#i did this test based on her stranger things canon specifically

[nebulousfishgills]

You can make your own judgements on the legitamacy of this test, but in my Sociology of Deviance class today, we briefly touched on the Hare Psychopathy Test, a scoring system with a maximum of 40, rated 0, 1, or 2 for each of the criteria to determine if someone's a psychopath...

So naturally I plugged Emily into it:

She scored a 26/40 and typically one must score a 30 to be "officially/clinically" regarded as a psychopath... but for more context:

-Ted Bundy scored a 39

-Jeffrey Dahmer scored a 23

-John Wayne Gacy scored a 27

I'm getting my degree in this type of shit, so I can apply my knowledge however I choose, thanks much.

[marypsue]

So, I finished Stranger Things season 3. The show canonically involves a shadowy government agency abducting and experimenting on children, so, when the shadowy Russian government agent who had captured Steve and Robin started talking about getting Steve a doctor, my mind did not go to conventional means of torture. And that, combined with the credits scene, gave me an idea for a post-canon fic.

Diverges slightly from canon at the point where Steve and Robin are being interrogated. Dustin and Erica take a little longer to rescue them, and when they do get there, something is Wrong with both Steve and Robin. It seems to wear off, and they all chalk it up to the drugs - but that doesn't explain why, when the Gate closes, both Steve and Robin drop like stones. They wake up fine a few minutes later, but...

Fast forward. The Byers and El have moved. August isn't quite over yet, but school and further partings are looming. Somewhere in the background, there's a news report about a nuclear power plant meltdown in the vicinity of the secret Russian lab from the credits scene, the one where they'd been keeping a captive demogorgon. 

And, around Hawkins, people's pets have started to go missing, mangled animal corpses have started to turn up, and Steve's started to catch glimpses of something tall and pale lurking in the woods behind his house and following him in the dark. Something that looks almost human, but doesn't seem to have a face.

The demogorgon seems to be back, and stalking Steve - and, according to how nervous she's been and how she won't walk to her bike alone after dark anymore and how she keeps asking if the Russians could've come back for them, Robin. 

Steve decides that he needs to do something about this before it starts eating people - eating him, and his friends, specifically - and, selfishly, that it'd be nice to be the big damn hero for once, maybe even without getting the snot beaten out of him this time. Using himself as bait to draw the monster out and then hitting it with a bat with nails in until it stops moving may not be the smartest plan anyone's ever come up with, but nobody ever claimed that Steve Harrington was smart.

Surprisingly enough, this stupid plan actually works. Up until the part where Steve actually starts hitting, and very quickly discovers that he hits a lot harder than he ever did before. And can take a lot harder hits than he ever did before. And holy shit what the fuck is going on what is happening to his body what the fuck is happening to his TEETH - 

The fight doesn’t last long. Steve has to take a quick minute to have a mental breakdown, and when he pulls himself together (figuratively and, horribly, literally), the demogorgon has basically rolled over and shown him its belly. 

Turns out, it’ll listen to him. And it’s hungry, but willing to stick to cattle and deer and the occasional unfortunate cat. And actually kind of cute and pathetic, in a horrible-monster-that-tried-to-eat-my-face kind of way. And perfectly happy to just chill around Steve, and he’s training it to not eat people and it’s working, okay?

It’s hard to keep a secret monster pet from an alternate dimension a secret for long. Robin and Dustin both very quickly figure out that Steve’s hiding something (well, a couple of somethings), and, after extracting solemn promises that they will not freak out, he takes them to meet his new...project.

Robin freaks out.

Just a little bit. Just for a second. Just because the demogorgon sees her and goes rocketing straight at her, ignoring all of Steve’s commands. Just because she doesn’t feel like getting eaten - or nearly eaten - by monsters from another dimension. Again. 

Why she freaks out is not as important, though, as what happens when she freaks out. Because the demogorgon goes flying like it got hit by a truck. Only nobody’d touched it. 

So, maybe Steve and Robin didn’t get out of the Russian base with no lasting damage the way everybody’d thought. 

After a few false starts (and a lot of Dustin attempting to explain things through comic book references that Steve insists he doesn’t get), they figure out that Robin can share ‘impressions’ with the demogorgon in a similar way to when El ‘found’ it and it saw her in the first place. It’s lost, and hungry, and lonely, and homesick, and happy to think it’s found two other, stronger, if a little funny-looking demogorgons. 

Oh, and it’s dying.

They immediately tell the others, because if three seasons’ worth of Upside Down-related shenanigans have taught them nothing else, it’s to share information up front. 

(This involves talking to Nancy, which Steve seems to be more scared of than walking into the woods with a bat with nails in to confront a monster he thinks has been stalking him with every intention to eat him. Robin will never let him live this down.)

Nancy remembers that when she and Jonathan went hunting the first demogorgon, it came out of a portal in the woods that closed up after it, not the Gate in the facility. Mike remembers it coming out of the wall at the school, which corroborates Nancy’s idea that it can open its own portals. Will (via walkie) remembers that Brenner&co. had sent Hopper and his mom in after him in hazmat suits, because apparently the atmosphere of the Upside Down is toxic to humans. And they all remember how the Russians’ Gate blew. 

They come to the conclusion that maybe their atmosphere is toxic to the demogorgon the same way the Upside Down’s is to humans, and that it can’t find its own way home because, by closing the Gate, they severed all connections to the Upside Down.

(It seems like somebody on the Russian side of things was smart enough to not put all their eggs in a giant Key-shaped basket, and was looking into ways to open a Gate that would take less power and be less prone to exploding. Since the demogorgon is naturally able to open its own portals, and to tolerate the Upside Down’s atmosphere without needing specialty gear, it’d make sense to try to give a human those attributes.)

(And the two American teenagers in stupid outfits were probably telling the truth about not being highly trained covert operatives, but they still couldn’t be allowed to escape to tell the world what was going on. And their deaths would be no great loss to anyone if the tests went...badly.)

So now they’re faced with a dilemma. If they find a way to open a Gate to let the demogorgon go home, however small and however briefly, they risk letting the Mindflayer back into their world. But if they don’t, their new buddy will die - and, it’s starting to look like, so might Steve and Robin. 

Also, El’s powers still haven’t returned, and she’s half a country away now. But, maybe...maybe Robin can open a Gate.

Some additional thoughts:

Somehow, the solution has to involve Kali or one (or more) of the other nine experiments.

There are now no responsible adults over the age of eighteen who know what’s going on within a reasonable driving distance - except, perhaps, for Murray. This is going to go about as well as could possibly be expected.

Tommy and Carol appear as secondary antagonists, who find out what’s going on, try to take it to the papers, and end up scooped up by the government and interrogated.

This leads to the demogorgon and Steve and Robin all being shuffled off to some top-secret facility that they then need to be broken out of in the climactic episodes. Maybe this is where Kali comes in - she’s been hunting Brenner’s men for years, she’s familiar with the locations of their bases and bolt-holes and with how they operate. Whether Owens is involved or not, I haven’t decided. 

There’s a scene where Steve and Nancy finally fucking talk to each other, and while they don’t get back together, they do clear the air and leave off on a better footing so they might actually be able to be friends.

Also, Nancy and Robin start to become friends, and then Nancy finds out Robin likes girls and is weird about it at first, and has to get her head straight and her act together.

El as the wise old mentor training Robin on psychic abilities. Robin has to try to ‘find’ El, because El still doesn’t have her powers, but El’s practiced enough that she can tell when someone else is trying to get into her head and to let her in. Long-distance communication is a lot easier with psychics. And a supercharged walkie-talkie. 

The B-plot/emotional arc is about growing up and apart while trying to maintain relationships that are important to you, and grieving for the person you were with certain people at a certain time and have now irrevocably lost, while learning to look forward to the versions of yourself and the people you care about that are yet to come and may be better than you could possibly imagine. And also about maintaining long-distance relationships.

Dustin names the demogorgon Gizmo.

And there are many, many E.T. references. 

[sharinluna]

MLQC Chapter 16 Translation Part 1

Translation of excerpts from chapter 16.

This is not a full translation, only some parts. It’s more like a abbreviation/summary/paraphrasing of some parts of the story. Do not ask me to translate more or reveal more plots in the story.

