andy back in the box.

The game does prime us to think that Ashley is Andrew's abuser. It also suggests that Ashley projects an unrequited and incestuous love onto Andrew. Before we consider Episode 2's narrative, Episode 1 gives the initial impression that if Andrew comes to reciprocate her feelings, it's more of a reaction and subsuming to her will. That it may not be something he wants for himself and independent of Ashley's manipulation.

But again, I do believe Andrew wants to fuck Ashley. And always has been. He just frequently vacillate between 'subtle' and 'really fucking obvious' tells that completely take advantage of the game's third person limited POV.

Keep in mind that both Andrew and Ashley are extremely unreliable narrators. We aren't going to get information they personally do not care about and that is on top of our own choices as the player.

(A digressive example: you will not learn that the founder and CEO of Toxisoda's company was a former surgeon unless you interact with the television in Andrew's Episode 2 dream and memory of their blood oath. Otherwise, it neatly ties into the surgeon that Mrs. Graves conveniently says she was directed to regarding the siblings' quarantine in the main story.)

When it's really fucking obvious

When you play as Andrew in Episode 2, his post-dinner argument with Ashley carefully frames them both. They are cramped in the foreground and Andrew's left arm is conveniently blocked by Ashley and the kitchen knife, as seen here.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, you can interact with Mrs. Graves for her to pointedly comment on the siblings being inseparable.

At this point in the game, their physical closeness is something we're used to by now. After all, we've already seen Ashley on his lap at least twice; Andrew slept in her bed in Episode 1; and Ashley confirmed they've shared the same motel bed multiple times in the one-week interim between Episodes 1 & 2.

But the game abruptly shifts to Mrs. Graves' POV when she enters the scene and not only do we see the two as physically close, but we notice a few more details.

Episode 2, common route. The first picture transitions from Andrew's POV to Mrs. Graves as it introduces us to her entering the scene.

The contrast of how spacious the kitchen is from Mrs. Graves' POV to Andrew's cramped POV is obvious. More importantly, Andrew's fingers loop through Ashley's belt loops when the two are huddled together. When Mrs. Graves clears her throat, the two don't really separate.

Ashley pivots on her left foot so that her body is turned to their mother, not Andrew, but she doesn't step away from him. Andrew, meanwhile, recoils from Ashley and withdraws his hand. But he isn't turning his body to face their mother like Ashley does here. His attention, at least in this moment, is still towards Ashley (and, yanno, the sink).

Episode 2, common route. Two things to consider in the second picture: Andrew hides Ashley's bite mark on his cheek with his left sleeve and he conveniently moves the pillow from behind him to his front.

The 'tell' isn't so much as the two are unusually physically close. Again, we're used to that by now. But it's how the two siblings react whenever Mrs. Graves comes into the picture. Ashley doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not people assume the worst of her or even her intentions regarding Andrew. To Ashley, their proximity is normal and anyone who sees that as a problem is not worth an explanation or reason.

But Andrew is at least subconsciously aware it's 'not normal.' As far as these moments are concerned, Andrew instinctively tries to do damage control by either putting space between them or keeping his hands occupied so they aren't visibly touching Ashley. Still, he either does not mind or actively appreciates his physical closeness with Ashley.

When it's really fucking obvious (but only in hindsight)

In Episode 1, Ashley passes out after trying to clean up after the apartment. Regardless of her passing out in the living room, the bathroom, or their parents' room, she will wake up on the couch with her head pillowed by Andrew's lap.

Episode 1, Ashley's POV. Andrew's hands often hover over Ashley's head, but more than that—

I personally didn't notice this until I replayed Episode 1, when I basically have the hindsight of Andrew's fixation with hair. But yes, his fingers idly twirl through the ends of Ashley's hair as they watch TV. It's implied that Andrew can and will do this when Ashley pillows his lap, awake or asleep. He does not recoil from it when Ashley does wake up and later on, in Episode 2, even continues to brush it from her face.

Episode 2, common route. Ashley fell asleep at the passenger seat, so Andrew had to have transferred her to the back seat to pillow her head again. Though, technically, she's more cramped at the back seat than if he'd just reclined the passenger seat.

So far, we've seen that Andrew has a natural tendency to not only be physically close to Ashley, but to hover over her personal space and be in constant and direct contact with her. Whether it's by having her head on his lap, twirling her hair through his fingers, or even constantly grabbing her by the head in various states of comfort, playfulness, or outright threat (but let's put a pin on that for now).

The weight behind this candid contact shifts when Episode 2 draws a pretty explicit parallel between Julia and Ashley. Assuming that you interacted with Julia's landline and heard Ashley's voicemails, you know (and Andrew knows) that Ashley draws that connection herself:

DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't? You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that. He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything. I am the secrets you'll never hear. When he lies in bed at night, and when he needs someone to hold on to... It's not you he seeks out. It is me.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and vision implies that Andrew's heard these voicemails before.

That connection extends to the hair contact as well, as Andrew goes in to hug Julia, cards his hand through her hair and requests she tie her hair up.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and memory of Julia when they're older. From the use of Andrew's present-age portrait, suggests is closer to the timeline of the game's events than his and Ashley's memories as Andy and Leyley.

From this moment, we can have one of two assumptions: either Andrew wants Julia's (black) hair put up like Ashley's, or Ashley caught onto Andrew's hair kink and puts her hair up to imitate it.

Regardless, we infer the following:

Andrew teases affection through touching and even pulling on one's hair.

His fixation on ponytails and pulling on them does not exclude his own sister. It still stands and without reservation, perhaps more explicitly since he can do it so candidly, as we saw before.

The last of that Julia-Ashley parallel is self-contained within Episode 2. But only if you end up in the Burial route regardless of Ashley's platonic or incestuous vision.

Episode 2, common route (first picture) and Burial route (second picture). It's worth pointing out that Andrew is actually disinterested and moody during his conversation with Julia, and only perks up when he mentions Ashley or feigns care for Julia (since he extends his care of Ashley to her as well).

The game ends up drawing parallels on how Andrew treats Ashley, for better or for worse, with his ex (which is definitely worse, poor Julia). In doing so, the game blurs the lines between romantic affection for Julia and 'platonic and familial' affection for Ashley.

Y'all, this isn't even getting into how Andrew respectfully gives his parents space and only crowds them when he threatens them with his cleaver. In his mind, Ashley and Julia are in that same space of physical and romantic displays of affection; something he reserves only for them (only without reservation for Ashley) that does not extend to anyone else. His ex-girlfriend, and his sister. Shit's wild.

When it's obvious BUT it's violent!

That isn't to say that his hair fixation (hair kink?) is completely innocuous, though, as it rears its ugly head (pun unintended) in Decay. Which is what that previous pin was for! Yay!

You end up in the Decay route if Ashley doesn't trust Andrew with keeping an eye on their parents. Here, Ashley sleeps on their parents' bed by herself and has an alarming vision: an unknown party chases after her through the in-between and when they catch up to her, it's Andrew. Ashley has nowhere to run and Andrew eventually grabs her and threatens to kill her.

Whether or not Ashley can defend herself depends on Andrew expending all of her gun's ammo when he deals with the hitman, or not. But that outcome divergence will matter much, much later (so that's another pin for us to come back to).

The sequence of events actually mirrors the way the siblings ambush the Lady from Room 302 back in Episode 1. There, Andrew closes in on her and grabs the Lady by her wrist and uses his front to pin and restrain her. With his cleaver to her throat, the Lady is completely at his mercy.

Episode 1 & 2, common route (first picture) and Decay route (second, third, and fourth pictures). Note that Andrew restrains the Lady from Room 302 by the wrist while with Ashley, by her hair.

Andrew asserts control of the person and the situation through violence. Whether it's by killing them (the wardens) or by threatening physical violence (the Lady from Room 302 and Ashley). It's always on the table for him. As Leyleyfication puts it, "He's so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence [here]."

That violence includes Ashley. It's always on the table where Ashley's concerned. The game even juxtaposes when Andrew threatens violence and physical assault 'playfully' versus when he's seriously out for blood:

When you interact with the wall of call girls' numbers and Ashley jokes about leaving her number on the wall, Andrew 'jokingly' threatens to backhand her for even thinking about it.

When you interact with their parents' latched window for a second time, Andrew 'teases' slapping Ashley if she doesn't find a way to open it. (Ashley jokingly asks if it's on her ass or at her face, and assumes it must be the face when Andrew says she'll have to find out.)

The two other times that Andrew exerts violence against Ashley are both in Episode 1 & 2. We can remember when that happens in Episode 1, when Andrew's had it with Ashley's fits and threatens to kill her:

Episode 1, common route. Y'all, Andrew was choking her hard enough for his grip to bruise.

It happens again in Decay when he confronts Ashley about repeatedly calling him Andy and therefore, breaking the promise he coerced her into from Episode 1.

Episode 2, Decay route. Another thing to keep in mind is that Andrew's outburst is preceded by Ashley prodding him about his current state and insisting that Andrew was fine with 'Andy' during their home invasion.

In Episode 1, Andrew resorts to harming Ashley because he's fucking had it with her accusing him repeatedly of trying anything with the Lady from 302 and, in her eyes, his 'infidelity.' Where she accuses Andrew of not loving her enough that if his eye catches another girl, he'd leave her behind or flip on her. In Episode 2, she's poking and prodding on his boundaries on 'Andy' and whether or not, once again, he's with her on their now-committed life of joint crime.

If I can give another example, it happens in Andrew's common route memory of Nina's death and his blood oath with Leyley.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, Andy expresses immense exasperation at Leyley's tantrums over him 'thinking about that bitch again.' When he goes to grab the kitchen knife, cleans it, and returns to Leyley on his bed—he's briefly considering killing her.

Andrew threatens Ashley violently whenever he intends to confront her on her perceived brattiness, for lack of a better word. And keep Leyleyfication's essay segment on Ashley's insecurities and need for Andrew's validation in mind here—when Ashley does this, she wants and even needs Andrew to comfort her. But her aggression treads Andrew's patience and really, his tolerance of her behavior.

When Ashley's anger, clinging behavior, insecurities, and possessiveness of Andrew slips his control and tolerance, he resorts to violence to coerce or even dominate her.

I think (or hope, if it's clear enough) it reinforces what Leyleyfication points out:

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don't mean in the sense that I'm saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this.

It also reflects on another aspect of why Andrew resorts to violence: in all three situations, Andrew remarks on Ashley's behavior and her sake. If she acts up again once they're out of the apartment, it'll cause trouble for him while they're evading authorities. If she's going to call him Andy from hereon out, what's the point of running away with her. If she expects him to leverage keeping 'her secret,' he won't because it's for her sake.

Andrew rationalizes his attempt to control of Ashley's behavior as being for her sake. But really, isn't it him confining her behavior to something he can tolerate and personally handle?

I'd also like to point out that Andrew admits that he noticed Ashley push for calling him 'Andy' during the home invasion, and he did not argue with her on it while they held their parents hostage and readied to sacrifice them. We can infer that when Andrew calculates his use of violence, that can also factor when, where, and how he exerts it.

--

Well, that's where I can reasonably end this half of my word vomit! Now, onwards, to part 2!

[archerbeans]

talking about the art style for this show because I am lowkey (high key) obsessed with it and how unique and genius it is.

Warning: this is sort of a long-ish post. Everything here stated is purely subjective lol

S1’s style has a certain charm to it but personally doesn’t actually give me that wave of “nostalgia” (I started watching the show in 2023 summer) but it does have a certain aura to it. I personally love experimental styles and for the time this came out I still consider it to be very unique. Noting the experimental phase of it where things look less polished and the line weight isn’t as well executed as it is in the later seasons.

Using rigging for the time this series came out was certainly a bold choice with the realism and complex designs that this show used while also having a perfect balance with well done cartoony style. Archer is one of the most well known cartoons when you look into rigged animation! Floyd County’s process of using Illustrator and After effects together at the time was certainly bold as well. The team for this show was not as big as most people might think, as it states in the Art of Archer book that there were around 70 artists, illustrators, etc.. that worked on production. Compared to the average Hollywood animated movie, it’s surely a small crew. Using multiple levels for character movement, as the usual storyboarding that’s essential for any animated project (you cannot have a quality animated series without story boarding!), having to design an entire new model when the state of any character changes (scars, scrapes, torn clothes, etc..) which becomes a lot of extra strain, along with the actual design process in illustrator and using skeletal positioning as well. It’s truly impressive imo!

The backgrounds and settings throughout the show were also very cleverly executed. Using 3d modeling and royalty free assets to paint textures and the amount of detail was insane. Apparently Adam had a good eye for everything.

I really admire the effort that goes into all of the details in the show’s settings, along with the painted scenery. Which only improves over time. As you can see the quality difference between the earlier seasons and the latest.

S1 Malory’s office and S2 Tunt Manor

Vs

S6 Office and Tunt Manor. Notice the different in light fixtures and textures, the marble walls moving away from more of a tile texture, and the lighting in Malory’s office is much more smooth, the texture of the chairs, etc.. I love the improvement.

The more obvious and interesting part about all of this is the actual character design changing over time. I will always wonder what those first season 1 and 2 storyboards looked like. (If anyone ever finds any info on that please feel free to let me know! Ik there’s a few artists portfolios out there that are more easy to find and I’ve seen S12/11/etc..)

As with S1, it had a certain charm to it in which I love. The funny looking experimental angles, I wish we got to see more of, just for the silliness alone. Im glad they tried their best with dynamic poses. </3

I’d say there’s definitely even just a difference between the line weight in S1 vs S2, it’s slightly more smooth in S2 depending on the pose. Depending on the show you’re watching, I noticed line weight is sort of an underrated and mostly overlooked technique upon other people I’ve seen talk about art styles. It adds a lot of depth. Dynamic poses are not easy.