The translation is based on KR version text. I’m not a professional translator and get things wrong. So do not regard this as the actual canon story.

I used Yōurán as the name of MC because that is the unofficial default MC’s name in CN version.

DO NOT COPY, QUOTE, REPOST OR REBLOG THIS ANYWHERE. Links are okay but I don’t want this post to spread too much in other communities or websites.

16-1

???: As you all know, Hades’s return-to-zero plan has started.

16-3

It has been 10 days since Gavin was gone. I looked down at my bracelet feeling pain and sorrow. He said he’d come back, I had to believe him.

The news was talking about the latest influenza outbreak. The symptoms were similar to a regular flu, coughing, high fever and lethargy. It couldn’t be cured by any existing antibiotics. No one died yet, but the number of the infected was increasing every day. Every laboratory in the nation was researching about this, but there was no solution yet. The virus spread faster than anything we’ve seen before. 

I wore my cotton mask before I went out.

When I went to the office building I heard the security guards talking.

Guard: Did you hear about that guy? He caught the flu this morning. He couldn’t even recognize his wife.

I felt anxiety in my heart growing. He didn’t even recognize his wife… how could this be a symptom of a regular flu? It occurred to me that I could inquire someone about the disease.

As I entered the hospital my suspicion that this was not a regular flu grew more. I met doctor Song(the female doctor from chapter 13), after the Evol rampage was solved, she went back to curing patients.

Yōurán: Dr. Song, I wanted to inquire about the recent flu epidemic…

Dr. Song: I was about to call you. There are some strange things, and I wanted to check that I’m not being paranoid… This flu is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Yōurán: I thought so too, and I just heard something that might back your claim. Among the infected, there are hardly any children or old people. Usually they get sick first because they have weaker immune systems. But this time, it’s the opposite, the flu only targets healthy, young people.

Dr. Song: Yes, and I found out that there are no evolvers among the sick. I think…. the virus is selecting certain genes.

Yōurán: So you’re saying that the virus is targeting healthy non-evolvers on purpose.

Was this another scheme from Black Swan. They’ve targeted evolvers before, now they’re targeting non-evolvers?

16-6

I was walking home. The usually busy streets were empty and many shops were closed down. I felt dismal. Could I ever look up to the sky with light feelings?

The TV screen in the building lighted up.

News: Professor Lucien’s research lab has announced a press conference about the latest influenza.

I stopped right there. I haven’t thought of Lucien for a long time. Since that day, he disappeared from my life. He moved away from next door and didn’t answer any of my calls.

I asked myself many times whether I despised him, and the answer was “no”. The world was not black and white, and I didn’t want to judge him with just one idea of what was right and wrong.

I just didn’t want to think about him again, but every word from the screen etched to my ears. He is part of the Black Swan, and since this virus is likely related to Black Swan… I can’t deny that he is part of all this.

Yōurán: I could just send Willow… or anyone else to report about this conference…

I don’t know what I was trying to avoid. Was I afraid of the answer that would come from him? Was I afraid to find out that the flu outbreak had something to do with him, because I would get emotional? Or… was I simply afraid to see him again?

I closed my eyes and made up my mind. I had to attend this conference.

Footsteps could be heard and the reporters gathered up front to hear what Lucien had to say. Just then, his eyes met me standing among the reporters. I turned around and lowered my head. My heart was beating like crazy. A few seconds later, I gathered courage to glance at him, he was talking to his assistant like he hadn’t seen me.

I needed to get a grip. I made my decision to come here. I was not going to cower in fear. After taking a few deep breathes I held my camera up to start shooting.

16-7

Lucien: Hello. Thank you all for coming. I would like to announce that we are working on a new remedy that will cure the influenza.

Audience A: Professor, my father has the flu, and he’s trying to volunteer for human experimentation. Please refuse him!

I took out my voicepen to record his words and realized that it was actually Lucien’s silver pen. I shoved that thing back into my pocket. I must have brought it instead in my hurry.

Yōurán: Why now…. this… of all things…

I was too busy feeling sorry about myself to notice that Lucien startled for the shortest second.

Lucien: First of all, I would like to offer condolences for your father, but I’m afraid that I can’t grant your wish. Furthermore, I want more people to offer themselves for this drug testing.

Audience A: But… what if my father dies?

Lucien: All scientific progress is founded on sacrifices, that includes trial-and-error of bodily harms and deaths. All of which I think are necessary.

Audience A: So you’re expecting people to submit themselves to this testing that is potentially fatal?

More people began to voice their complaints. But Lucien faced them without even a blink. I suppose for him, this was a rational solution to the problem. I felt resentment rising slowly in my chest. 

I’d heard enough. I got up to leave, but someone grabbed my wrist.

Reporter C: Hey, aren’t you the producer of the Miracle Finder? Professor Lucien is a consultant in that show!

Reporter B: Does that mean that you were already aware of his human subject research?

Yōurán: I was just here for the report. Please focus on the conference.

I tried to get away. I sincerely regretted coming here. But I was surrounded by reporters. Questions flew at me from everywhere.

Reporter C: As a producer and his coworker, what’s your opinion about Professor Lucien’s thoughts?

Reporter D: Does Miracle Finder agree with Professor Lucien’s human experimentation?

I looked at Lucien, unsure what to answer. He was looking at me like he was seeing a very entertaining scuffle. The corner of his mouth was even twitching.

I felt anger boiling inside me. I was angry at him, and I was also angry at myself.

Yōurán: Apologies. But this is not something that I can answer. My relationship with Professor Lucien is purely for business, and Miracle Finder will find a new consultant. I ask that you focus on the conference at hand. Please excuse me.

After I was done talking and made to leave, I heard his familiar voice.

Lucien: Does Producer Yōurán(he’s referring to her very formally, almost like a stranger) not agree with the direction of this experiment?

My heart felt like bursting out. I didn’t think that I could face him. I pictured many times how we would meet each other again, but I hadn’t thought that we would meet like this.

Yōurán: No, I don’t.

Lucien: Then why are you trying to leave when the conference is not even over. If there is something you don’t agree, then say it.

His tone was nonchalant, but I could sense fury that the others couldn’t catch.

I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, then turned around and faced him. This was the first time that I saw him face to face since his reveal as Ares.

Yōurán: I want to ask Professor Lucien a question. Earlier you mentioned that sacrifices are necessary. Specifically what kind of sacrifices are needed?

A smile crossed his eyes. He was silent for a moment, then slowly opened his lips.

Lucien: Death, in the sense of physiological meaning.

Yōurán: So you’re saying that it’s normal to demand people to sacrifice their lives for the advancement of society?

Lucien: Yes. I agree wholly to that statement.

The reporters were shooting their films at us enthusiastically. Apparently, the war of words between us was more interesting than the remedy for the flu.

Lucien: This reminds me of the famous trolley problem. No matter what you choose, you face an ethical dilemma. But the truth is, many people fall behind as society progresses, in the form of death or others. It is the law of the universe that the weak ones fall back and the strong ones survive and reproduce. That is the only way that the human race survives continuously.

He enunciated each world clearly as he met my eye. I felt utterly foolish. What was I thinking, that I could change his views which he held onto no matter what?

Yōurán: In your eyes, is human life so insignificant?

He took a step towards me. It seemed that his eyes held some kind of enmity.

Lucien: Then, what is not insignificant in this world?

I gathered up my courage and stood up straighter and said:

Yōurán: All life forms have a right to be respected. Every one of us are doing their best to survive. You may think that’s nothing, but look at the patients in the hospital. They may be comatose, but their consciousness are fighting to stay alive. The children in the orphanages, beggars in streets, they are trying their best to live on. Their will to keep on living is their right. You have no right to deprive people of this.

Silence could be heard. Lucien looked down at me with inquiry and arrogance.

Lucien: Well said. But you are only voicing the minority. Ever since prehistoric times, the human race have slaughtered and sacrificed the weak. Some of those deaths contributed nothing to the society. “Equality” is not the principle of society. Humans have competed with each other to stay in the higher place of hierarchy for survival. If it’s for progress, we don’t even need consent for such sacrifices.

I thought of that day before when he said the same things coldly like this. That it was all for the better future. Is this really the future he wanted?

I asked him something that I wanted to ask for a long time.

Yōurán: What if… you had to sacrifice yourself? Would you still do it?

He nodded without hesitation, it even seemed like he was smiling.

Lucien: Yes. For the advancement of society as a whole, I will gladly make that sacrifice.

Yōurán: What if you had to sacrifice someone precious to you?

Without thinking, that question came out from my lips. I stared at him. I didn’t know what I was hoping for. I knew the answer already.

He kept staring at me without answering. The subtle movement of the corner of his lips seemed to mock my asinine question. Time passed. He still didn’t answer.

What was I doing here? I knew what his answer would be anyway.

There was a time when I thought, if I ever met him again, I would argue with him and voice all my opinions. But I now realized how futile that was. What was the point? He was not the Lucien that I used to know anymore.

Yōurán: I wish you all luck in your research, Professor. However, I cannot agree with your values. Ever. To me, there are more important things than survival.

I closed my eyes to hide my hurt and disappointment, and turned around and walked away. I could hear the shutters of the cameras. Next day there will be numerous headlines about our verbal match, but I didn’t want to care anything about that now.

16-11

I sat down on the bench trying to calm my wildly beating heart. I looked back at the direction of the conference room, and I realized once again that Lucien and I were on opposing sides.

Yōurán: And you already know that. Why are you still concerned…? Let’s just go home…

I gathered my things and realized that I left my pen behind.

Yōurán: Well.. the owner of the pen is still there… if the staff pick it up they will give it to him…

I tried to convince myself to leave with this logic.

Ten minutes later I put my head inside the conference room.

Yōurán: I guess everyone’s gone now…

After I checked that no one was there, I walked hesitantly in. Soon I found the pen on the floor and picked it up.

Yōurán: Found it!

???: What are you doing there?

I startled and hit my head on the podium. It really hurt and I had to drop the pen to grasp my head. Then pen rolled and stopped at the front of black shoes. Long slender fingers picked it up.

Lucien: You came back for this?

His eyes looking down at me held mischief. I gathered myself before approaching him.

Yōurán: Yes. Is something the matter?

He handed the pen out to me.

Lucien: Don’t ever lose it again.

His voice reminded me of that warm late spring day from such a long time ago, but my heart grew colder and colder. I knew shouldn’t have come back here.

I didn’t take the pen from his hand and retraced my steps.

Yōurán: I don’t need it anymore. Besides, it wasn’t mine from the start. The pen should go back to its owner now.

There was no change in his facial expression, but his eyes narrowed slightly. He took the pen in his pocket.

Lucien: You owe me something else besides the pen.

Yōurán: …what?

Lucien approached me and blocked my way.

Lucien: Today I found out that I was resigned from Miracle Finder without notice. Is it too much to demand an explanation?

Yōurán: I’m sure such things don’t matter to you anymore, Professor.

Lucien: It matters for my reputation.

His tone was light, like he was playing with me. The audacity of him!

Yōurán: This is not fair!

Lucien: I thought you already knew that about me.

He’d already stepped closer to me. I felt pressured.

Lucien: All I want to know is why.

Yōurán: You don’t have to waste your valuable time honoring my humble show with your overbearing presence. (She is sarcastically talking to him as if he’s some royalty. That since he’s so high and mighty he shouldn’t concern himself with the likes of her.)

Lucien: What if I want to continue to be on your show?

Anger raged inside me again. I closed my eyes to contain my emotions and said quickly.

Yōurán: You lost your right because you have different values. My show, Miracle Finder, is about intrinsic values of justice and philanthropy.

Why was he not saying anything? When I opened my eyes he had let me go and was walking away from me.

Lucien: Good thinking. I understand.

Yōurán: Wait! I have something I want to ask you. The recent flu outbreak, did you have anything do to with it?

Please, please tell me that you had nothing to do with it.

Lucien: Yes.

I felt something sinking at my chest.

Yōurán: Y, yes, I see…

Lucien: It seems that you’re disappointed in me. What were you planning to do if you confirmed your suspicions?

He was emitting out a dangerous atmosphere. I stepped away from him until I reached the end of the stage.

Lucien: Did your concept of what is right and just, give you what you wanted? Is this what you think is more important than survival? I want to ask you, will you sacrifice someone precious to you to hold on to your beliefs?

My back reached the cold hard wall. Lucien had already put his hand on the wall beside my face.

Lucien: I see you’re hesitating. Should I take that as a yes?

Before I could answer, a bright light blinded my eyes. In an instant a strong force pulled me forward and I was in his arms. Next moment, a ray of golden beam struck the place where I’ve just been. He hugged me tighter into his chest, his hands shielding my head.

He looked out the window. His eyes held a murderous stare. Was I mistaken when I thought I saw in his eyes fear that he would lose something precious to him…? But that look vanished quickly, as if I had imagined it.

I tried to get away from his arms, but he held on tight.

Yōurán: Lucien…

Lucien: Don’t talk…

It felt like things between us had gone back to the way they were before. When he was still Lucien. Like then, he was protecting me from danger. I felt warm in my heart.

I stepped back and saw a hole that was paved on the wall.

Yōurán: Are you okay? Thanks for saving me…

Lucien: It was only for your safety, nothing more.

Yōurán: You saved me… because you need me alive in your plan?

Lucien: Of course, I never engage in useless actions.

I knew it. Back then, the Black Swan goons said they needed me alive for their scheme. So all this time he must have protected me for the same reasons…

I felt tired. I just wanted to get away from here.

Lucien: You still haven’t answered my question.

I looked at his eyes but couldn’t fathom anything about him. Maybe this was for the best. I laughed dejectedly and looked into his eyes.

Yōurán: I didn’t. And I won’t.

My eyes were getting teary but I kept them wide open.

Yōurán: Even if I were smart enough to know all the secrets and knowledge with my precognition, even if I were powerful enough to move all mountains, without love, those are meaningless to me.

Yōurán: The truth of this world is cruel and painful. But even when the light is gone from people’s lives, I will hold on to my own light. No matter how impossible it is, no matter how dark everything else is, no matter how foolish I may be. I won’t give up.

Yōurán: Someone who used to be very precious to me taught me that. I will never give up.

As I turned around I let the tears flow freely. I will never shed tears in front of him again.

-------------------------------------------

Okay, I had to stop here because this was being too long.

I had so much fun translating Lucien and MC in the press conference. What I love about their dynamics is that Lucien and MC both hold on firmly to their beliefs but they still care for each other deep down.

Lucien as an extreme Darwinist won’t bat an eyelash as he sacrifices many “weak” people for the “strong” people to survive, but when asked about whether he would sacrifice MC, he refuses to answer.

MC will continue to defy Lucien and fight against him but when asked whether she would “sacrifice” him, she refuses to answer.

They are fighting each other ferociously and they are both determined to defeat the other, but none of their swords will land a fatal blow to each other.

Who will win in this battle? Well the answer is obvious :)

I’ll come up with part 2 when I feel like it.

[its-rockin-pete]

Thank You for Your Candor

Notes and Description

I feel like Peter didn't really have much of a history or backstory, so I decided to play around and make one up. I know that in the books, his father dies a different way, but I figured that since pretty much nothing I was writing was canon, I was allowed to change things up. I also didn't know his parent's names, I made them up. Anyway, I'd love feedback and thoughts! 

There are four chapters, so i’m gonna post the first two today and the other two tomorrow!

(Please keep in mind that I haven't gotten around to reading the books yet, I simply did my research online as well as based things off of the movies, so if I got any details wrong, I apologize! I think I did a pretty good job, but hey, I could be wrong.)

Chapter 1

Transfer

“You can’t stay here. I don’t care what your result was, you cannot stay here.”

Even though I knew what my mother had just said was true, I mean, how could I not be upset?

“Are you kidding? No, you know what, you’re right. I can’t stay here. Not with you constantly breathing down my back and bitching at me for no reason.”

I could really tell that I had just struck a nerve.

“Do you need to leave right now?”

I immediately got quiet. The fact that my mom seemingly wouldn’t care if I left the day before the ceremony hurt like a bitch.