Not all line weight is used for dynamic posing though

I love this shot in particular. From what I remember and notice the most is that this is the first shot in the show where there’s much detail like the card reflection of the characters, they’re flipped like proper mirroring (obviously the modelling is not perfect for Ray, he still looks a little janky which isn’t a huge shock since we only saw him a handful of times in previous season) But the line weight for Malory’s thumb is something I appreciate very much and just thought this was a cool shot and shows a huge step up. The text boldness and format is also well done.

I guess the last elephant in the room surely is the actual style for the characters changing over time. There are about 3 different changes throughout the series, based on looks, clothing and movement. I wont get into specifics but it is always going to be entertaining to me how stiff and wonky certain shots looked. Not everything looked super goofy though.

I will never hate you scoliosis Lana </3

It’s very entertaining to see the changes through out the show.

(Malory’s hair was a tragic mess. Bless her cold heart <3)

First two seasons are where its flip flopped the most. Models were more stiff, tho on the brighter side the movements were still up to par with the action scenes. It’s still perfection. Some of the one-offs had funny designs (Krimenski, Uta, Mannfred, etc..)

Fast forwarding to S3 is when the improvements finally come in,

Noticeably mostly with Archer, Malory and Cyril (though he still has his old glasses. I much prefer his post S5 ones)

Lana and Ray still look a little off but certainly different in face shapes and Lana is much less- “S” shaped lol. Pam has improved looks as well.

The side profiles have had an improvement as well up to this point. But it doesn’t change much going down the line. The side profiles are very rarely shown. Krieger’s head finally looks less stiff as well. Cheryl looks completely different, with her hair being much more consistently styled. Also, notice the clothing saturation specifically, it’s much more toned down. The colours tend to match better more than they did before in S1 nd 2.

Completely new character…. Hah.

Moving on past S3, since the character models stay pretty much the same, everyone at this point has their new looks leveled out, notably Ray and Lana

This style pretty much remains the same through out the next few couple seasons. The models and settings have a new flair, the lighting improved immensely, especially with Vice. I dont wanna drag this on for too long but the modeling stays the same until the coma seasons.

One of the biggest reasons I love the coma seasons is that it brings a lot more to the table for the show as I played around with 3 different completely new environments. It mostly likely brought a lot of new people to the production crew as it cover a lot of architectural different and themes (jungle islands, temples, spacecrafts, etc.. )

Going forward past the coma seasons straight to S11 is where the style gets a little harder to explain the huge differences. Backgrounds and shots look very polished and none of the characters look stiff in any way anymore.

We’ve also gained more soft lighting on the characters compared to mostly pre S6, dynamic lighting was improved immensely. In the Art of Archer book the majority of the animation process that is presented is mostly BTS for S6 and so on, though it does go into the works of Vice, its mostly with the musical production though they do delve a bit into the music video, which is a whole other level of its own. The environmental feel excels greatly with the lighting changes and also background ambience. Much of which was actually visible in the Danger Phone mobile game (RIP </3) I’ve always thought the sound design in this show was clever enough but it got significantly better over time.. Atmosphere makes a big difference. I’d love to add more specific examples but tumblr DOES have a limit on media that can be in one single post. But I can recommend going back and rewatching the show wearing headphones/earbuds and you will notice the difference.

Just a few extra things I wanted to point out is that as much as the animation has improved there are little quirks I do miss about the older seasons, for example the clothing colour changes. It really added more depth and realism to the show and I think despite it being subtle it was something that the majority of us fans enjoyed. But assuming they needed a different model for every colour worn, I could see why it was weeded out. Maybe it helped with the polish! That’s just personal bias.

The difference is subtle, but it’s there! The faces shapes and body proportions have been “improved” slightly. But I genuinely think thats due to setting changes and having higher quality animation tools. But lighting makes a huge difference.

I don’t have a lot of cons for the art style improvement besides really that “nostalgia” feeling a lot of ppl have for this show. I personally believe pre- S11 is when the artstyle was the best, of course with having a few sacrifices

Not sure how I feel about this one. He looks less like an ocelot in the right panel. The colours do look better but Babou’s eyes are eyes extremely different, not a fan of it. Some things just look better than before!

I would also like to take a moment to appreciate this gal’s glow up.. Not to drive too far from the point of this post but Im glad they kept Trinette relevant.

Not 3, but 4 different improvements. Even though she has 3 completely different hairstyles there’s still the difference in quality..

Anyhow, I’ve run out of gas for this post and I’ve pretty much covered mostly everything I wanted to go over. I definitely would like to cover more on this topic but unfortunately tumblr has different plans.

Anyways I love this show so much and everything a bit and probably has one of the most compelling art styles out there with a very passionate studio. I think Floyd County is unique on its own and even just outside the art style there’s a lot more to be said about this show’s greatness. If you read this far and actually enjoyed reading my word vomit… well- thanks! Hoping to write more someday if I get any more literate than LOL

If i missed any details or got anything wrong then plz let me know! Most of everything here is subjective and I may perhaps be a bit biased with some things, but thats just me

[theeyeofeverything]

Brainworms cannot be contained so I need to confess to you one (1) thing...

Yes. I have au where sols can be saved but there is a lil thing I need to mention... not all of them will survive... ACTUALLY THEY MiGHT BE HAPPY ONLY FOR A WHILE ONLY TO DIE AGAIN. Ooops!

So let's call this thing "out of spite AU".

Basic premise is Yi saves as many sols, as he can and all of them have a lession to learn. They given a chance to grow and redeem themselfs. Not in front of apeman or remaining solarians (if there id left any), no. It's a redemption before oneself. Because yes, they will be safe for a while, but the end is the same. Kuafu will be the only solarian to survive in the end... or does he?

Mainly trough this exist to explore 4 things: 1. Dynamics between Sols 2. How they will face their inner conflict (most of them remain their initial core traits, don't worry, but some aspects of them might change a little) 3. Sols interacting with ShuanShuan (it also ties to their inner conflict! He helps others like he helps Yi to understand that life good on its own. Mainly tho its a self-indulingent cute bonding stuff between Sols and ShuanShuan) 4. Jieyi (AM SORRY I HAVE SEVER CASE OF BEING REALLY INVESTED IN GUYS OBSESSED WITH PROTAGS I AM WEAK)

Who will be saved?

- Kuafu. Same as in canon.

-Jiequan. Well, I said it would be really funny concept for him to be saved first of all people. Yi doing exactly that, initially out of spite. But it's ironic that in the literal sense Jieqan did not win - Yi just broke all of his teapods and did not let him die like a hero become a gooquan - but he won the spiritual battle. His torture made Yi better. Well, it's not but it made Yi mad enough to do the opposite of rampage. He is restraind in the pavilion at the time (but not for long)

-Goumang. After thinking (and being really pissed) abou his and Jiequan similarity he desides that he might gone a little bit rough on Goumang. When he is back at the agrocurtual hall she is alive, but gravely injured. It's a miracle she didn't bleed out by the time they arrived at the pavilion. He and Kuafu tend her wounds, but she is NOT happy to be here. At least, at first

-Nuwa. At this point in story Yi is finally giving a rest to his killing rampage. Nuwa is a strange case because she is no use to Yi. Jiequan is a fighter, Goumang is somewhat of the healer in this au. Nuwa is a spoiled mean brat. Kinda just like him! No one deserve to die like...this. He will not let her go near Fuxi, when he's down. She would cry, crawl and bite her way out, but to no avail. I will say she is safe in this au for sake of exploring her personality and how it would change with absence of her brother around. How she would become independent.

-Ji. He is the intresting case because he is wanting to die. He is tired of life. He wants to rest and join dao. However I think he might stay for a while because his hexagramm... lied to him. Jiequan has to much impact in this AU huh. Well, I think he knew Jiequan and Yi's fight would not end good. He forsaw Jiequan die... but now Yi is telling him that the last member of the jie is alive and well! I think that would intrigue Ji, actually. Why would hexagramms lie to him? Did the Yi changed course of history? And additional layer to this if certain someone once also made a hexagramm prediction untrue.

Or, maybe, hexagramms want him to preserve this story too? His last story to tell.

Who will not survive:

-Yanlao. First, at this point Yi was not ignited by spite and did not reconsider his choices! And second - he is a lesson to learn for Yi. A irreversable mistake, that can't be take back. Not that he is greiving for this loss but it kinda make jiequan with his "do you think saving me does you a good guy automathicly? With other you was not that merciful, young master Yi" sting harder. And that is making Yi pissed, but... pissed Yi is a Yi how does rethink his decisions so maybe this is for the better

-Lady Etheral. Well she is no longer in a condition to be saved. She is basicly a brain in a jar and can't be brought back. All they can do is honor her properly. Let her rest at last.

-Eigong. This is intersting case because I belive she is long lost. At least, I think she is beliving herself to be a lost cause. She will not let Yi and Goumang save her. She will go with this ship, because her role is played already. So she would go on her own terms and would not be swayed. I love her so much as a character, but this the vibe I get from her. Besides I need more drama and angst for this AU sooo...

Let's stop for now. There is a couple of aspects I want to talk about more, but I think some of my ideas will translate better trough my art!

Not now, tho. Because I need to finish funny haha comics first and THEN do serious shit.

Feel free to ask about this AU tho!

[amongsnot]

template by @/le__lex on twitter!

anyways i want to reread some of my favorite nu fics, so i figured i would do it while simultaneously recommending them at the same time :)

[DISCLAIMER] some of these fics are locked to guests! please keep that in mind when clicking a link :)

The Neutron-Turner Family Memory Book by TheBlossomingFox (teen | oneshot ) : this fic is adorable! it’s an aged up jt fic where the author explores their dynamic as parents. it’s adorable and funny and one of the best slice of life fics i’ve read :)

2. Another Day in the Future by JesterJazz (gen | oneshot ) : this fic is definitely one of the funniest fics i’ve read in this fandom. following jimmy and timmy when they accidentally time travel to the future, landing in the house of their future married selves. it's jimmytimmy focused, but it highlights their friendship and fun bickering really well.

3. twin fantasy by nousernamesorry (teen | 4/? ) : jimmy receives a message telling him that he's needed in space, and he quickly leaves. only, he doesn't come back, and timmy has to learn to heal. i'm going to be completely and fully honest when i say that this is the fic that got me into writing for the nicktoons team. op has a writing style that is incredibly heartwrenching, and the small amount of fluff before the latter chapters completely breaks me everytime i read it.

4. more than cartoons; battle of the bands by anonymous (gen | oneshot) : spongebob squarepants is putting together a band for the annual school contest! with his makeshift team of muscians, he has to beat the syndicate before they win the tournament! this fic is SO fun! it's definitely my favorite of the author's oneshots, and it's amusing and charming and just aljewfwabkfd

5. only have a moment before it's all over (a burning desire that cries again) by whisper_into_my_heart (teen | 14/50 ) : i have to be completely honest, i was REALLY late to the party with this fic!! mpreg (and preg in general) really is not my jam, but i instantly fell in love with op's oc hannah, and the dynamic between the girl andher parents. im not exactly caught up with the story (no spoilers please :3) but i am SO excited to finish the next few chapters and then for the rest of the story to be completed!!

6. We're Perfect Punting Height by CrystalMarbles (teen | drabble ) : this fic is a drabble, but i think it's pretty funny!! it's about the gang having a conversation with each other discussing the syndicates less than evil traits. like plankton's height, or crocker's obsession with finding fairies. definitely a good short funny read!

7. Rewinding the clock by Pastacurls (not rated | 7/? ) : (grabbing onto your shoulders and shaking you) SECOND PERSON!! I LOVE SECOND PERSON. anyways there's barely any three word fics in this fandom that i could find. i know this is hypocritical of me but im going to say it anyways. this fic is my JAM though. amnesiac timmy after his eighteenth birthday, stumbling through the remains of his life as he loses his fairies and his friends. i could talk about this for hours.

8. new phone who dis by rbt_lvr ( teen | 9/? ) : the old fandom is rottmnt. unapologetically. they're technically nicktoons so it counts in my book. plus, this is genuinely my favorite fic that ive read like uh ever. it's a silly chat fic where all of the turtles are gaslighting each other into thinking that they are normal people. donnie makes a mom joke that never fails to make me laugh. leonardo's raised by the gay hippo and worm. they treat lou jitsu like taylor swift fans treat taylor swift. it's absolutely insane. 10/10.

9. lead single by nousernamesorry (teen | 2/2 ) : if nousernamesorry has 100 fans im one of them. if they have 10 fans im one of them. if they have no fans im dead. i love all of their works and every single one makes me swoon. lead single is KIND of cheating with this prompt because most of the setting takes place on a beach. and it's also kind of during the summer. but it's about jimmy and timmy spending their birthday's apart, and the setting makes me wild. like the vending machine intro and the beach ending to the first chapter. like all of that screams summer to me idc idc.

10. The Art of Cooking and Cleaning by AbsoluteFooling (gen | 1/1 ) : GUYS IM SO EXCITED TO SHARE THIS FIC WITH YOU!! i love this fic so muchh oh my god. i had the priviledge of reading it before it was put on ao3 and oh my goddddd. makes me insane. it has spongebob and timmy dynamic (which we need MORE of) and its just. its just glorious i cant explain it in words. its about timmy questioning his self worth, and spongebob helps him. and its OUGH cant even put it into words. please go read it. if theres a fic i want you to read on this list its this one.