“Peter Hayes, I don’t know what the hell happened, but the older you got, I began to realize that I raised a selfish, narcissistic, liar. A liar. You don’t belong here. I mean- You’re constantly getting into random fights, and you talk to me like I didn’t birth you and spend sixteen years of my life raising you. You got everything you ever wanted and needed growing up. I spoiled you and I tried my best to be a good mother, but according to you, I’ve failed.”

She’s never said things like this before- hearing her tell me how she honestly felt about me almost made me feel sick. I really didn’t know what to say. I wanted to apologize, but something inside of me made it impossible.

“Fine. Well, you’ll be happy to know that you won’t have to see my face again after tomorrow. Thanks for your honesty.”

I threw my jacket onto a kitchen chair and walked out of my own house like I was an unwelcome stranger. As I was on my way out, I heard my mom trying to apologize, but I quite frankly didn’t wanna hear it. There was no taking back what she said.

I hate to admit that she was right.

I wasn’t sure where I was going, but at the same time, I didn’t care. Nobody else cared, so why the hell should I? After about fifteen minutes of aimlessly walking around town though, I finally decided on a location. Headquarters.

Chapter 2

Big Small Talk

The doors were locked as expected, so I pulled out my pocket knife and got to work. It felt wrong, but it's not like I was planning on stealing anything. Unless of course, I changed my mind when I got inside. There's not much to steal anyway, just some files that nobody really cares about, books, and yeah, there are weapons stored on a few floors, but pretty much every faction has guns. Imagine all the cool shit you could steal from Erudite headquarters though- they're loaded with all sorts of serums and technology. Erudite has always been seen as a pretty shady faction though; but I mean, all the more reason to consider transferring, right?  Might as well get some excitement out of life. I can't fucking stand Abnegation, so there would be no way in hell I’d step foot there, and Amity definitely isn't for me. All that love and happiness bullshi-

“Come on, damn it!”

As I was thinking, I was doing a horrible job at maneuvering my pocket knife between the latch of the two doors due to my lack of focus.

"Need some help?"

I quickly pulled my knife from between the two doors and turned around to see who my witness was. 

It was Molly.

"What are you doing out here?"

She pulled out her ID card and swiped it in front of the scanner. "I was out on my porch smoking a cigarette and saw you headed this way." She pulled the door open and held it for me- "So I follow you. You're always up to no good…" she shook her head and playfully smirked, “Why are you here?”

She followed me inside as I began to look around, observing little details that I might not have before, like the way the light reflected off of the marble floors, or how high the ceilings actually were. Stupid stuff like that.

“I dunno. ‘Figured it couldn’t hurt to say goodbye.”

“You’re leaving?” She sounded surprised for some reason.

“You’re not?”

She followed me as I continued to look around, picking up a book and skimming a few pages.

“Of course I’m leaving… My folks gave me some long speech about how I should follow who I really am, which is so unlike them, but I guess parents just know when it comes to these things…”

I put the book back and continued walking- “I guess so.”

“How’s your mom handling all of this?”

“Really well actually.”

She looked at me and raised her eyebrows, pausing before speaking again. She was probably trying to figure out if I was bullshitting or not.

“Really? I would’ve thought that she’d be losing her ever-loving mind begging you to transfer.”

I smirked and tilted my head to look at her, “Me too. She really hasn’t even said much about the ceremony. She didn’t even ask about my aptitude test. All she said was that she wanted me to be happy.”

Lying as always. I feel like I was just trying to convince myself that that's what really happened.

“Huh… Sounds sus to me… You sure she’s not hiding anything from you?”

I paused having no idea where a thought like that would even come from. “...Like what?”

“I don’t know… Maybe she wants you to leave so you don’t dig up any dirt on her. Maybe she’s purposely giving you some slack to make you wanna transfer.”

I became suspicious of her little theory; it was a bit too specific for my liking.

“What are you talking about?”

She hesitated for a minute before saying anything else. The silence of the room made things even more tense.

“Don’t you think your father’s death seemed a little- strange? Nobody just ‘goes missing’ and turns up dead like that...”

I immediately turned to look at her head-on. “What?”

“N-nothing… Nevermind, I was just thinking-”

“Thinking what, that my mother is responsible for my father’s death? Are you kidding me? My mother is a lot of things, but she’s not a murderer.”

She looked at me with that stupid “I know you’re pissed, but I’m not backing down” face, but stayed silent.

“You know what? That's your problem, Molly, you're always sticking your nose into other people’s business. I don’t understand why it's so hard for you to just worry about your own problems and keep your stupid mouth shut.”

She gawked at me and scoffed- “You’re one to talk, you just never know when to stop! It’s not my fault that everyone but you knows that your crazy mom took a knife to your daddy’s chest.”

I instantly lost control of my temper and lunged at her, gripping the collar of her jacket in my fists and slamming her against a pillar.

“Say it again, I fucking dare you.”

She stared back at me showing no signs of fear- it honestly only pissed me off more.

“Can’t handle the truth, Hayes? You’re Candor-born, it should be in your blood, you fucking coward.” She elbowed me in the chest and I let go of her. I didn’t know what to think at this point. I didn’t know what to do. I just stared at the ground and listened to her footsteps against the marble floor as they became more distant.

“See you tomorrow, Big Man. Choose wisely.”

I watched her leave and not even bother to look back. She brought up my dad, called me a coward, and my mother a murderer, and didn’t even glance at me as she left. What a friend… I can't believe I used to have feelings for that.

I looked around and really started to think about what had just happened. What if Molly was right? I never really did get a true explanation for my father’s death. I was only eight when he died and I was simply told that he went missing, but when I got older, my mother explained to me that they found his body far outside of Candor territory. She called it a suicide.

My father, although he was mostly distant and cold, never seemed like the type of man who would just off himself like that. He was a powerful, brave, courageous, and loud personality. He was actually one of the big names in our faction. He kind of held things together alongside Jack- although, Jack had much more power than my father.

I stood there and continued to think, and suddenly I got an idea. A horrible, brilliant idea.

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide letter 2018

AO3: laughingpineapple

Hello dear author, I’m glad we share one of these wonderful little fandoms and I hope you’ll have fun writing for it. The sections aren’t all of equal length for one reason or another but I love them all so much, from the classics I’ve been requesting since I started doing Yuletide (can’t have enough of those!) to this year’s shiny new findings. I tried to leave both specific and non-specific prompts for each canon and, again, I wanna see the farfetched postcanon scenario just as much as the vague one-word prompt and my general likes. Pick whatever works for you, or mix and match!

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (doubly so if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots , outsider POV, UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, cuddling, wintry moods, flannel, ridiculous concepts played straight, creating a dynamic between characters who never spoke in canon, sensory details, sickfic

Cool with: what-ifs, AUs, any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, gen, shippy, IF, nerdy canon references, unrequested characters popping up

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, unrequested ships, canon retellings, consent issues

Ghost Trick: Cabanela, Jowd

General: platonic or romantic, loyalty kink here we go, in any shape and form. Night time and secrets. Out of town. Knitwear. Twenty years from now. Size difference. UST. Cabanela’s scarf being in the way sometimes. Cabanela’s legs being in the way sometimes. I have Final Fantasy on my mind a lot recently so any FFIV, VI, VII, T, IX, X, XII or XIII reimagining would be fantastic (Monk Jowd, dancer/red mage Cabanela...?), or indeed The Last Remnant, but also regular fantasy, space opera, sci-fantasy… anything fancy!

Canon-specific dislikes: Sissel not being Jowd’s cat in the new timeline (which ofc doesn’t shut out Yomiel’s unbreakable bond with his cat – as the saying goes, Sissel has four paws...), infidelity

Cabanela&Jowd or Cabanela/Jowd: I love Cabanela being fierce and dazzling bright and determined and loyal to the very end, dancing to his own rhythm, so sure of himself and of his ideas that he doesn’t even need to prove to anyone that he’s right. Too sure of the wrong idea, once, and everything crashed and burned. And I love Jowd being the immovable object to Cabanela’s unstoppable force, a self-depreciating asshole with a penchant for gallows humor that grows more morbid by the hour, and also incredibly smart (both jerks figured out Sissel’s powers better than Sissel did) and athletic and with an unsuspected talent for stealth.

I ship them dearly, as part of a triad (or Jowd-centered V...? Has it been explored?) with Alma with all the fun possibilities of the third party sneaking into the marriage and negotiating that relationship. Or adjusting to a life together with Kamila in a no-reset scenario or a what-if in which Alma was never around (please no breakups or noncanon deaths if you don't want her around).  But I also want to read all the best friends fic with the corniest, most intense found family dynamics you can muster!

Alternate scenario where it’s Cabanela who keeps his memories, not Jowd: how does that change their dynamic in the new timeline? Or what if Cabanela stays dead in ch15 like he wished he could, joins the rest of the gang as a ghost and goes back 10 years with the others and so both of them keep their memories? (with my apologies to Yomiel, whose ch16-17 redemption has just been made a lot harder by the added stowaway)

Jowd knowing how much Cabs did for him and remembering him broken and bloodied is A Lot. especially if he’s a lil into it (and mr spotless is. not really on the same page.)

Casefic! With ghosts! There could be a new ghost created by Temsik’s shards or even by some unfortunate soul dying on top of the buried meteorite. Or with their own ghost, teaming up with Sissel! There’s so much potential for tense, death-defying situations! (with make-outs afterwards, if that’s your thing)

Deathfic, until it’s reverted. Jowd dying in Cabanela’s arms or the other way round, but one of them knows about Sissel and the other does not…

Jowd’s loyalty to Cabanela being tested for once, as a change of pace.

More detailed prompts for a few FF fusion AUs: FFX, Summoner Jowd and reluctant Guardian Cabanela. Any moment of their pilgrimage could be fun (and/or tragic and/or intense), or if you like a more detailed prompt, would Yunalesca’s truths be the tipping point of Jowd’s conviction? Would Cabanela manage to drag himself and his Summoner to safety before she killed them? What would life look for them afterwards as survivors bearing forbidden truths, would they stay away from Yevon? FFTA or XII, viera Cabanela and nu mou or bangaa Jowd. I’m sure there’s a poignant plot about magic-endowing extraterrestrial rocks and political backstabbing somewhere at the intersection of Ivalice and GT. If you can see it, I’m here to read it. But I’ll be honest here, the real point here is bunny Cabs. Please consider bunny Cabs. (viera, nu mou, bangaa visual refs for non-FFTA players who might wanna do a regular fantasy AU instead?) FFVI, Cabanela faked defecting to the Empire and is a magitek-infused officer while Jowd has Blitz and... Sketch somehow? And they meet again in the World of Ruin and things are very emotional?

The Last Remnant: Any (Pagus, Maddox, Sibal, David)

General: characterization based on battle quotes, red bubble dialogues, and even their unique stat (‘authority’ is a natural fit for David but ‘romance’ tells me something new about Sibal!) Character interaction. Bit of worldbuilding. What’s another festival they celebrate? Do they erect something else instead of the Valeria Heart? Any fun discoveries down in Siebenbur? Where the hell IS Veyriel, anyway, do they go look for it and if so what do they find out? End of an age. Old bonds.

Canon-specific dislikes: strong narrative emphasis on game mechanics. Stuff like mentioning that a character leads a unit is fine, but for example listing the materials they need for their weapon upgrade would take me out of the story.

The Qsiti bunch: just give me the deets on Qsiti worlduilding and I’ll be a happy camper. I ship these three very much but I’m also invested in their friendship and in each of them as a singular character. The fact that Pagus is a goddamn catch is one of my favorite things, and he can be a smart cookie with any of the other smart cookies in the party, or be a history buff with Glenys, or tutor Yuniver. Proud, paranoid chatterbox Maddox entrenched in his cover-up stories, finding it hard to stop being a spy and relax, maybe spending time with someone very simple, like Sheryl, or a very different kind of fellow veteran like Roberto. Self-assured Sibal who probably knows a lot about the mysteries of the underground world and is also the most romantic soul out of the entire cast, talking volcanoes with Paris or discussing the Rainbow Bond with Haruko? If you also like all three of them, either as old friends or as a ship, who of them comes up with what excuse to reconnect again now that Remnants are no more, or do they drop all pretenses and admit they just want to make up for lost time? And what do Qsiti cuddles look like?

David: Post-canon, adjusting to a life without remnants - how did it feel to be bound to one or two of them anyway, and what’s it like without, and suddenly knowing you’ll be the first Nassau in who knows how long who’ll reach old age? - and without Rush. Finding support and friendship even outside his trusted Generals. I’d be interested in seeing him get closer to any unique leader you might like, I can easily see half the characters absolutely adoring him sooner or later. From the Duke of Ghor to Roberto, to sweet Zolean who knows what it’s like to lose someone dear and hope he comes back, or Rhagoh & Remnant Kate, or Paris or Jager or, eventually, even Allan… David/Rush prompts: focus on Rush’s supernatural nature, how he was a strange boy with a good heart (Things Unchangeable meant so much to me!) who ignored human social conventions because he was not in fact human. Reunion fic more than a decade into the future, showing how David has changed and with emphasis on Rush’s Remnant nature.

David & Qsiti: basically a mix of the other prompts. David is close to all his Generals but what’s his dynamic with Pagus specifically? Is he a mentor, a friend, did Pagus stop David once when he was about to do something very stupid? And what can David learn about his dear General from people who have known him since long before David was born?

Myst: Yeesha, Jeff Zandi

General: The oddest of friendships. Road trip. Desert sunrise. Desert bird shenanigans, be it with actual roadrunners speeding by or cartoon ones. Descent. An oddly shaped rock. Strangers. Shooting stars. Any line from Words.

Canon-specific dislikes: please no Yeesha bashing?

Yeesha & Jeff: He’s definitely Team Yeesha and she could definitely do with a friend, the year is 2018 and I still want fic about this unlikely duo.

How much can he really say he gets her? When did they meet? Was it when a younger Jeff was exploring D’ni with his father Elias, did that create a rift between the two?

What do they do when they hang out? Has he played the Myst games – heck, has she? Does he play Magic the Gathering like his RL counterpart?

Do they set out on a road trip because she needs to chill for a hot minute and experience for herself that whole ‘you shall seek the journey’ thing? Late night driving and liminal places could be cool. Or does she link him somewhere cool with no travel time needed?

Do they agree to meet by his camp fire once a month or something like that, and one time Yeesha doesn’t show up? What happened?

Does he get to hang out with bahro thanks to her, in the depths of the Cavern where the DRC will never be able to reach, and what’s that encounter like for him (and for her, and for the bahro)?

Maybe some relaxing time can take place after End of Ages. He’d notice that something has changed, she’s somewhat less of a depressed wreck that she used to be...

Speaking of End of Ages, was Jeff chosen by the Tablet? If so, how did he fail his quest? I appreciate Esher a lot so if you go for an EoA plot feel free to use him too.

Anything based on Uru history is great!

The Secret History of Twin Peaks: Tammy Preston

General: Character dossiers that involve Tammy more directly. TSHOTP themes being used front and center. Owls, figurative and otherwise. Tammy Fashion™. Tammy Freeform Infodump™. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. AUs and fusion AUs are great for this fandom! I have Final Fantasy on my mind a lot recently so any FFVI, VII, T, IX, X, XII or XIII reimagining would be fantastic (what would Tammy even be... scholar, fencer, mystic knight...?), or indeed The Last Remnant, but also regular fantasy, space opera, sci-fantasy... anything fancy!

Canon-specific dislikes: Gordon being a harmless, fun dad or conversely having the worst intentions. Clear explanations for canonical ambiguities.

(my Twin Peaks canon-specific likes and dislikes in the next section may also apply)

Tammy: what I find fascinating about Tammy’s positioning in the narrative of the books (and of the show, but not as markedly) is that there is this whole narrative of trauma, and the circularity of trauma, even within Blue Rose and the organizations that came before it, and she stands at the end of it and learns about it all without being directly involved. She can learn from it in a sheltered position. Maybe when her turn will come, she’ll know a little better. Her name’s anagram is Praemonstrata, “Having been guided”. She’s the new Archivist, in a way. She’s the future of Blue Rose, last woman standing as soon as Albert and Gordon retire and/or vanish (and after the show’s finale, I can’t see either of them lasting long). What does it all mean, in the context of the book’s overarching theme of secrets VS mysteries and the cost of knowledge (and the show’s connections between trauma and the fragmentation of the self, and TFD’s doubling down on the general concept of shoveling oneself out of the shit, and her moving final considerations)?