11. Are you Satisfied with an Average Life? by Anonymous (not rated | 3/? ) : i was really surprised by the lack of fics with lyrics as their titles... guess ill have to write more in order to continue doing my part. OKAY but this fic is REALLY GOOD. i absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE anything that relates to timmy's amnesia. this fic focuses on the main nicktoons as they help timmy recollect his memory, and timmy immediately hits sbsp in the head with a baseball bat and it is GREAT and the writing style is GREAT and i do think this is a necessary read. i really hope the author updates, but it has been a while, so i'll treasure the chapter's we have!!

12. Bad at Flirting by ShippingMyWorld (teen | 1/1 ) : because im cool and unique and whatever the kids are talking about with that demure stuff the other ship is tigerghost. which i KNOW is cheating considering i wrote a tigerghost fic, but i main jimmytimmy and its important to me that you know that. this fic is a fluffy, silly little fic where danny and manny talk about manny's love for cheap and cheesy pick-up lines (established relationship). shippingmyworld ALSO has a really cool tumblr account AND a bunch of other cool ao3 tigerghost fics so this is my absolutely desperate plea for you to go check them out.

13. but he's got a gun in his hands, and a burden in his heart. by Anonymous (teen | 1/1 ) : hi yes its me hello. totally anonymous user here. why havent you guys yelled at me to make my fic titles shorter omfg that's like an entire essay within itself. it's REALLY hard for me to choose one of my fics, because they all hold a special place in my heart for a different reason, but specifically the ending of this fic makes me break everytime. i won't spoil it but i love the metaphors. anyways this fic is BASICALLY just a bunch of timmy and (sort of) danny whump. check it out if you're interested :D

14. Of Memory Loss and Manipulation by EepyTheSleepy and @c0dydoesntknow (teen | 4/? ) : hello YES this fic is really great and it definiely falls right in line with my other interests. as soon as somebody says timmy amnesia fic i am GONE. the plotline in this fic is great, and the characterization is even BETTER. like you guys need to go support these two because they are amazing people and even amazinger authors!! their story is about the evil nu gang gaslighting timmy into thinking that the og nu gang is evil, which is GREAT because timmy just ends up being really confused the whole time

15. When rain falls, love blooms by 23ster (gen | 1/1 ) : kissing in the rain is SO romantic guys when is some girly gonna come and do it with me? this is a friend to lovers fic by the all time BEST person ever 23ster, and it perfectly conveys the idiots that are our favorite characters jimmy and timmy. from the trope of there is only one bed, to the all best ROOMMATES, and then the romantic yearning love confession(slash argument) in the rain. this fic ruins you, but its so so so great i swear.

16. So... Zinnias? by suluswife (gen | 1/4 ) : guys idk what kind of fics you want from me for this one i gotta be honest,, i love nala and all that he does (and i know the second chapters in production!! it also writes ninjago fics please for the life of me go check them out) and this fic just. IT JUST FITS THE PROMPT!! i read this at 3am!! it has the conversation at midnight and that writing that just FLOWS you know?? it's a platonic jt fic (im trying really hard to find nicktoon fics in general, i pinkie promise) with a soulmate au! jimmy and timmy are both idiots in this, but they have a conversation on the roof while staring at the stars so its a great fic by all standards.

17. best two out of three by dhe20 (gen | 1/1 ) : theyre so funny in this fic i love them so much.. if youve looked at my reblogs you know that i love it when they say just the stupidest shit ever, and this fic DEFINITELY fits the bill. it's so funny it kills me every time! plus the way the author writes converys the battle scene well, and im so happy that this fic has a number in the title so that i could convey my love for it here!

18. Healing Hands by Crossovers_R_Us (teen | 1/1 ) : ough i love this fic. i think my favorite part about this fic is how they act like teenagers?? (and ofc how they love each other but i think that part goes unsaid) it's just. manny is so so so sick and danny is willing to lie with him even if it means getting sick. timmy teases the two of them. there's no life-ending mission it's JUST fluff omg omg. im such a sucker for sickfics because they're SO soft and the author does a great job conveying it with their writing!!

19. It's never too late for you (I told you, you can stay) by FlowersandMiel (gen | 1/1 ) : oh my GOD i read this the other day and like. ough. out of this list there are maybe four that i would truly really beg everyone here to read (2, 3, 10) and this is DEFINITELY one of them. it came out a few days ago but it has so very little attention and idk what to say you just need to read it. like genuinely. like this fic changed my life. like please read it. like now. it's about timmy turner moving in with jimmy neutron and getting sick in the middle of the night, thus prompting him to get jimmy to help. timmy thinks he's in trouble (he's not). GENUINELY if you like well written fics PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check this one out

[peaterookie]

Peater rambles about Lupin, shipping, and Lupgoe at 3 am

this was something i wrote up about... 2 days ago in my discord server and i felt like its good enough to post here

ps. please don't interpret this ramble as a jab against fanworks. my tone wasn't meant to sound like i was complaining about them, i just kinda liked talking about these stuff lol

----

Sigh. I can't sleep because i thought too much about Lupin's character and I've decided that I've reached a big brain moment that I can't just not ramble about, so im gonna talk for a while in this channel

I've been thinking for a while about how i picture lupgoe in my head and the conflicting little parts. I love myself some comfort and fluff but whenever i picture lupin going all cute with it a part of me is like "he wouldn't fucking do that" and that is true peater, that is true

Lupin I feel like doesn't truly experience love in any normal sense. Hell, I don't even feel like he "loves" a person at all in the manga, at least, not in the traditional, unconditional, ever lasting love that me and many other people are used to

And some may be perplexed by my interpretation because lupin gets a lot of moments of having sex and overall being a bit women-obsessed. But i interpret those parts of the manga as him using love as a form of power and dominance. Rape isn't really an act of love, I'd say it lacks love but it takes love as an advantage to put yourself above someone and make you the more powerful person. Even when he's interested in a woman it really doesn't last long, i feel like he only wants it just to have a little bit of fun with someone.

So, when Lupin sees someone that he truly values, I don't think he would ever show them love in a normal way. He would never tell Goemon or Jigen or Fujiko "I love you." Outright. He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, he always puts a front that he is emotional but I don't think he is ever honest about himself (rarely, at most.)

Instead, I feel like he shows his true self in the things that he does for people, he displays love through action. He would never confess his love to Goemon but you can see it through the little ways he treats Goemon. And i feel like at some point Goemon can see through that and understand they share mutual feelings about each othe

It feels obvious in hindsight, and i know this type of interpretation has been iterated in the past, even in this server, and i see them! But i feel like there's a clear cognitive dissonance between the way we understand lupin vs the way we depict him in our works

Deep down a part of me wants him to be a little cute and freaky about it and it's probably the way for many Lupin fans, and it's totally fine to be a little self-indulgent sometimes. But there is value to still writing him in a way that honors his true self in a way, and i feel like writing this helps me remember that. I really love the way that his true form of love lacks the typical romantic and sexual stuff in traditional love

Its quiet but the silence can say a lot

It's a weird sort of comparison but it feels similar to how asian parents are depicted, they will literally never show their love outright but you know they care

Which makes sense given that Lupin was written by a Japanese man who grew up in the showa era

Slightly related, i think the way i see Lupin is probably the reason why I'm sort of on-the-fence with all of the ships with Lupin (even Lupgoe sometimes) I can't help but see fan-content and go, "that's cool, but he wouldn't do that"

That sort of mental barrier is also the reason why i cannot take self-shipping with him seriously at all. I like thinking of the sort of dynamic where it's slightly toxic and parasocial yaoi. I would be pathetically obsessed with him and he would suck it up because it feeds on his ego. That sort of dynamic is way more interesting and funny because it's deeply self-aware and makes fun of myself and Lupin

I'm gonna go to bed now

[antialiasis]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: all of my thoughts (part 1)

All right, this is me, watching my way through my current obsession The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for the umpteenth time and rambling about everything that comes to mind as I go, which ended up with me typing over thirty thousand words because I am incapable of shutting up. Because that is truly excessive, I will be posting my thoughts in three parts; this is part one (covering roughly the first hour and thirteen minutes of the Extended Cut, up through the end of the desert/carriage sequence), and I'll probably post part two in a few days to a week, pending editing and such and some of the other things I should be doing.

Because that's a lot of reading to commit to without knowing what you're getting into, especially if you're here from the tag, here's what to expect in brief:

This is all of my thoughts, simply whatever comes to mind, but my thoughts on fiction tend to be heavy on in-depth analysis of characters, their motivations and how they tick, so a lot of this falls into that general category.

In particular, there will be a whole lot of thoughts on Tuco, Blondie, and their evolving character dynamic, which is my favorite part of the movie. I will not be looking at it through a shippy lens, for what it's worth (romantic shipping is not generally how I personally engage with fiction), but I hope anyone who finds their dynamic compelling in whatever way might still enjoy some of my thoughts on them!

In between, there's also a bunch of other commentary on stuff like the narrative function of scenes (especially on the scenes that were cut in the International Cut of the film and whether the film is better with or without them), directorial or editing or production design or storytelling choices, acting choices, foreshadowing and parallels, as well as some lighter commentary on bits that amuse me or bug me or that I particularly enjoy.

Sometimes I will just be making observations about random things I didn't necessarily notice or pick up on on my first viewing; many of them are probably kind of obvious, but if I didn't pick them up seeing it once, probably there's at least a chance they might be interesting for other people who have only seen it once.

This is not a recap of the movie, but I do try to quote lines or explain bits that I'm commenting on, so hopefully you can follow along if you've seen the movie at all. I don't know how coherent this would be if you haven't seen the movie, but if you choose to read a post like this about a movie you haven't seen anyway, godspeed to you.

Tuco's introduction

The opening scene sure is a microcosm of Sergio Leone's directorial style. Slow, silent close-ups, wide shots, unclear exactly where the scene is going initially, these unnamed characters eventually converge on a saloon -- and then instead of following them inside, Tuco comes crashing through the window and we freeze-frame. It's very drawn out (I had a bit of an "Is the whole movie going to be like this" moment watching it for the first time), but the comic timing of Tuco and the freeze-frame is great; instantly we go from this super slow, dramatic buildup to this fun, humorous subversion that really sets a tone. All that buildup was actually for introducing this guy.

In the process, we learn that 1) Tuco is someone at least three different people want to kill, 2) he's someone skilled and resourceful enough to manage to shoot them first and then make his escape through the window even after being caught unawares during a meal by three people working together, and 3) even in the process of doing that he brings his food with him -- probably actually pretty revealing about his background of poverty, not wanting to waste food when he has it. We'll of course see him introduced further a little later, but this really says a lot for only actually containing about ten silent seconds of him, and also benefits from being funny.

It's kind of amusing how bloodless most gun deaths are in this movie, considering it doesn't shy away from blood in other parts. The surviving bounty hunter does have some blood on his hand as he tries to shoot after Tuco, probably to convey that he's injured despite still being alive, but the others are just cleanly lying there with no signs of damage. Maybe it's paying homage to what other Westerns looked like -- the actual cowboy gunslinging specifically is very idealized, sanitized and almost cartoonish, compared to a lot of the other violence in the film. I remember being a kid and hearing about the trope of people in old Westerns getting shot and dramatically going flying as a result, despite that normal bullets are far too small for their momentum to send a person flying anywhere -- you don't actually see too much of that in modern movies, where everything tends to look much more realistic, but this movie definitely has a lot of very dramatic flailing and spinning around when people get shot in a way that looks pretty distinctly silly and cartoony today. Ultimately it meshes pretty well with the overall tone of the film, though; this movie is gritty in many respects, but it does not aspire to realism.

Angel Eyes' introduction

The way Angel Eyes just silently waltzes into Stevens' home and helps himself to some of his food while maintaining eye contact the whole time is so weird and uncomfortable, it's delightful. What an entrance.

Stevens has a limp. People who have fought in the war tend to be visibly scarred by it in this movie -- truly something that just permeates every background detail, that you don't really think about on a first viewing when you think the Civil War is just a setting backdrop.

There is zero dialogue in this film until more than ten and a half minutes in (though the first three minutes of that are the opening credits, so it's seven and a half minutes of actual movie with no dialogue). I think this is a very fun choice which contributes to the viewer really feeling how unbearable the silence is for Stevens by the time he starts asking Angel Eyes if Baker sent him - half of that silence wasn't even technically part of this scene, but it really intensifies it by making the silence here feel even longer than it is.

When Stevens says, "I know nothing at all about that case of coins!", Angel Eyes looks up with interest from where he'd been casually looking at his food. Evidently he had had no idea there was any case of coins involved, only that he was meant to collect a name, but once Stevens mentions it, his interest is piqued.

Angel Eyes casually offers, "Well, Jackson was here, or Baker's got it all wrong," while cutting off and eating a piece of bread with a large knife, sort of implicitly daring Stevens to try to say Baker's got it all wrong and see what happens. When he's got Tuco captured later, Angel Eyes does a similar thing of staying friendly-threatening as he casually asks questions, but once Tuco actually refuses to talk of his own accord, out come the claws. This time, though, Stevens does not take the bait, probably sensing that that would lead nowhere good for him.

He says, "Maybe Baker would like to know just what you and Jackson had to say about the cash box" -- this isn't the info he came for, but maybe Baker would be interested. Really it's Angel Eyes himself who is intrigued -- he'll go on to tell Baker that that's my bit. But he doesn't really bother pushing Stevens for it, instead moving on to admitting he's being paid for the name specifically. Probably he figures once he gets the name, he'll have all the info he needs to track him down anyway by his usual means (which it turns out he does).

The casual, grinning confidence of Angel Eyes' assertion that if Jackson weren't going by an alias he would've found him already, "That's why they pay me," really makes you believe it, doesn't it. It's exposition about what Angel Eyes does, but is also executed to work as a nice character-establishing moment about his competence.