What could be a test for her, something that would involve her personally and make her risk losing her way? What makes her tick - would she cross to other worlds, how, and why?

I don’t know much about aliens, but I really enjoyed how the book wove it all into Twin Peaks lore. If you want to do the same with some other bit of UFO trivia and have Tammy draw her connections, I’m interested!

The books show that she’s not only Albert’s spiritual successor as the only other rationally-inclined soul in there, she also knows Albert personally to some extent, for example that he’s a jazz lover. Have they ever gone drinking in cool (LGBT…?) clubs with fancy live music? Are they jazz buddies or what kind of music is she into (and what does he have to say about her tastes)?

What other characters or pieces of TP history would she look into? What about that Diane dossier, for example? What about Lucy? (If you have her look into Diane, please be empathetic toward her and her tulpa)

Twin Peaks: Harry Truman, Lucy Moran, Chet Desmond, Garland Briggs

This one is an OR request – feel free to only write about some of these people and completely ignore the others. There were just too many good characters in the tagset and I couldn’t choose so, you know, to hell with matchability. The prompts are for the characters on their own or with some nominated canon mates but if you have an idea for Ruby&Lucy, Garland&Albert, Harry&Naido or any other odd combo, go for it!

General: the mystery of the woods, obviously. How do they relate to the woods, what do they gain and what do they lose in the woods. Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. Still any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt. When in doubt, add Margaret. AUs and fusion AUs are great for this fandom! I have Final Fantasy on my mind a lot recently so any FFVI, VII, T, IX, X, XII or XIII reimagining would be fantastic (paladin Harry, dancer Lucy, fighter Chet, sage Garland...?), or indeed The Last Remnant, but also regular fantasy, space opera, sci-fantasy... anything fancy!

Canon-specific Dislikes: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman's House by the Sea being the White Lodge, Naido being nothing more than Diane but since she was nominated as her own character I'm hopeful here

(my Secret History of Twin Peaks canon-specific likes and dislikes in the previous section may also apply)

Harry: Bookhouse Boy Harry both in the sense of avid reader Harry promoting literacy and vague bastion against the evil in the woods Harry. Harry getting a sword out of a pond in the woods like he was meant to but , like, in a way that’s less random kitsch and more meaningful magical realism. Harry and Frank as actual brothers but also Frank as a projection of Harry’s insecurities. Harry, Ed and Hawk as friends. Harry finding some sense of belonging somewhere, somehow.

Lucy: Kimmy Robertson said she would like to be the color blue in Lynch’s palette, if the prompt works for you. Lucy taking her time to understand and organize the world around her. Lucy with Andy (the one functional couple in all of canon, bless), with Wally, with Maggie Brown and the rest of the new sheriff’s station cast. Lucy with people who don’t usually appreciate her (both sheriffs and Albert come to mind) but have to come to terms with the fact that she’s amazing. I also like that Hawk is a first-class gossip, apparently, and so is Lucy, so if THAT prompts works for you… last but not least, she seems to have some sort of connection with the symbolic weave of reality (picking chairs when a very important chair is introduced, wondering about bunnies and Jack Rabbit palace will be relevant, Robertson said that Lynch said that Lucy perceives a lot and needs time to sort it all out) and I’d love to see it explored one way or another. If you wanna go wild with meta Invitation to Love shenanigans, Lucy could be a good POV character.

Chet: What’s his deal? Empirically, new canon draws a hell of a lot of connections between personal troubles and being jettisoned out of reality. So why did he? A friend recalls that he was named after Chet Baker and Norma Desmond, so that could be a starting point. I like to think that he manages to pull himself together at some point and make it back – how? Does he find any familiar faces beyond the curtains, like Phil? Finally, like all Blue Rose and Sheriff’s station characters, when all other prompts fail: office shenanigans. Please. Now that they’ve all been blatantly retconned as a merry gang who coexisted at some point, please give me Chet bouncing off literally any other named character in there.

Garland: He’s a good bean, almost naive compared to Doug Milford & co in TSHOTP, and I wish him the best wherever he is... the metaphysical adventures of Garland’s floating head could be a fic (maybe Bill Hastings and Ruth Davenport could tag along). Or back when he was alive, weird occurrences at Listening Post Alpha up on Blue Pine mountain. He wasn’t born in town, so what’s HIS relationship with the woods? Or an encounter with some of the federal cast, like Gordon and Phil or a very young Albert. I’m also intrigued by his s3 narrative but I have a very negative view of The Plan(tm) so I don’t really know what to make of it. If you also think that the Fireman’s hints only ended in tragedy and that Blue Rose’s search for Judy was a monumental act of hubris, and you have a good spin for Garland’s role in all of this, I’m listening! All I got is something like "he gave his last fuck... now he's free....." (not that Garland is legally allowed to say fuck, I mean)

Albert/Harry: my main headcanon is that they got together in the aftermath of Coop’s disappearance, holding onto each other in his absence not unlike James and Donna did with Laura. Then... did they last? Or was it a terrible moment to get together (...not unlike James and Donna) and they had to go their separate ways for a while before finding each other again? Does this sad time last up until the end of s3, when Albert can finally quit the castle of lies that was his job and stay with Harry? I am also, however, open to other timelines for these two. Emotional reunions are great and so is domestic fic with a dash of surrealism. What would Harry do for Albert? For example, when would he take his side in a heated dispute with someone else? What would Albert share about his past? What could they do in town? Or do they take a well-deserved vacation somewhere else? Do they team up for a small investigation? Old men taking care of each other is very much welcome, especially after Harry gets through the worst of his treatments.

Dale/Harry: Harry seeing his Coop again... somewhere, somehow. Maybe he perceives him in the woods, maybe Coop isn't all human now. Monster cuddles very welcome. Could be canon divergence but could very well be post-s3. Harry getting closure for waiting all that time in front of Glastonbury and never giving up on Coop... they can live in the woods together...

Harry&Lucy: what could make them spend some time together outside of work (is it donuts)? Does he ask for relationship advice since she and Andy are literally the only people in town who could make it work? Does she feel loyal to him and Frank or is it just a job to her? Does she go visit him after s3 and does he tell her that she was very brave? What about Wally - Harry is the boy’s godfather after all, I don’t usually read kidfic but I can make all sorts of exceptions for my beloved Wally (maybe when he’s more of a teen than a kid). Are they all fans of Marlon Brando?

Chet/Sam: reunion fic! Chet’s been AWOL for years, Sam has fallen through the cracks, how do they find each other again and why do they choose to remain off the grid? I would also like to read about them in the present day-ish, handwaving the return and reunion. Maybe they made a new life for themselves. If Sutherland were to play Sam again, Sam would be... notably more buff. What caused that change, was it traveling with Chet, what kind of person is he now? Could they be in Buenos Aires, investigating on their own whatever that shrinking box was?

Chet&Dale: In which ways are they both real boys and in which ways are they aspects of each other? How do they work together?

Chet/Albert: whatever passes for an uncomplicated office romance around those parts, where they both know very well that they’re not the other’s One True Love, but they have a good understanding - except when Albert’s pacifism clashes with Chet‘s readiness to throw down 24/7. But then again Albert is also ready to throw down 24/7, only with words instead of fists, so there’s fertile ground for conflict and unexpected agreements. Also they’re hot.

Garland&Harry: they’re both good dogs living in a cold and cruel world, with their own partial experiences of other worlds beyond this tangible reality, and I think they should be at least a little friends. Maybe Harry found himself at Garland’s observatory one day without even knowing how he’d gotten there, maybe they chatted at the RR. Then there’s Mfrost spitballing some connection which, given how Garland ‘died’ literally on the day after s2, can only be read as Harry passing his info to Garland when Garland was already beyond this world. I’d read that in a heartbeat.

[doomonfilm]

Thoughts : Coraline (2009)

When it comes to animated Halloween fare, I know the overwhelming majority lean towards The Nightmare Before Christmas, and believe me, I can understand why.  When it comes to me, however, I have a different film that I gravitate to when I need my scary animated fix, and that film is Coraline. 