Christopher Frayling's otherwise fun and informative commentary on the film talked about how Angel Eyes' missing fingertip was provided by a hand double in the final truel -- but you can see in this scene that Lee van Cleef's own right hand is definitely missing that fingertip (though I did not notice it at all until I thought to specifically look for it). Very curious where the notion of a hand double came from -- he even named a specific guy.

Angel Eyes casually announces that when he's paid, he always sees the job through, even though that's just going to make Stevens desperate -- Angel Eyes knows he can shoot first, no big deal.

He shoots Stevens through the table and the food, even. How does he aim.

Angel Eyes grabs his gun and turns around to shoot Stevens' son before he actually comes into view (specifically, we see him start to react to something about ten frames before we can first see the tip of the son's rifle). Presumably, in-universe, he heard him coming, but we don't hear him coming at all over the blaring background chord, so it feels like Angel Eyes just knows he's coming by some sixth sense. Very effective at making him seem even more threatening, especially since there's also generally a conscious decision in this movie to act as if the characters can't see anything that's out of frame for the viewer -- Blondie and Tuco get caught out by that rule a couple of times in amusing ways, but Angel Eyes actively defies the auditory equivalent.

(It's neat how the family photo, used for Angel Eyes obliquely threatening Stevens' family, also serves as foreshadowing for the fact he also has this second, older son we hadn't seen yet at that point.)

The fact Angel Eyes sneaks into Baker's bedroom when he's sleeping to report back is so extra. A normal person would just arrange to meet him the next morning, but no, Angel Eyes does the creepy stalker thing. Probably makes the murdering him in his bed bit a little easier, though, which also suggests he was definitely intending on that bit the whole time and didn't just "almost forget".

Baker's brow furrows and his eyes shift uncomfortably when Angel Eyes mentions the cash box; clearly he was hoping Angel Eyes would never find out about that bit (very reasonably, given what happens next).

All in all, Angel Eyes' introduction is super striking. The casual veneer and smug grins painted over a deeply tense sense of threat; the absolute deadly confidence; the fact he shoots Stevens' son too so easily and presciently, almost as a footnote to it all; casually walking out with the money that Stevens offered him for sparing his life; and then, on the ostensible basis that when he's paid he always sees the job through, casually killing Baker too.

Although he explains the murder of Baker as simply seeing the job through, though, Stevens didn't actually ask him to kill Baker; all he ever suggested he wanted was to be left alone, and all he said about the money was that it's a thousand dollars, after asking what Angel Eyes was being paid for murdering him. I expect Angel Eyes simply chooses to take it as payment for the 'job' of killing Baker for motivated reasons; that way, he can act as if the money is still 'payment' for him even though he rejected Stevens' attempt to bribe him, and it's much easier to go after the cash box himself if Baker's out of the picture, after all.

This creates an interesting ironic sense that while Angel Eyes effectively presents his own introduction as being all about his unassailable professional principles about always performing the job he's been paid for, and I took him at his word on my first viewing, he's not really all about those principles at all -- and as the movie goes on, indeed, he's simply pursuing the cash box for his own reasons rather than because anyone's paying him for it. His 'professional principles' don't come up again, because that's not really what this intro was telling us at all.

Which isn't to say he doesn't always see a job through after being paid (I can definitely believe that; if he has a reputation for getting the job done no matter what, that makes people more likely to pay him in the future, and he sure has no qualms about completing any job), just that that's not at all the main thing driving his character, as you might initially assume. The thing his intro is really telling us about him is that he's ruthless, terrifying, extremely competent, very interested in this cash box, and has absolutely no trouble casually murdering whoever might be standing in the way of accomplishing what he wants. And I think it's very effective at showing that.

Blondie's introduction

This scene opens with Tuco on a galloping horse in a way that naturally invites the viewer to assume this is following directly from when he flees from the saloon in his intro, and that's what I assumed on my first viewing -- but nah, not only does he not have the food and drink, he's wearing different clothing. Given the surviving bounty hunter from the intro will be appearing later and indicating that was eight months ago, and this is decidedly the most obvious place for the bulk of the timeskip to be happening, probably this is actually several months later. This film is not at all big on time indicators -- for the most part, we have no idea how much time is passing, everything feels like it's happening pretty much in sequence, and we can only vaguely infer that there must be longer gaps between particular events.

The straight-up photograph on Tuco's wanted poster is pretty hilarious. There's even a scene later with a little gag about the long exposure times for photographs at the time. Probably this is just a funny prop for two scenes to make it very obvious to the viewer that it is absolutely him on the wanted poster even as he adamantly denies it, but it's also very funny to imagine Tuco patiently posing for his own wanted poster.

Framing through it, all three of the bounty hunters surrounding Tuco when Blondie comes along are in fact going for their guns when Blondie shoots them, which makes sense -- for all that Blondie is not much of a noble hero, he generally does not tend to shoot people until they're at least starting to draw on him. (There's one notable exception, which will come up in part two.)

I enjoy Tuco's weird little nervous, disbelieving grin as he realizes this stranger just shot the bounty hunters but is sparing him. Tuco's own worldview, as shaped by his background, is dominated by self-interest; it's every man for himself, and it's up to him to do whatever it takes, tell whatever lies, betray whoever he has to, to get ahead. And yet, there's this endearing naïveté to him, where he's not really suspicious of other people's motives accordingly -- he's surprised Blondie would save him, but his brain doesn't immediately go to this guy just wants to be the one to collect my bounty. We see this a lot throughout the film.

We cut (with great comic timing) from Blondie sticking a cigar in Tuco's mouth to Tuco spitting out a cigar while tied up on his horse as Blondie takes him into town -- an edit that suggests continuity, like only a short time has passed and it's the same cigar that he just hadn't had the chance to spit out yet (sort of dubious if you really think about it, since surely it would've taken a bit for Blondie to tie him up and get him onto his horse). This reinforces our initial assumptions about what's happening, where Blondie would just have tied him up before riding straight into town, but given the con they turn out to be running, there must have actually been an offscreen conversation about it and the cigar is there as a bit of cheeky misdirection for the audience.

(It probably makes sense that when Blondie put the cigar in his mouth, he was actually about to propose they run this bounty scheme together -- as the movie proceeds, we see that Blondie generally shares cigars in more of a friendly sort of way, after all.)

"I hope you end up in a graveyard!" yells Tuco. They sure do all end up in a graveyard! This is some very cheeky foreshadowing and I love it.

Tuco yelling ineffectual threats about how Blondie can still save himself by letting him go, while actually tied up and completely at his mercy, is just extremely Tuco.

Then he shifts tack very abruptly to saying he feels sick and needs water, only to then spit in Blondie's face. Later he furiously calls the deputy a bastard just for walking out of a building, only to then immediately shift to saying he's just an honest farmer who didn't do anything wrong. Tuco often does this, shifting from one approach to the next in a way that makes it really obvious he's bullshitting, but he keeps doing this, just throwing shit at the wall to see if anything sticks, even when this is counterproductive to the whole effort. He is presumably playing it up a bit here, but it's still in its own way pretty representative of who he is and what he's actually like. He's so characterful.

"Who says so? You can't even read!" says Tuco about whether it's him on the wanted poster, which is some delightful nonsense hypocrisy/projection given we will later see that Tuco himself can only barely read. I love him. (And why would reading even have anything to do with it; he's obviously looking at the plain actual photograph of him right there. Love Tuco's absolute nonsense.)

Another absurd change of tactics: "Hey, everybody, look, look! He's giving him the filthy money!" - as if he's going to rally onlookers against the sheriff and Blondie somehow on the basis that money is exchanging hands, isn't that suspicious.

Tuco calls Blondie Judas for accepting the money (referencing the thirty pieces of silver, of course), which will get a fun echo later.

"You're the son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you!" I love that Tuco has invented compounding recursive bastardry just for Blondie. Not only is he a bastard, all one thousand men his mother slept with were also bastards. Glorious. (You can see Blondie's amused by this one; he actually smiles a little bit before throwing a match at him.)

I wonder if Blondie actively encouraged him to go quite this hard on the insults, to make them look less associated, or if he just did this. One would think it would be risky, on Tuco's end, to be this over the top in literally spitting in the face of the guy who could just let him hang if he happened to change his mind -- but then again, Tuco genuinely doesn't expect Blondie to double-cross him.

Tuco's crimes, as of this first hanging, are: murder; armed robbery of citizens, state banks and post offices; the theft of sacred objects; arson in a state prison; perjury; bigamy; deserting his wife and children; inciting prostitution; kidnapping; extortion; receiving stolen goods; selling stolen goods; passing counterfeit money; and, contrary to the laws of this state, the condemned is guilty of using marked cards and loaded dice! All this paints a picture of a pretty colorful backstory, but most of it is relatively petty; other than the murder (possibly of people like the bounty hunters we saw him dispose of in the opening), we can gather he's been scrounging up money through anything from cheating at cards up to armed robbery and kidnapping, he lied under oath (checks out), he set a prison on fire (presumably to escape), he ran off from his wife and kids and then married someone else he presumably also ran off from, and then there's "inciting prostitution" which I'm guessing means offering someone not previously engaged in sex work money for sex.

It obviously checks out that he'd do anything for money, and bigamy and deserting his wife and children rhyme with his off-hand mention at the monastery later that he's had lots of wives here and there; in general, it tracks that he would make big commitments and then just break them. So all in all, these seem like probably a bunch of genuine crimes that he actually committed. (He also nods somewhat smugly at the marked cards and loaded dice bit.)

Blondie's MO seems to be to first shoot the whip out of the hand of the guy who's meant to be setting the horse off and then shoot the actual rope (and then random attendees' hats, for good measure). Better hope that first shot doesn't spook the horse.

It really is very reasonable of Tuco to want a bigger cut for being the one running the risks; you wouldn't generally want to do a job with a significant chance of getting you killed without being very well compensated for that. Unfortunately, Blondie doing the cutting means he's the one with all the power here -- if he's dissatisfied with his share, he can just pocket all the money and let Tuco die -- which puts him at the advantage in the negotiation, and he knows it.

I enjoy how in the middle of "If we cut down my percentage, it's liable to interfere with my aim," Blondie offers Tuco a cigar, this casual friendly move in the middle of what is effectively a threat.

Tuco does a little understated, "Hmm," of acknowledgement that makes it feel like this was genuinely unexpected. But then he just returns the threat: "But if you miss, you had better miss very well. Whoever double-crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing about Tuco." Which sets up his quest for revenge on Blondie after the double-cross, obviously, but is also fun to recall during the final scene: Tuco actively advised Blondie not to leave him alive if he was going to double-cross him.

Tuco why are you eating the cigar

Next time he's in the noose, it's for a whole new list of crimes that ends with, "For all these crimes, the accused has made a full, spontaneous confession." Yeah, he probably just went off spewing confessions to a string of colorful invented offenses as Blondie brought him in, didn't he, maybe hoping it would raise the bounty. (At the cinematic screening where I saw it for the first time, I missed the spontaneous confession thing due to no subtitles and spent half the movie experiencing some jarring mental dissonance over Tuco's growing goofy likability versus the offhandedly having been convicted of multiple rapes near the start thing. But it's actually pretty strongly telegraphed that the new crimes here are simply bullshit; a spontaneous confession to a variety of new things that were decidedly not on the earlier list, that he could not possibly have done in the implied presumably not very long timespan between the first and second hanging, mostly distinctly more dramatic crimes than the original set, all sounds strongly like a Tuco throwing shit at the wall thing.)

Tuco looks a lot more restless during the second hanging, where for the first one he was pretty calm -- probably a little bit nervous about Blondie's "liable to interfere with my aim" remark, even though they'd presumably come to an agreement to stick with the 50/50 split.

He notices a woman being scandalized, seems sort of put out for a second, but then growls at her to scare her more. What a Tuco.

Another minor character presumably disabled in the war: Angel Eyes' incidentally legless informant. (Whom he calls Shorty, like the guy Blondie teams up with later, who is definitely a different guy because that guy has legs -- sort of a funny aversion of the usual one Steve limit. Genuinely a bit puzzled by why they did that -- is it like that in the Italian version or just the English dub?) I wonder if the bit where he moves around by holding a couple of bricks and using them to walk on is something inspired by a real person or people at the time.

Calling him a 'half-soldier' is pretty rude, Angel Eyes.

Look, I'll accept that we're calling Blondie Blondie, sounds like that's what you'd call him in Italy, but there's really no excuse for "A golden-haired angel watches over him." The man's hair is brown. It's not even a light brown. What are you talking about, Angel Eyes.

But to not get too distracted by that part of the line: Angel Eyes obviously recognizes the con they're running. I think that's probably because he knows of Blondie and that this is a thing he does (he's presumably done it with others before), so when he notices Blondie's around at a hanging, he's like ah, yes, there's him doing his thing, guess he's running with Tuco now. My own feeling is Blondie and Angel Eyes basically only know of each other, though -- no direct evidence they're not more familiar or anything, but they don't really act like they have a personal history, I think, compared to Tuco and Angel Eyes who obviously do.

After the threat about a pay cut being liable to interfere with his aim, I originally figured Blondie missing the rope (or rather, it seems to have grazed but not severed it) might have been deliberate, meant to scare Tuco a bit and make him think twice about proposing that again. But ultimately, on a closer look, I'm pretty sure he really did just miss, both because his expressions and body language feel more in line with that and because Tuco's rant after they escape indicates that Blondie's explanation to him was that anyone can miss a shot -- if it was meant as a warning, probably he wouldn't then go on to actively make it sound like he'd just happened to miss.

(That line also indicates it probably wasn't that he did hit it dead-on but the rope was just sturdier than expected -- if Blondie said anyone can miss a shot, that sounds like he at least believes it's because he missed, and I don't see any sensible reason he would lie about that here.)

That said, I think it's fun to imagine that the reason for the miss was that that discussion really did interfere with his aim -- that little bit of tension with Tuco led to him being a little careless this time, even though he didn't mean to miss and thought he had it.

The thing that actually prompts Blondie to stop and leave Tuco is Tuco's rant about how nobody misses when I'm at the end of the rope and When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the devil bite your ass. For all that he explains it as being about how there's no future in this with a guy who'll never be worth more than $3000, there's a specific point where he stops his horse and decides to ditch him, and it's when Tuco's complaining turns into guilting him about missing and the experience of being on the other end. Blondie will not be guilted and does not want or need this; just going to ditch him and wash his hands of him and find somebody else. I get the sense that Blondie doesn't really want to think about that miss too hard, at this point, and Tuco won't leave him alone about it, and so he leaves him.

More echoes in Blondie and Tuco's relationship: Blondie specifically says, "Adios," when leaving Tuco in the desert, which Tuco will say back to him at the inn.

Tuco's reaction, once again throwing shit at the wall, goes from insults to angrily ordering him to cut the rope off and get off the horse (as if he has any power to make him do anything, standing there unarmed with his hands tied), to a series of hilariously off-the-wall threats ("I'll hang you up by your thumbs!"), to disbelief/desperation: "Wait a minute, this is only a trick! You wouldn't leave me here! Come back! Wait! Blondie! Listen, Blondie!" before the final ¡Hijo de una gran putaaaa! The last couple stages once again get echoed in the final scene. I enjoy the "You wouldn't" - Blondie's supposed to be better than this, even after he'd threatened his aim might suffer if he got less money. They were supposed to be friends, damn it! (Tuco really wants to believe that people actually like him, and often chooses to live in the world in which they do.)

I truly love the fact Blondie gets the freeze-frame and onscreen caption of "the good" just after ironically admonishing Tuco for his ingratitude after Blondie has double-crossed him, taken the money they were going to split, and left him in the desert with this hands tied. As I wrote in the post with my initial impressions on the movie, this is the most uncalled for, mean-spirited thing he does in the entire movie, and getting the caption right here makes it really drip with irony, which is exactly the right thing to do with it, compared to if they'd put it earlier when it might have looked like it was meant to be played straight. There's no gallant hero here, only this guy, who is kind of a bastard. Blondie genuinely grows to deserve the title more as we go on, and that's one of the fun things about the movie, but we have established that the base point is low.

Blondie's intro tells us a number of things: he's a very good shot, casually confident, silent and stoic and unruffled by most anything, happy to be a conman ripping off bounties by bringing in criminals and then freeing them again to repeat the same scheme elsewhere, willing to make oblique threats to get his way and to shoot first when anyone seems about to pull a gun on him, and enough of a bastard to leave Tuco behind in the desert. But he's definitely the most enigmatic of the three main characters; he doesn't talk or emote much, leaving exactly what's going on in his head pretty vague and open to interpretation, even as some of his actions are pretty striking and interesting. This has nerdsniped me, because I enjoy thinking about what's going on in characters' heads; please be prepared for an excessive amount of analysis of what might be going through his mind in almost every scene he's in.

Angel Eyes and Maria

The choice to open this scene with Maria getting thrown off a carriage with a bunch of drunk Confederates and the choked-up yell of "You filthy rats!" after them is probably largely just to get across the suggestion that she's a prostitute, making it easier to connect that she's the one Angel Eyes' informant told him about. But I appreciate that it gives her a little bit of a tragic existence outside the confines of the plot and makes her sympathetic even before Angel Eyes starts beating on her. (A secondary purpose for this is also probably to show some Confederate soldiers just being assholes; the film makes a point of featuring both sympathetic and asshole moments from both sides of the Civil War.)

Like with Stevens, while Angel Eyes makes his presence very threatening, he starts off nonviolently (well, relatively; the way he pulls her inside is not exactly gentle), just telling her to go on talking about Bill Carson -- but when she refuses to volunteer any information and just says she doesn't know him, the claws come out instantly. There's none of the veneer of casual friendliness he had with Stevens, though, just an intensely scary stare and threatening demands. (The scare chord playing in the background doesn't help.) All in all, Angel Eyes was already terrifying but he is even more so in this scene.

I do also appreciate that while the interrogation is brutal and deeply uncomfortable and thick with the danger of sexual violence, it does not go there -- he's physically but not sexually violent, he's only interested in the information, and once he has it, we see him just leave. This is a completely sexless film, and I think we're all very lucky for that; it's one reason The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has aged relatively well, compared to for instance some of Sergio Leone's other films. (That's not to say I have anything against portrayals of sexuality or even sexual violence in media in principle, but I've gotten the sense that back in the sixties, media that did portray it tended to be profoundly weird about it.)

Tuco returns to town

We don't get to see Tuco suffering in the desert, only making his way across the rope bridge and then stumbling toward the well and finally indulging, but I think it does get across that this was an ordeal for him, and that becomes easier to appreciate on a rewatch, after seeing Blondie go through it later. Tuco's skin has fared a lot better than Blondie's, but his lips are pretty cracked.

The gun seller looks so proud of his little selection of revolvers and is so eager to please him by showing him more. It's painful how long he keeps trying to be helpful in selling him a gun even when Tuco just grabs the bottle of wine out of his hands and dismantles half of his guns to put together a custom revolver. And then Tuco just uses the gun, with a cartridge the owner gave him, to rob him of the money he has in the till, oof.

Man, those targets just casually in the shape of Native Americans.

Sergio Leone just has a thing for characters shoving something in somebody else's mouth unbidden, doesn't he. Blondie sticks his cigar in Tuco's mouth during his intro, then Tuco puts the sign in the shopkeeper's mouth, and then it happens very memorably in Once Upon a Time in the West as well. I forget if it's in A Fistful of Dollars or For a Few Dollars More, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised.

The gun store scene is theoretically skippable (Christopher Frayling's commentary indicated it was cut in British prints of the film, though I gather it survived in the US cut), but it's pretty fun in its audacity, and is also doing some good setup work for Tuco's character. So far, apart from his intro suggesting some degree of scrappy ability to shoot before he gets shot, he's been shown in a pretty ineffectual light, getting ambushed and captured and raging helplessly with his hands tied. But here we get to see that Tuco really knows his way around guns and has implausible trick-shooting skills to rival Blondie's -- and, of course, that he really is an unrepentant bandit who thinks nothing of doing this when he wants a gun and some money, lest we were left too sympathetic to him when Blondie left him.

The cave

Tuco presumably bought the chicken with some of the $200 he robbed from the gun store; he presents it like having a single chicken by itself is amazing riches. Does say a lot.

I enjoy his very blatant talking to himself about how oh, he's so lonely, but he's rich, wonder where his friends are now. He clearly figures that Pedro/Chico/Ramon are there listening and just avoiding him. He talks like they were such great friends, but somehow the fact they don't come out until he starts loudly talking about how if only they were there he'd give them $1000 each doesn't make it seem like they ever had a relationship that went much beyond assisting each other in committing crimes to their mutual advantage -- and Tuco clearly in fact knows this, since he knows exactly what line to go for to lure them out. (But no, Tuco definitely has great friends, because he is a cool and well-liked dude who has definitely made good choices in life.)

I've seen people online suggesting that Blondie and Tuco ran their scam a lot more often than the two times we actually see, but this scene seems to make it explicit that they only did it exactly those two times: Tuco specifically indicates Blondie has $4000, which is simply equal to half of the first $2000 bounty that they split plus the entire $3000 bounty for the second time that he kept for himself.

This is one of the scenes added in the Extended Cut, despite having been cut even from the Italian version of the movie after its original Rome premiere. The primary ostensible purpose of it is just to establish where Pedro/Chico/Ramon came from (the featurette on the restoration makes it explicit that the guy overseeing the Extended Cut, John Kirk, just thought it was a plot hole and decided to reinsert the scene when he discovered it existed because of that, despite Sergio Leone himself having decided to cut it for pacing reasons). It is true I think I would probably ask myself some questions about Tuco's buddies if I'd seen a cut without it; Tuco's seemed like a lone wolf so far, and without it there's no indication at all of who these guys are or why they're working for/with him for this.

On the other hand, the scene kind of sets them up as if they're a lot more important than they are, and its internal coherence feels a little off: them only coming out when Tuco tempts them with money, despite that Tuco's been there for a bit talking at them about what good friends they were, actively suggests they don't actually like or trust him (which makes good sense!), but then it also has this dialogue about how they thought he'd been killed, which feels as if it's randomly offering up an unnecessary and somewhat contradictory second explanation for why we haven't seen them with him up to this point. The bit about them thinking he was dead doesn't actually connect to anything and seems to give undue weight and improperly conserved detail to Tuco's relationship with these guys, who are ultimately just some throwaway goons that exist in one scene before dying and never being mentioned again. I think probably the movie is actually better off without this scene, as Sergio Leone apparently concluded himself.

The inn

More of the war in the background -- this time with the innkeeper privately opining about how those rebels are cowards and it'll be better when the Yankees have beaten them as the Confederate army retreats out of the town, only to then yell "Hurray for Dixie!" as they're passing by. Not the only character in this movie who just pretends to support whichever army he's currently looking at. (We see more injured soldiers in the background here.)

Love the tension of the buildup here. Blondie's gun lying dismantled on the table at the start, the brothers approaching in the midst of all the noise, the close-up of Blondie's hand freezing and eyes narrowing at the clink in the sudden silence, straining to hear as there's nothing (the fact it stopped when the army did actively suggests someone's trying to be sneaky), then frantically loading the revolver with a second-third-fourth bullet as the background noise restarts and then juuuust managing to finish and shoot the three of them in rapid succession as they burst in. These silent close-up shots of his hands and eyes also deliver a rare moment of tangible alarm from Blondie; he's legitimately scared for a bit there and you can feel it, which is greatly appreciated from a character who spends most of the movie being stoic and enigmatic.

Enjoy Blondie choosing to explain how he knew they were coming by going, "Your spurs," just before firing the final shot (just giving this guy a little tip about where he messed up before killing him, as you do), but also I deeply enjoy that him firing that last smug bullet, which he probably didn't really need to when the guy was collapsing anyway, leaves him defenseless when Tuco draws attention to himself at the window. Blondie is very smart and competent, we've just watched him survive three people sneaking up on him while he's cleaning his gun because he managed to notice the tiny sound of a clinking spur and put together what it meant and load his gun in time, but then he makes this near-fatal mistake by getting a little too cocky about it, and that's definitely tastier than if he'd obviously needed all his bullets there.

I have seen it suggested that Tuco intentionally used the brothers as cannon fodder here, but I'm not sure the movie necessarily suggests that; presumably the idea was for them to successfully sneak up on Blondie and catch him completely unawares without the unexpected silence exposing the rogue spur clink, which wouldn't have had to involve any of them getting killed (heck, if they'd happened to be just a little earlier, Blondie would've still been in the middle of cleaning his gun). Tuco and the others had clearly talked about their approach ahead of time, so they were perfectly aware that they'd be going up there by the door and Tuco would be coming in by the window and presumably thought that sounded like a good plan. And we have no idea exactly at what point Tuco managed to make his way in, so we don't have any indication either way on whether he theoretically could have intervened to save them in some manner -- my first assumption would be he got in after Blondie had stood up, which is after he shot them. Sneaking up on him from two different directions makes sense either way. I wouldn't necessarily put it past Tuco to figure the brothers will probably get killed and do it anyway, but I don't think we can say that for sure.

Either way, I enjoy Tuco doing his quick little sign of the cross when he says "Those that come in by the door." He did in fact just get them killed by bringing them here, and while he's not going to say anything about that to Blondie, it shows him acknowledging it in a small way. Tuco's religiosity is a great little character trait that has no impact on the plot but just adds more color and dimension to him as a character -- it adds a really fun bit of visual irony to punctuate some of his various decidedly un-Christian actions, and it has a rich sense of being rooted in his background given his family was presumably religious.

Blondie's shrugging, "It's empty," feels like he's initially kind of expecting them to just talk: he takes Tuco wanting him to remove the pistol belt as a practical thing, just telling him to remove his weapon so he can put his away, and so Blondie removes it but tells him that's not really necessary because he can't shoot him anyway. Tuco could have shot him already if he were here to kill him, right? He probably expects, initially, that Tuco is just here to get his half of the money, or possibly all of it.

Instead, Tuco responds with, "Mine isn't" -- he's deadly serious and he's not putting his gun away at all.

"Even when Judas hanged himself there was a storm, too." There's Judas again! Tuco originally called Blondie that while playing it up for the scam, but as far as he's concerned now, it's true actually. Love the furious energy of him sitting there having found this Biblical parallel and decided this is the specific revenge he wants on this guy and bringing a noose to arrange that. Blondie's never had a rope around his neck, never felt the devil bite his ass? Well, now he will. And he'll make him do it himself, because Judas hanged himself.

Blondie warily (and correctly) suggests the 'storm' is actually cannon fire -- because he decidedly does not want to be anywhere near the war, and by the time cannons are getting fired in the vicinity, he thinks they should probably be getting the hell out of there, and if Tuco agrees, then perhaps pointing that out is a ticket out of this pretty alarming situation he has found himself in. But Tuco, of course, is not really interested in entertaining that just when he has Blondie right where he wants him. He's going to hang him right here if it's the last thing he does.