Coraline (Dakota Fanning), along with her Mother (Teri Hatcher) and Father (John Hodgman), are settling into the Pink Palace Apartments, their new home in Oregon after relocating from Michigan.  Coraline is fascinated by her new strange surroundings, as both the house and her neighbors seem full of intrigue, including Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane), Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders), Miss Forcible (Dawn French), and the young and odd Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), who gifts Coraline with a button-eyed doll that looks strangely similar to her.  Things get stranger when Coraline discovers a secret door in her home that leads her to the Other World, where she encounters Other versions of her parents that she is strangely attracted to despite their button eyes and underlying scariness.  As Coraline repeatedly explores the Other World, occurrences get stranger and stranger, and her neighbors begin to warn her that her actions may put her and everyone else in danger.  Despite the warnings, Coraline continues to explore, eventually leading her square into the middle of a battle for control of both worlds between the Others and the real world.

Coraline is like a psychological thriller made specifically for children to be able to relate to.  The scariness lies partially in visual scares, but the overwhelming fear comes from the mystery of the situation, and an inability to explain it even though you can understand it.  Coraline’s frustrations with her family and the lack of attention they show her manifested into the creation of the Other World, where everything is centered around her to a dangerous degree, making the movie an illustration of the old adage ‘be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it’.  The fact that the movie is based on a Neil Gaiman novel goes a long way towards explaining how the film is able to work on those two seemingly divergent levels.

The way that the story finds fresh ground to illustrate the literal feeling of fear one faces moving into a new, scary place is what locks us in immediately.  The strange location, the oddness of the Pink Palace apartments, and the strange characters that inhabit it are equally compelling and repulsive, which is what keeps Coraline (and us as viewers) hooked.  As we, like Coraline, journey forward with hopes to understand these unfamiliar surroundings, we go from a sense of something mysterious and magical being present to a real fear that a trap has seemingly been sprung.  The discoveries uncovered are much bigger than anticipated... so big, in fact, that they provide a genuine opportunity for heroism.

Lots of symbollic shorthand is used to convey the disturbing concepts connected to the antagonists in the film.  The concept of Other World, Other forms of those you know, and the button/covered eyes all have roots in deeply spiritual cultures and societies.  False realities and mirror dimensions have long been associated with the metaphysical, the mystical and science beyond the comprehension of laymen.  Even the Beldam has roots in folklore, with the old lady that may or may not be a witch being one of the longest-running tropes there is when it comes to spooky-related material.

The meticulous, breathtaking stop-motion animation is the true star of this show.  The eye for extreme detail is ever-present in regards to all aspects : the environment the story resides in (for both worlds, inside and outside), the movement of the human characters, the movement of the animals in the film, and elsewhere.  Certain characters, specifically the original residents of the Pink Palace, all have very distinct and exaggerated movements that, despite their grand nature, still feel natural.  Certain sequences stand out as centerpieces, like the creation of the portal that connects the worlds, the Other garden, Bobinsky’s Mouse Circus, and the Spink & Forcible performances.  If I remember correctly, the making of material stated two facts that I found incredibly interesting : the film was given a traditional (albeit miniaturized) wardrobe department, meaning all costuming was made as standard clothes, and not just amendments to the dolls; and, the entire film was shot once specifically for a screen test prior to the actual production taking place, meaning they did an entire stop-motion film essentially for practice, but ultimately to fine-tune the movements and details.

Dakota Fanning’s voice acting provides us with enough sass, curiosity and youthful determination to make Coraline an unforgettable character in the canon of stop-motion animation characters.  Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman both bring the adult/parental tone of being too busy to fully focus on their kid, but Hatcher provides a sharpness where Hodgman opts for a more deflated feel... both flip these aspects on their head for their Other-counterparts.  Robert Bailey Jr. incorporates just enough shyness and worry into his performance to make Wybie eccentric and emotional in equal measure.  Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French use an ironic formality to counterpart both their appearance and their slapstick-style interactions.  Ian McShane goes broad and over the top for the larger than life Bobinski.  Keith David is obviously channeling all of the fun he is having in the production into his limited performance opportunities voicing The Cat.  Brief vocal appearances by Caroline Crawford, Aanhka Neal, George Selick, Hannah Kaiser, Marina Budovsky and Harry Selick round out the cast.

Many, many people have told me that I need to see ParaNorman due to my love of Coraline, and one of these days I’m sure I will.  Having seen Coraline originally on a big-screen (and in 3-d, no less, which worked quite well), it’s hard to imagine another film taking the place of this one, no matter how good it may be.

[thisweekingundamwing]

TWIGW March 18-24th

Happy Spring, amazing fandom!

Check out all the cool stuff we have for you this week below, and remember to show the creators some love!

Thanks for all you do!

-Mod CB

Fanfiction:

A Little Piece of Gundam Wing

The archive is being ported to AO3! Check it out!

Amberly with @yourbloodlikewine

In This Light

Duo spent the last semester working in his older brother's coffee shop. He's resigned himself to a boring spring when a stranger appears, shaking up his entire life. Eli left home last fall, choosing to spend the last six months living out of his van on his travels from the Midwest to the East Coast. By the time he arrives at Ink's, the novelty of traveling alone has started to wear off. Still, the last thing he's expecting is to meet someone who's going to change all that for him

Pairings: 2xOMC, 3xOMC, Solo x OMC,

Warnings:  Rape/Noncon, Original Characters - Freeform, Alternate Universe, child abuse mention, Sexual Assault Mention, homophobic parents, Re-Written Characters, Drug Use, Violence, off screen murder, gratuitous author indulgence

@anaranesindanarie

The Shinigami and The Silencer

They say a person only needs three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.  I had all three, despite my rough start in life. I had a lover, a hobby that I loved, and I had a hope… hope that my lover would get better, that we would be together forever. But he didn’t. He died in a hospital bed, cold and alone as I watched through a window, my body covered in chains. I wasn’t even allowed to bury him as the prison sent his body off to be cremated. My heart broke that night and the next day, on the way to my execution, I killed five of my guards before the others opened fire. I was dead before I hit the floor, my blood staining it. Why was I being executed you ask? Let me tell you the story of The Shinigami and The Silencer.

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Major Character Death, death, angst

@claraxbarton

Singularity

Dr. Trowa Barton has a problem - he's this close to figuring out the secret to manufacturing a nanocarbon black pigment that could compete with Vantablack.  But he's also hit a dead end, and he's tired and maybe a night of drinking beer and painting Beagles is exactly what he needs to get his research back on track.

Pairings: 2x3, 3x5, 2x3x5

Warnings: Art, Science, Chemistry, singularity - Freeform, AU, ex-lovers now friends, Threesome, Threesome - M/M/M, drunken sexy times, sober sexy times, weird art, i mean. maybe it's not weird. to each their own, nanocarbon black, paint pigments, what are these tags, Quatre is a good wingman

Silver Strand

Summary: The world had shifted, boundaries had been crossed, right and wrong had long ago been abandoned. A dark story of revenge, love, loss and drug smuggling. AU set in Coronado, California in the 1970s. Based on/Inspired by Joshuah Bearman’s “Coronado High”

Multiple pairings including but not limited to: 1x2, 2x5, 2x3, 2x3x5, 13x2, RxH, 9xS, 6x4

Warnings: Angst, drug use, Vietnam-era politics

@claraxbarton , @kangofu-cb

Bad Company

"The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown Years after the wars, Preventers has decided to tackle one of the most powerful and oldest of all the Terran crime syndicates. Embedded dangerously deep in an undercover operation targeting the violent and bloodthirsty Sinaloa Cartel, Trowa Barton is pushed beyond even his flexible morals - and when his new "partner" arrives in the very unexpected and unwelcome form of Duo Maxwell, the one person he'd been trying to protect at all costs, both men must deal with the realization that preserving peace for humanity is turning into a bloodsport.What follows is race against time to uncover the evidence they need to bring Sinaloa, and its beautiful but deadly leaders, down - all while keeping each other alive in the process

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence, Canon Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Moral Dilemmas

Foopy, kirallie

Knights of Avalon

Multi-series crossover fic

The Galaxy is a weird, wonderful and dangerous place. There is far more to history than anyone remembers.