Blondie goes along with it, slowly, silently, looking kind of wary and skeptical more than anything. When I was first watching this movie, I kept expecting him to do something, to distract him in some clever way and then lunge at him to disarm him or something, like you'd usually expect the main character to do in an action movie. But the thing is that's just not how Blondie operates. He doesn't do bold risky action-hero feats. He can absolutely shoot a gun with the best of them, but he has no particular physical skills, never even throws a punch in this whole movie unless you count the backhand slap on the tied-up Tuco earlier; when unarmed, all he's really got is his brains. Blondie gets by on being smart and careful and analytical. When Blondie finds a gun pointed at him, and has no leverage over the other guy, he will do what he's told, make no sudden movements, and wait until he sees some kind of actual opening, because otherwise he's just going to get shot. He buys what little time he can going along with the hanging while his brain silently whirs away evaluating his options for how he can get out of this, and that's about it for what he can do.

What are his options? He doesn't have a lot. Tuco is standing too far away to reach before he shoots but too close to realistically miss, never takes his eyes off him for more than a second, keeps his gun pointed squarely at him. It wouldn't be hard for him to get out of the noose -- it's a big noose, he's barely in it, his hands are free. But if he did, Tuco would presumably just shoot him instead. Probably his best chance, once Tuco says he's going to shoot the legs off the stool, is to try to make a move just when he fires, slip out of the noose and then probably make some kind of last-ditch attempt to overpower him before he's ready to shoot again, and I imagine Blondie was getting ready to attempt just that before they were interrupted. But even then, it's very questionable whether he could have actually escaped like that. All in all, things are looing pretty dicey for him by the time the rogue cannonball comes to his rescue -- but once it does, he's out of there fast, grabbing his chance now he's got it.

Either way, as little as he gives away as it's happening, Blondie's genuinely staring death in the face here for this whole sequence, and this experience clearly left enough of an impression on him for him to make a point of turning this specifically back on Tuco in the final scene, even though Tuco's going to torment him in a much more extended and agonizing way in the desert, so I'm enjoying the quiet implication there.

The cannonball is kind of interesting because this is absolutely a textbook deus ex machina. Usually I like the rule that a contrived coincidence can get the characters into a situation but ideally not out of it. This is definitely getting Blondie out of a situation, and definitely has that sense of being a little unsatisfying as the answer to how's he going to get out of this one. And yet, the fact Blondie really was helpless to do much about it is kind of the point here. If Blondie had actually won out in this encounter, it wouldn't have nearly the same meaning when he finally ends up turning the situation around in the desert, nor when he tells Tuco to get in the noose at the end -- narratively, we need this to be an instance of Tuco beating out Blondie and then toying with him for it to have the right impact, and hence, since he can't actually die here, he needs to get out without winning.

(It does also help a bit that the ongoing cannon fire was already set up and established, even if it just happening to hit the building is purely coincidental.)

Being saved by a cannonball, of course, is again the constant insistent presence of the war in the background, now coming into the characters' lives just a bit more directly.

Meanwhile, Tuco in this scene, man. He is finally the one in the position of power, just relishing having control and being able to order Blondie to do things and have him actually do them and the grim sense of justice in seeing him be the one in a noose for once. Cheerful lines like, "It's too big for your neck, huh? We fix that right away." Grinning as he explains that he'll shoot the legs off the stool. But then when it comes to actually doing it… he takes an extra breath, with this kind of hesitant expression on his face, before echoing Blondie's "Adios." As he points the gun, it's shaking a bit. Tuco doesn't feel totally right here and I love it a lot.

Tuco does absolutely want to see Blondie suffer right now -- we're about to see him chase him down again so he can torture him in an even more drawn-out and awful way, after all. But once he actually kills him it'll all be over, and he just goes back to his usual shitty bandit life, one more person that he'd once thought was a friend gone. This has been a couple of minutes of mildly satisfying catharsis, but not totally satisfying, too brief, too easy -- and there's probably some basic squirm of empathy there, when he's been in that position, can vividly remember the squeeze of the rope -- but the bastard deserves this for betraying him, so he's doing it anyway.

All in all, this is possibly the scene I have rewatched the most. This is significantly because I happen to have a big dopamine whump button in my brain labeled 'HANGINGS', but it's also just a sequence of masterful tension leading up to this delightfully twisted, tense and thoroughly loaded character interaction following on the previous scenes between Tuco and Blondie in fun specific ways that build up to even more fun things later. What a character dynamic.

The fort

I don't have too much to say about this one. It's a very impressive set, the war is brutal, the sarcasm of the Confederate captain Angel Eyes talks to and the ease of bribing him with some booze is nice foreshadowing and a parallel for the poor Union captain Blondie and Tuco will meet, but ultimately this scene is mostly about filling in how Angel Eyes learns about Batterville. (Or is it Betterville? The subtitles say Batterville and that's what it sounds like everyone's saying, but Christopher Frayling and the subtitles on him say Betterville.) This is a restored scene in the Extended Cut, which exists in the Italian version but was cut from the International Cut.

Angel Eyes pauses and swallows looking at the injured soldiers and later lets the captain keep the booze he brought, vaguely suggesting a glimmer of sympathy for their plight, which is sort of interesting but also a little divorced from the rest of the movie. Villains having different sides to them is neat, but I don't think we get a great sense of why Angel Eyes would be sympathetic to these men but also treat the prisoners at Batterville -- who are soldiers from the Confederate army just like these ones -- how he does later with zero remorse, so I'm not sure this is actually doing much for the movie on a character level in the end, and if anything may be a little counterproductive to the kind of extremely cold-blooded villain that Angel Eyes is otherwise set up to be.

I suppose the idea might be that Angel Eyes is theoretically capable of sympathy, but also capable of simply discarding it the moment it's useful to him. Alternatively, the idea could be that at the moment he feels in some sense that if the war catches up with him he could be in these soldiers' place, but then he goes on to enlist with the Union army to get into Batterville, at which point he's on the winning side so who cares. Angel Eyes does display nerves later at the truel, once he's in a situation he's not in control of where he might very well die, so maybe it checks out that while he feels not totally secure in not winding up like these men himself, their grim conditions get to him a bit.

I do think it is kind of nice to have this scene in terms of keeping Angel Eyes' storyline going and maintaining the sense that he's still out there looking for Carson, even aside from the added plot clarity; without it, he'd just kind of not exist for a very significant chunk of the film.

I've also seen it argued that it brings out the horrors of the war too early, given the film's slow progression from the war as simply backdrop for the plot to eventually spending the leadup to the climax with it in stark focus. I think that's a legitimately interesting point, but also that it didn't stop me absorbing that progression just fine when first seeing the film as the Extended Cut -- soldiers are injured here, yes, but they aren't truly lingered on, and all in all it felt mostly just like a logical part of the established war-as-backdrop at this stage.

All in all, I have some mixed feelings on this scene and what it contributes, but I'm tempted to conclude the film might be better without it overall.

The desert

Tuco tracking down Blondie by finding his cigars at every campfire is pretty hilarious. Imagine what Blondie could have avoided if he just stopped smoking like a chimney.

(It's sort of surprising Blondie got so far ahead of Tuco to begin with -- he wouldn't have had long to get downstairs and to his horse while Tuco was recovering from the fall and getting out of the rubble, so one would've thought Tuco could've been basically right on his heels. I guess Tuco went in the wrong direction initially and had to catch up.)

Tuco forbidding Blondie to shoot down Shorty, oof. Once again Tuco is fundamentally out for himself, and right now he wants to deny Blondie this more than to let this stranger live, so down he goes. (Nonetheless, he flinches watching it, again bit of instinctive empathy despite that he mostly suppresses it -- it hits pretty close to home.)

Blondie continues to comply with the orders of the guy who's pointing a gun at him, but he clearly doesn't feel great about this, apologizing, gaze lingering on Shorty even as he's preparing to stand up. Clearly his moral line lies somewhere between leaving Tuco to fend for himself (where he might die, but sometime later in the desert where Blondie would never know) and letting Shorty hang, dying right in front of him when he was expecting a rescue. Perhaps Blondie didn't even know he had this line until now.

A moment of silence for Blondie's original horse, whom he probably rode out here, but who is presumably just left behind as Tuco takes him away and never seen again. This movie does not really give a damn about individual horses -- the characters' horses repeatedly disappear and go unmentioned only for them to later manage to get a different horse somewhere without comment -- but as a former horse girl this is the sort of thing I notice and wonder about.

Blondie presumably initially figures Tuco's just taking him somewhere a short distance away to try to make him hang himself again or something. But then Tuco shoots the canteen out of his hands, and the hat off his head for good measure (love Tuco casually replicating Blondie's little hat-shooting trick just to rub it in), and it starts to sink in that no, that's not it, is it. Where are they going? On a nice walk of a hundred miles through desert. "What was it you told me the last time? Ah, 'If you save your breath, I feel a man like you would manage it.'" Tuco's not taking him anywhere; this is just torture, once again a very specific torture. Blondie made Tuco walk seventy miles through the desert? Tuco'll make him walk a hundred miles, or however long it takes before he dies a slow and agonizing death, and that'll show him. I deeply enjoy how in this movie, between the two of them, it's never just generic revenge, but always this hyperspecific replication of the other's previous cruelties.

Tuco's cute pink parasol is such a choice.

He's so utterly gleeful watching Blondie helplessly stumbling until he faceplants in the sand. Tuco relishes power and control when he can get it, not only for the Blondie-specific reasons (Blondie had all the power from beginning to end in their bounty scheme, and exercised it to leave Tuco helpless) but probably also because of his background -- poverty sure is a way to feel perpetually helpless and subject to external whims, and escaping it through banditry probably represented a sense of freedom from all that, where he can just go out and take what he wants and other people can be subject to his whims for once.

In the sequence added in the Extended Cut, the collapsed and dehydrated Blondie looks at Tuco's boot right beside his face, swallows, tenses for a heave of effort -- and then grabs the boot, only for it to just be the empty boot, Tuco cheerfully bathing his feet a short distance away. (Blondie is definitely suffering from the "characters can't see anything out of frame" thing here, but I kind of enjoy the literal implication that his eyes can just barely even focus and the boot manages to be all he can make out in his field of vision, even if it stretches plausibility a bit.) I do quite like this bit, not least because this is the one time we actually properly see Blondie attempting resistance. He silently went along with the hanging and he silently goes along with the desert walk, too -- which makes sense, because he's being ordered to at gunpoint, and as I went into earlier, he doesn't have action hero armor that'd let him do much to fight back in these situations without just getting shot, and he's generally too careful to try under the circumstances. But it means that he feels very passive in these sequences, and seeing this moment where he finally does think he has a chance to strike back, and the hate in his eyes and how painstakingly he gathers all of the energy he can muster to grab it, helps a lot to contextualize the rest and make him more tangibly an active character who cares what's happening to him for this. With this bit, it's easy to extrapolate that he has been waiting for any chance to take him down this whole time, and this is the one time he (seemingly) finds one. Without it, his character just has no sense of agency at all the entire time he's being tortured, which would mute the whole thing a bit.

(Well, okay: a little before this, there is this wide shot, where we can see Tuco stationary on his horse and Blondie walking towards him -- then stopping, extending his foot a little further forward and sort of pathetically lunging for that last step, at which point Tuco's horse just moves further away, and Tuco laughs. This might be, and is on closer examination probably meant to be, Blondie making some form of stumbling attempt to sneak up on him. But it's a wide shot so you can barely see him, it goes by in seconds, and it's hard to tell what he's actually doing -- he could just be trying to catch up to Tuco, which is how I think I'd mostly been taking it before I started squinting at this -- which makes it not really serve the same purpose.)

(I gather the script had a bit, which was filmed and possibly in a version of the Italian release in 1966 but lost today apart from a small fragment, where Blondie slides down a hill into an animal skeleton lying there and grabs a bone that he could use as a weapon, but Tuco shoots it out of his hand and warns him not to try that again. That would have also provided that bit of agency, but given that was cut, the boot scene was all that was left, and I do maintain that cutting that too is bad for the movie.)

After he realizes it's just the boot, and of course Tuco's not letting him get close, and he has no hope of getting one over on Tuco at this point, Blondie sort of slumps in defeat for a moment, and then looks up, and then starts to crawl towards the water. It's pretty painful to watch; the utter helpless humiliation of being so thirsty and drained of defiance that he would drink the water Tuco just washed his feet in is its own grotesque flavor of torture, and then Tuco won't even let him have that.

After that, Blondie manages to push himself onto all fours, looks at Tuco for a moment -- probably realizing that even if he tried to rush him right now it would accomplish absolutely nothing other than entertaining Tuco more -- and then just crawls away, finally going somewhere of his own volition. He's not going to make it far at this point, and if it looked like he might Tuco would just shoot him, but maybe he can at least die somewhere a bit further away from him.

Tuco stands up and initially reaches for his gun as Blondie crawls off, but then he just laughs, seeing that there's absolutely no danger of Blondie making it very far or shaking him off -- he can just casually pack up his stuff and then follow him at a leisurely pace.

In the Italian/Extended Cut, Blondie rolling down the hill is continuing from this, whereas in the International Cut, Tuco had just gotten off his horse to approach him after he initially collapsed, suggesting that collapse wasn't quite as bad and that he was just sort of continuing but on all fours -- gives it a little bit of a different air.

I do appreciate just how pathetic Blondie's crawl/roll down the hill is. He sort of picks himself up again after the initial stumble but then just collapses on his back, admitting defeat. He's going to die here and he doesn't have the energy to do anything about it. Tuco lets that bottle roll down and come to a stop by his head and he doesn't even react.

Tuco spends a moment just looking at him down there before bringing out his gun to put him out of his misery. Probably less out of desire to actually put him out of his misery and more out of seeing he's not going to be able to make Blondie walk anywhere further right now, and he's not going to sit around waiting, and definitely not leaving him alive.

Blondie barely moves as Tuco points the gun at him, just closing his eyes again and swallowing and accepting that this is it. At the inn he had a chance but this time is a full-on definitely thought he was going to die here and was powerless to stop it, and this is also something that Blondie turns back on Tuco at the end.

(And yet Tuco keeps pointing his gun to kill him and taking a while to actually fire it, doesn't he. Part of this is just the movie doing dramatic timing but part of it is a genuine slight hesitation on his part, as shown more obviously at the inn.)

But then comes runaway carriage ex machina, just in time! Tuco not just shooting him first before checking on it is another notable moment of hesitation on his part. Once again, we actually need a deus ex machina, because Blondie needs to have been totally helpless here or it would completely change the implications for what's being set up.

This is another good scene that I enjoy a lot, particularly Blondie getting ready to grab the boot, although I'm also just a big fan of exhausted, dehydrated men stumbling around deserts. It's very merciless and ugly (gotta love the energy of getting Clint Eastwood at his handsomest for your movie and then absolutely fucking up his face with the gnarliest-looking sunburn makeup), really thoroughly parses as torture where the hanging scene was more quiet buildup, and Tuco's absolute cruelty here versus Blondie's exhausted helplessness is very important in viscerally setting up why Blondie does what he does at the end. But I also enjoy how strongly Tuco's actions here are still rooted in the specifics of how Blondie treated him. I just really love the twisted, fucked-up way the whole chain of revenge is built up between the two of them, and how interestingly their relationship then develops with all that hanging over it.

The carriage

I appreciate that we see Blondie juuust prop himself up to look as Tuco goes to intercept it -- he goes on to discreetly crawl all the way to it during the sequence that follows while we're focused on Tuco, and briefly seeing that he takes an interest and has mustered a tiny bit of energy again helps set that up.

More of Tuco's religiosity as he does the sign of the cross multiple times over the corpse of the soldier who initially falls out… and then immediately loots the corpse. Oh, Tuco.

I remembered the amputee informant's description of how Bill Carson was missing an eye, so as soon as we saw one of the apparently-dead soldiers in the carriage wearing an eyepatch I was like ohhhhh!! The storylines are connecting!! (And we're more than an hour into the Extended Cut when it happens. This movie very slow-paced compared to a modern film and yet so thoroughly enjoyable.)

You can juuust see Carson starting to blink a bit as Tuco searches him.

Tuco standing there glancing to the right out of the corner of his eye when he hears a noise from the wagon, while by the rules of the movie he can't actually see anything over there, is very funny. He even waits a bit before turning around to point his gun, as if knowing whoever is there can't see him either until he turns.

Tuco interrogating Carson about the $200,000 while the latter begs for water is another truly painful scene; Tuco's only invested in the dollars and anti-invested in saving Carson's life ("Don't die until later!"), straining to get him to talk first for as long as he possibly can, until he figures the guy is going to straight-up croak before talking, at which point of course he switches tack. Presumably he thinks if he actually gives him water Carson's liable to change his mind about telling him anything, so he has to get it out of him first if at all possible.

I also enjoy his annoyance with Carson telling him about his name and having been Jackson before but now Carson; the audience needs him to say his name, and it's probably also helpful to mention he used to be Jackson, but to Tuco it's just a waste of time. "Carson, Carson, yeah, yeah. Glad to meet you, Carson. I'm Lincoln's grandfather. What was that you said about the dollars?"

Tuco repeats the name of the cemetery near the very end of the exchange with Carson: "Sad Hill Cemetery, okay. In the grave, okay. But it must have a name or a number on it, huh? There must be a thousand, five thousand!" - which means that, since Blondie doesn't know the name of the cemetery (unless Blondie did know it the whole time and just pretended not to, which I guess we can't really rule out), he can't have been listening in by this point. Directly after this, Tuco tells Carson not to die and goes to get water. So Blondie pretty much can't have caught any of the stuff about the cash when Carson said it originally, and can't have known the full strategic significance of talking to him beforehand.

Instead, Blondie probably quietly crawled after Tuco with the aim of maybe being able to get the jump on him while he's distracted with whatever this is, and he only got close enough just at the end to see Tuco talking to Carson and telling him to not die. Then, as Tuco ran off for the water, Blondie obviously could not follow him back there, but instead crawled the rest of the way to the back of the wagon to see who Tuco's so desperate to keep alive, where Carson managed to gasp out something about a grave marked 'Unknown', next to Arch Stanton, and that it had money in it (Blondie does definitely learn there's money, since he then knows to use that as leverage). This is supported by how Blondie just refers very nonspecifically to having been told a name on a grave. He's really pulling a bit of a bluff here since he doesn't (presumably) know what cemetery this grave is in, so if Tuco hadn't happened to have learned that bit (which Blondie can't know), this information would not actually be that useful to either of them. But so long as he can make it sound like he can lead Tuco to riches right now, he has an actual shot at surviving.

I enjoy the way Blondie manages the tiniest wisp of a victorious smile to Tuco's "What name?!" just before passing out. The moment he sees Tuco's furious desperation to learn the name he's talking about, he knows he's won and that Tuco's going to do whatever he can to ensure his survival. He can pass out in peace.

Tuco's shifty eyes and expressions as he has to reevaluate everything are great. Eli Wallach really, really just makes this movie with his performance. I love Blondie and all, and Clint Eastwood in his thirties is very attractive, but I think it's criminal that I had heard about this movie and about Clint Eastwood being in it but had never heard Eli Wallach's name. He's so good and singlehandedly makes Tuco the best thing about it. I love him.

And there comes the Tuco tack-switch! He's not just invested in keeping Blondie alive for the money; he's his friend! As if this is somehow going to be persuasive to the man he's just spent hours torturing and toying with.

I love this absolutely bonkers goddamn character dynamic. First Blondie saves Tuco from the bounty hunters, then he apparently turns him in for the bounty, then you learn actually they're running a scam together, then Blondie screws over Tuco in a way that makes you kind of root for Tuco to get back at him, then Tuco painstakingly, cruelly labors to punish him for it in the most specific twisted ways until you're anxious for how Blondie's going to get out of this, then this happens… and because Tuco is the character he is, of course it works. He is already the guy who switches tack on a dime when it seems to serve him in the moment. We've just spent this whole carriage scene building up how singlemindedly fixated he is on this money once he hears about it. There are already so many striking layers going on in the interplay between these two guys and it makes it delicious to realize we've just added yet another layer and the rest of the movie is going to involve them having to work together after all this. And because it's the cash box from the Angel Eyes storyline, we're following up on that too in the process, with the also-delicious implicit promise that that's how they're going to bump into him. This is just such a gleefully fun and satisfying moment where everything comes together and I love it.

(Continued in part two! Thanks for reading if you got this far.)

[selfawarecobalt]

Heyy i was wondering if u got any fraxus fic recs?

OKAY OKAY IVE FINALLY GOT IT

im so sorry this took me like 2 months to answer i have issues

also just to preface this: i am aroace so theres defo gonna be some bias here lol (literally most of these are whump)

also also: apologies for the terrible descriptions, im slightly stoned and a terrible writer, i am not NEARLY doing these fics justice

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48270481 ROCK BAND AU I LOVE YOU (seriously, hugely recommend any of Eryiss’ stuff, absolutely incredible author)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42626181 I’ll forever be a sucker for any sicfic and domestic setting

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16653865/chapters/39048235 THIS. this is classic literature to me. i remember this coming out like it was yesterday and it is a HUGE reason why Pirate freed is so dear to me

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38870499 5+1 things <3 also freed being a responsible king. braincell owner. iconic

https://archiveofourown.org/works/37492243 FREED BEING IRRESPONSIBLE I LOVE YOU (also some VERY good levy here)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23014816/chapters/55029376 this one lives in my head rent free. anything set during the battle of fairy tail is SO precious to me. also HUGE fan of laxus’ characterisation in this one, you can really feel the struggle

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19832980 POWER COUPLE FR

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16543964/chapters/38758559 THIS FIC. THIS FUCKING FIC. genuinely lives in my head forever and ever. this one genuinely shaped me when it first came out. im a sucker for any freed backstory that shows off just how powerful he is, and you can really feel the connection between him and laxus

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17877200 i believe, as they say; “HUBBA HUBBA AWOOGA”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17683478 MORE👏POWEHOUSE👏FREED👏 also the idea of him being able to recognise laxus’ voice when hes unable to recognise anyone elses is so,,,,,

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563164 ohhhhhh this one will ruin you (said with nothing but love)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563296 literally lived in my brain for years. i love you laxus being able to read freed even when noone else can

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16709374/chapters/39189871 THIS ONE. some SUBLIME freed whump and some REALLY good fraxus interactions

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15337278 more freed whump, focusing on his hands. some real good fraxus interactions too

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885776 Always a sucker for a domestic fic

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8265161/chapters/18936167 An old favourite- its always funny seein the thunder legion drunk off their asses

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874232 Drunk Freed again- I’m absolutely obsessed with canas personality in this one too

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16561601 TEACHER AU obsessed with their dynamic in this one

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1865388 this ones pretty old but i was OBSESSED with when it came out. still think of this whenever i smell cigs

there are absolutely many that i’ve forgotten but apparently im incapable of adding em since this alone took me a month and a half lol

[rainbowlapisart]

Now that time has passed I wanna share my thoughts on Deadpool and Wolverine as a film, though I will preface by saying it isn't very positive... also, I admit I was high in the theaters watching this, so please treat this post like what it is: just an opinion.

The opening dance sequence was of course amazing, though there was some noticeable CGI. And I think the concept alone of Deadpool literally digging up Logan's grave is a hilarious way to start the movie.

Unfortunately Deadpool feels lamer and more like an asshole in this one. Especially after his character development in the last film I just can't see him desperately wanting to join the Avengers of all teams. Nando v Movies mentioned this but what the hell even is the Avengers now? And why is Happy in charge of who gets let in? And why wouldn't they let Wade in? Yeah he's gross and crass but he has special forces training and is nigh-unkillable. Y'all let Hawkeye in but not Deadpool?

The setup is interesting though I can't fully get behind the idea of anchor beings-- and the further idea that their death leads to "associated" universes collapsing as well as theirs? I don't know, it comes off as "yeah we have all these other characters you care about but Wolverine is the important one so they'd die without him", which is kind of an insult to those characters and that universe.

I admit, I was never big on Wolverine as a character, I always thought he was cool as hell but the only movie of his I've seen was Logan, which was awesome. So I admit that it may just be a case of the movie wasn't meant for me, but still I am a Deadpool fan so of course I'm gonna see this anyways. Super glad we got a good suit for him but I wish we didn't have to wait until the very end for him to put the cowl on.

The Johnny Storm/Captain America tease and bit was really funny I will say. Personally I was too stoned to get the joke at first, I honest to god thought he was just Chris Evans, but now that I've sobered up the misdirect is really funny.

Deadpool is directly responsible for getting Johnny Storm killed. I know Deadpool is a murderer and maybe I shouldn't give a shit about this, but it just feels like an unlikable thing for him to do. Like... that's a guy. That's a hero. It's not like he was being an ass to Wade or anything, he was an ally to the two and got killed for no good reason.

There was barely any screentime for the side characters that were some of the best parts of the first films. After Deadpool 2 I was really excited to see the X-Force working together in the next movie. The dynamic between Wade, Cable, and Domino are really fun and I think this Wolverine would've fit right in. It feels like a missed opportunity to not have the X-Force be the team to help fight Cassandra.

Speaking of, how about those cameos? I never watched Elektra or Blade so these kind of meant nothing for me. I watched this with my dad and he got pretty excited. Laura doesn't really do anything that memorable other than talk to Logan, and of course Channing Tatum's Gambit is the best character in all of cinema. Completely and utterly obsessed with him and I need a trilogy about him immediately.

I didn't love Wolverine's whole "letting his universe down" thing. It gets hyped up so much then when we learn what happened it was a bit underwhelming. I just can't see a universe where the X-Men are taken down by a mob of humans.

I laughed my ass off lots of times. "The Proposal. :)", "Suck it Fox, I'm going to Disneyland", "There's only ever gonna be one Blade", "He has risen, babygirl!", and pretty much everything out of Nicepool.

In general it kinda feels like it's regressing what was so good about Deadpool 1 and 2. It also feels like it's more for fans of the Fox Marvel movies than Deadpool fans. I hope that since this movie is "Deadpool and Wolverine" that means we can get a more proper Deadpool 3 in the future that brings back those who I missed dearly.

[lifegoeson-wecarryon]

A rereading of Carry On, by an amnesiac: Log 2

(Or, I guess, ARROCOBAA. Chapter 3-4)

I’m Jace— though I used to go by Simon, largely due to how much this book meant to me when I needed it most. But due to amnesia, I forgot everything about it— so now I’m reading it all over again. This is the second part of my thoughts log while reading.

Log 1 | Previous Log | Next Log

· · ──── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ──── · ·

Healing is a long process, and my first log was 20 days ago. And that’s okay— this isn’t something I should be rushing anyway. It took a while, but I’m ready for the next chapter. These are a bit more scattered thoughts than last time.

Chapter 3: Simon

I do not mention it here, but CW Car Crash for those reading along.

The way Simon was talking about Candle in the wind made me spit my drink out— and it was worse by the implications of it setting on fire! I don’t even have one, but that’s terrifying!

I had no idea Simon gets kidnapped much less in CHAPTER 3? And why is the goblin singing Elton John? Is this implying Elton John is goblincore?

Simon makes everything about Baz somehow. I thought his obsessiveness was a fandom designated trait since that’s just how fandoms treat some ships, but MAN. DOWN BAD AND IN DENIAL!!!! But also me too, I would love to be Simon and have Baz start speaking to me in French….

Simon just casually decapitating a goblin in one sentence, no big deal. Taking a sec to shill the podcast Inn Between, I am thinking about it because that’s how the inn there was named, haha. If you like found family, DND, and queer main characters, go check it out.

Simon not knowing how to drive is actually real. I’m 24 and still don’t have a license.

I don’t know Simon, the mage has got a point for once. Regional slang is important, I’d be damned if I wasn’t allowed to talk about my jojo fries or grabbin some steamer or a little jimmy. But that is not to say, eating people and regional slang are equal issues! One may be more important than the other!

Ebb mention :) Love how it’s a little lore drop but also ebb crumb :) I sure do hope nothing bad happens to her :)

I remember now, back in high school. I would write Carry On fan fiction for creative writing club, and my instructor would get so excited by names like Crowley, Merlin, Methuselah, stuff like that. And I would just sit here like “they just say this normally in the book why are you praising me for mentioning these people😭” But he was just really excited over literature.

Is this the first time we actually meet Penny in person? I love her so much already. We love a snarky best friend that will tell you the truth straight up.

Elspeth mention! I think she was in one of my fanfic series where I shoved a lot of background characters in there to give them some attention. Congratulations for your perfect attendance, sorry for the interruption!

It’s unlisted now, but I made a book trailer for Carry On for class way back in the day. I remember it now because I threw in the scene here, where Penny was mad at Trixie for coming back. Her dynamic with her was always really funny to me, I wish we could have seen it explored more.

The Humdrum looks like the 11 year old version of Simon, does this mean that it’s supposed to represent his childhood, somehow?

The chapter ends on that little lore drop that brings about my million dollar question.

Chapter 4: Penelope

Our first chapter without Simon, featuring Penny! I love that for her, but it already looks short.

She cares about him so much and that much shows from her perspective, though his state also worrying to me… every autumn he came back like that? No wonder, the mage never even attempts to care for him. I’d like the idea of a little AU where Penny does run off with Simon and get that flat in Anchorage— or Casablanca, or Prague. Wherever it is, it feels like a cute little slice of life. I’m not sure if she means they would live to see the far end 19-20 years old, or 2019-2020. For their sake, I hope it’s not 2020, haha.

But as much as she is willing to run away, I’m glad she also recognizes his importance other world… sadly. But, and this may be an uncommon take, what obligation does he have to save this world in the first place? I’m not sure if he would pose the question himself, with his reluctant devotion to the great mage.

· · ──── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ──── · ·

I think ending it here is good. We got a few lore drops, a few surfaced questions, and I feel more at ease getting further. I don’t think it’s gonna take another 20 days for the next log to come out, but I can’t make any promises. Once again, if you made it this far, thank you for listening. I hope that if you’re trying to heal, you find a way that works for you— like revisiting a beloved book is for me.

[cantgetworsethanthistbh]

If no one asked yet, why is it hard to enjoy Relat//ivi//ty F//alls content? Is it just the premise?

I am genuinely curious so if you want to rant feel free to do so!

Okay anon so im gonna say there are 2 main reasons why i find it so hard to enjoy r*lativity f*lls fan work even tho i LOVE the premise of the au. one of them is incredibly petty and the other i think is more reasonable

reason 1 and the really really petty one... i really, really do not fucking like how popular fiddleford is as a character IN GENERAL

which isnt to say he doesnt deserve it, god knows out of the important side characters (him, gideon, pacifica and robbie) he's by far the best written of the bunch and has so many funny as hell gags. and i do absolutely really like his character!! hes really interesting and funny and his backstory is tragic and fuck i love his character!!

i absolutely despise the fandom obsession with him LMFAO i hate "m*stery trio" ideas so god damn much (ik this exists with the younger twins + pacifica too but this isnt about that and i give this more leeway because mabel and dipper arent highly codependent like the stan twins are) because there ISNT a m*stery trio. theres a reason why soos says "so youre like mystery twins." why dipper said "mystery twins?" mabel: "i thought you hated that" dipper: "its growing on me". why the cryptogram at the end of Not What He Seems emphasizes that stan and ford are the ORIGINAL mystery twins.

i cannot stress enough how much it annoys me when people try to shove another person into stan and ford's dynamic (anyone who isnt bill who serves as an antagonistic force), as both someone who loves both the platonic and the incestious interpretations of their relationships— and 99% of the time its going to be fiddleford. when i talk about soostanwich or rickstanwich i mostly keep it in the bounds of it being a sex thing or an ot3 where theres a very clear divide between the twins and their 3rd, some kind of awareness that dissappears wheni look at anything involving fiddleford instead

and this extends to SO many aus. believe it or not r*lativity f*lls fiddleford is probably the least offensive for me, hes mostly just a friend of the twins, and is essentially like wendy and pacifica combined in one (ford has a crush on him, anyone who actually respects stan as a character will at least portray him as being kind of antagonistic towards him like that one art i reblogged). r*lativity f*lls is on the better end of their use of him. you do NOT want me ranting about other ford centered aus ive seen where i see fiddleford utilized WAY more than STAN is— stan who is fords brother!!! and the person ford loves the most!!! the character who ford was literally created for!!

like im sorry i feel bad for being so petty because its completely harmless and its not like people are wrong for liking his character and wanting him involved especially since most ship him w either ford or stan, but sometimes i just feel like theres a certain kind of irony in how in a show that emphasizes that theres no one stan and ford need other than each other, theres just this guy being crammed in. and ive mentioned sm times before i love f*ddauth*r and cant stand the popular interpretation of f*ddlest*n but thats kinda irrelevant to my feelings on this imo

im literally just being bitter for no reason but hey anon you gave me the go ahead to rant so i might as well— plus it leads me to my 2nd and way more reasonable point:

i dont think people really know what to do these characters when it comes to this au 😭

and i have to clarify: thats fine!! this is mostly for fun, and if people just want to draw older D and M and younger stans, then you know! go hog wild. that being said, i feel like theres just SO MUCH missed potential in this au and i feel like the most common interpretations can be fun, they only really utilize just very few characters. and swap aus are supposed to be entirely designed around the swapped around cast (one of the best swap aus imo is undersw*p, an undertle swap au that flips around its main cast perfectly). RF, since its more of a community au, has sm different versions that also unfortunately feel kinda the samey?

like i mentioned earlier, outside of the pines twins, the most common swap youre gonna see is of pacifica and fiddleford. and i actually kinda like that— put fiddleford as someone who is in close proximity to the twins then literally who else than the girl dipper and mabel are both frequently shipped with, make tate be a bad dad to him. and pacifica, despite being a beach blonde valley girl stereotype, isnt ever implied to be stupid and is said by dipper (lost legends) that shes smart. if you wanna push the idea that a rich girl like her can be super smart, be an inventor, i say go for it. shes got the genes of an inventor in her anyway (TBOB) and like, yeah i like that.

and the other most common swap is... absolutely none. that is literally it💀 does anyone know where soos is?? wendy??? gideon?? like should i even ask where robbie is, because all ik is he got NOTHING here (and mind you i dont even care about him THAT much, i include him because hes in the zodiac which is my base for the cast). you can tell me to look hard for them, but thats emblematic of one of the reasons its hard to enjoy the most common interpretations of the au then imo

i feel bad for saying this but i think the main reason why sm RF fails is because its not about swapping characters who you see fit to swap, its about filling certain roles in the plot and in fandom cultute. you see sm of the F and P swap not because anyone actually thinks this is an interesting way of putting them in each others positions, but because fiddleford and pacifica are the most commonly shipped with the stan twins and d/m twins respectively. and hey im a sucker for d*pcif*ca as f*ddauth*r, being cute nerds together fucking slaps and i love them, but i think people just resort to these cus its EASY. and i feel like it sucks that soos, someone who is SO important to the Pines family gets kinda erased in the narrative from what ive seen. wendy, well she was already done dirty in canon so i cant blame the fandom for not gaf about her, but yeah you hardly see her too. gideon was the MAIN ANTAGONIST of s1 man, youd think he would have some kind of noteworthy role in a swap AU where he gets to be an adult. but ig its kind of the price of him not being a blurbo like fiddleford and pacifica. mind you i love pacifica to pieces and im happy she gets sm love but yeah its kinda odd i think

i think the best RF pacificas ive seen is her being swapped w lazy susan actually, considering her actual conclusion is her working in the greasy diner after all (plus dipper being a deadbeat dbdudhdu). GIGANTIC fan of that, because its not about her having to be involved in portal work the way fiddleford was but still clearly involved in some kind of personal drama w the twins.

anyway at the end it doesnt actually matter that i feel this way. most people who are doing these aus are doing it for themselves and their own satisfaction and thats great. im not satisfied because im not them and im not th e target audience, the people who make the art/fic are their own audience and i respect it. i just personally cant enjoy it much, hence why its hard to enjoy popular interpretations of the au for me. i think im just HELLA picky when it comes to this (and sm aus... god knows r*verse p*rtal aus also kinda peeve me off on how ford is characterized), and maybe one day ill just draw/write my own RF version thats all catered exactly for me <3

also if anyone is asking who soos should be swapped with jts obviously fiddleford. like mcgucket is an inventor and soos is the handyman, i think this is actually incredibly obvious shbsusbshs

[alexa-nowak]

One of my old texts from YouTube arguments about Astarion endings

I am not that invested in this discourse nowadays because I lost hope to change anyone's opinion and also, I am simply tired from dealing with toxic bs that I am getting as a response to some of my old comments on YT to this day. My favourites are those who will reply to my every comment to say how delulu I am and I probably just dreaming about being in a toxic relationships myself, while being unable to understand that people have their own ways to heal through art and that throwing poison on people like that is not helpful at all.

I will leave it there and funny enough, I am not even so much of AA fan, I just don't like people being ignorant and rude.

And I like writing essays, so here it is.

So, what this dark romance fantasy is about for me personally,(even though i prefer spawn romance, i absolutely understand the appeal of A!Astarion because honestly, i was all about this kind of romance during my childhood and teenage years, hardocore the Phantom of the Opera girl is here, inside your head 💀), and why it's also healing route for some players,and no, it's not about kinky vampiric banging.

1)A lot of people feel extremely worthless and insecure, lonely, like no one really cares for them at all. It's a very deep wound that hurts and it's difficult to overcome even in perfectly loving, healthy and supportive relationship with a good partner,and even with therapy. So fantasy about a vampire, being obsessed with you so much that he is ready to do absolutely anything just to be with you for forever is really comforting. Also,you don't have to think too much about your imperfections, because for him you like a center of his vampire heart.

Besides, you sympathise with him - it's like a selfcomfort mirror, i love this monster despite everything, so in a way, i accept myself despite any flaws i see in me.

2) Safety. When the world around you feel like a wilderness, full of monsters, it feels like only the most terrifying loving monster can protect you from it. He is powerful and protective, and i am so precious to him, that he will set the world on fire just so i would be safe.

3) Responsibility. As you may see, this kind of relationship have daddy issues vibes and codependency, and in real life, you can't just fully submit safely to anyone, I don't think i have to explain why it's a dangerous idea to seek this kind of relationships in real life. You have to stay a grown up independent person and seek safety for yourself without expecting someone to come and heal all your wounds. But this is fantasy, so finally you can use this as a comfort fantasy with no fear about being taking advantage of, without shame to be called childish and etc.

4) Independence. Spawn ending is very terrifying for anyone who has issues with feeling safe and independent, because some of us prefer violent power fantasies over "we have each other and that's all that matters", second of all, this ending also has some shady co-dependency undertone to it that can be triggering for some people. I love Spawn Astarion a little bit more more than Asc and yet my heart stayed absolutely broken after running away from the sun scene, and i hate that he is so dependent on Tav. Larian owes me some emotional refund after this.

5)SA trauma: it wasn't even seen as a possibility for healing way by writer, but it is for some.Asc Astarion feels like he is the most powerful creature in the world,and he is fully controlling everything that happens between him and Tav,so finally, it's a kind of situation where there is no chance of him being abused again. It's one of the reasons why some people become Doms in BDSM dynamic relationships: finally, full control of the process and a partner, who trusts then enough to fully submit, trust issues is also big deal in Astarion story of healing. I find idea that that only Subs can enjoy Asc Astarion a little bit naive. Because,well, some news for you: Doms like it too because they understand why he is so eager to be a top

Unrealistic, not the healthiest way? Probably! But this man and this love is not real anyway.

Yes, i think many of us, especially folks who went through therapy and a lot of self reflecting are already aware that it's basically romanticized version of narcissistic obsession and in real life this is creepy, but it's not real, it's a fantasy. People use BDSM to heal, romance books and all other forms of art to deal with their inner demons and it's absolutely normal. Even if someone is blind to see what is wrong with Asc Astarion, I highly doubt that toxic bucket of shame and aggression are able to help see anyone problematic side of things. Do you know who is usually up to romanticize toxic dynamic in romance? Victims of abuse. In real life, if you just scream and yell at any poor girl/boy/whatever about how stupid they are for believing that their abusive partner really loves them, people will either break down and cry or tell you to f#ck off and they will have every right to do so, but they won't see what's wrong with their partner,in whom quite often victims of abuse see their only source of love and safety in life.

Hells, I am so sick and tired from this "white cloak knight saviour from cycle of abuse" toxic flood in this fandom. If you really want to educate people - do it with extreme care and compassion. Real life healing is not working like it's with Astarion in the game,few right dialogs and boom, dude is on the right path.

It takes enormous amount of patience and love, be kind to one another, and stay safe, darlings. Being toxic on Asc fans you are not helping anyone, you just hitting your superiority complex button in your ass.