Warnings: Very AU, Stargate pushed up to movie in '04, sentient weapons, many dates have been played with to fit

@kangofu-cb

If You Let Me

If Trowa could give the new residents one rule for surviving the ICU, it would be ‘Don’t Touch Anything. (Especially The Patients.)’.  In reality, he’d actually give them a lot of rules, possibly with diagrams for clarity.  But his main rule essentially covered the bases. When you worked in one of the largest ICUs, in the biggest medical center in the country, at a hospital known for taking on unstable patients for the most complex and risky surgeries that were performed no-where else, new residents were a menace. Until he meets Dr. Maxwell, the newest anesthesia resident.

Pairings: 2x3, background HxD

Warnings: Alternate Universe - Medical, Doctor/Patient, Nurses & Nursing, Fluff and Smut, this is literally my feel good thing guys ok, I mean I'm not saying there won't be any angst, but basically this is all WAFF, Explicit Sexual Content

@ladyjstruth-blog

Friend Zone

Duo and Hilde's wedding is fast approaching but after a heartwrenching breakup, how will Trowa and Quatre get through the weekend?

Pairings: 3x4, 2xH, 1xR

Warnings: Drama and Romance, Post-Canon

LadyLilyAnne, Melfice13

The Trials & Tribulations of a High Society Shinigami

Duo was a very caring woman, an open book so to speak, always there to help those that needed it with a smile on hand. The problem was she was surrounded by insane men who needed to be watched over like kids and her fellow women left her to it. Resigning herself to being the team mom Duo did her best, but she hadn't planned on Heero admitting he loved her. Things are weird now...

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4

Warnings:  Fem Duo, oblivious characters, Developing Relationship, Obssessed Relena, Obssessed Zechs, The Pink Thing, Explosions, Non-Graphic Violence, Duo and Trieze Have a Weird Friendship, Non-Chronological, Related Drabbles, gratuitous cursing

LavenderKisses

Stay

Duo watches Heero leave his bed every time the phone rings. All he wishes is that, for once, he would stay.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR

Warnings: Angst, Songfic

Lil_1337

2018 Comment Fic_Feburary

Drabbles and short fics written for the Live Journal community Comment Fics which can be found here: http://comment-fic.livejournal.com

Multiple fandoms/pairings, please see chapter specific warnings

Lthanz

Life is War

Multi-series crossover fic

Sequel to 'Life is Fringe'. Five years later, Max, Chloe, and Kevin have settled into their new lives. However, they soon find themselves caught up in a power-struggle between two powerful men competing to control the fate of the world. Loyalties will be tested but a greater threat looms in the darkness, ready to strike.

Characters: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Kate Marsh/Original Character(s), Maxine "Max" Caulfield, Chloe Price (Life Is Strange), Kate Marsh, Olivia Dunham, Treize Khushrenada, Natasi Daala, Lucrezia Noin, Lady Une

Warnings: Science Fiction & Fantasy, War, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Crossover, Multiple Crossovers, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, pricefield

Luvsanime02

The Taste of Peaches

A @gwcocktailfriday submission

Relena's had a long day, and so she stops off somewhere for a drink or two.

Pairings: none

Warnings: AU- modern setting, introspection

Maldoror

The Source of All Things

Center, a planet where magic and technology blend. Or more accurately, fight tooth and nail. A planet of Sources, holes in our boring dimension letting through arcane power, chaos and pseudo-deities. In this hot-house of myths and very real dangers, Trowa and Quatre find a mysterious man at the end of a shamanic voyage. Portents suggest this Heero Yuy is crucial to Center’s survival. He’s important enough to have some interesting enemies after him, at any rate: a devious killer and thief called ‘Shinigami’, and a very irate Dragon. Beyond them looms an even greater threat. Indeed, the greatest of them all.

Pairings: 3x4, 2x5, eventual 1x2x5

Warnings:  alternative universe, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Plot Twists, fairly graphic depiction of sex, Mild description of self-harm, Mathematical Magic, weird science, crones - Freeform, Magic and Technology brawling and eventually screwing, Eventual Threesome, Kinda, Insanity of arcane origin, The universe is a pile of marbles and other dubious allegories

Two Halves

The two kingdoms of Sanq and Lin were at war for years; a conflagration involving magic, armies and political murder. The conflict left both nations devastated and strewn with refugees. The king of Sanq finds his infant son, lost at birth, among the death and the ruin, a miracle he barely dared to hope for. But there isn't just one boy, there are two, clinging together like two halves of a whole that cannot be separated. Decades later, the truth behind that second child’s existence will put a hole in the world, or possibly save it.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Fantasy AU, medieval setting with magic, starts with our heroes as children, Cousin Incest, sort of, eventually, being royalty this is in fact the norm and rather expected of them, Canon-Typical Violence

Merula31

Sleepless

It started that first night that I got him out of the hospital. I don't know where he found the time between raiding my gundam for parts and fixing his, but he did. He slipped into my room, managing not to wake me up until he got into bed with me.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Yaoi, Lime, Implied Lemons, post war-ness, Angst, Sappy, POV Alternating, Spoilers, but if you haven't seen the series by now - what's wrong with you???, Original Character(s), Preventers (Gundam Wing), but no action, well - not THAT kind, Suicide Attempt, Misunderstandings

@miss-m-muses

The Cabin

Trowa’s debut novel became a best-seller and now he is failing at writing a follow up. In order to find peace and quiet to write, he rents a secluded cabin near a small town to find inspiration. Yet writing becomes hard when he keeps hearing howls from the woods in the middle of the night and even harder when he meets a charming diner owner named Duo…

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Explicit Sexual Content

@noelleian

Open Book for @weiclown (Moreena)

One would think being skewered on a rapier was the worst part, but then Quatre was always full of surprises.

Pairings: 3x4, 1xR

Warnings: Humor, Canon Compliant, Takes Place Between the End of the Series and Odds and Evens, Trowa's POV, Injured!Quatre, Delirious!Quatre, Love Doctor!Duo, Iatrophonia - Fear of Doctors and Hospitals, At Least Sally Has Her Shite Together, Fluff, Friendship

@noirangetrois

The Story of Wrong

Duo recounts his experiences during the war in order to explain... well, why he was wrong.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings:  Angst, Drama, Tragedy, slight AU, Spoilers, very dark, Heero and Duo don't dieI,  promise, Yaoi, slowburn, Mental Instability, Mental Health Issues, Mental Breakdown, If those are in any way an issue for you then go ahead and skip this, Eventual Smut, VERY eventual, this is mostly canon-compliant but I've changed a couple things here and there

@passingdestinies​ (MorbidBirdy)

Animus

A ghost of Heero's past takes possession of his life, relationships and his identity.

Pairings:  1x3, 2xH

Warnings:  Post-Canon, Psychological Torture, Blood and Violence, Explicit Sexual Content

PubLicEneMyNumBah1

Super Robot Wars GQ

Multi-series crossover

Long gone are the Ancient Ones and the will of Mankind triumphs, yet with catastrophes and wars that beset them, will their reign soon end?

Original Character(s), Mecha, Giant Robots, Gundams, Crossover, Multiple Crossovers, Action/Adventure, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Alien Invasion, War, Canon Rewrite, Space Battles, Cthulhu Mythos, Pseudoscience

QMC

Over Tea & Other Things

The first fan-fiction piece that I wrote back in 2010 on FF.net. I've edited it a little. "Tea" is the first of a series I decide to write about general moments and life rather than on any significant story line or plot point. They're all stand alone pieces so I'll keep them here as chapters rather than in separate posts. Comments are welcome. :)

@remsyk-blog

Souls for the Bayou for @maevemauvaise and written for @fandomtrumpshate

For Trowa Barton, exploring the bayou is the ultimate adventure. Drawn to its borders since before he could walk, he spent his childhood learning its paths and uncovering its secrets.  But a chance encounter sets him on a path that spans across time, challenging everything he thought he knew, plunging him deeper into its mysteries than he ever thought possible.

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Supernatural - Freeform, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Bayou, Cajun, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Mystery, Slow Burn, Technically Speaking, Young Love, Use of accents, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, I don't want to give it all away at once, Fandom Trumps Hate

Robot_Qwerty

Finding Home Again

Harry Potter crossover

Morgan lost any family he had left during the horrors of the Canadian Civil War, he lived on his own and carved out his own existence at eighteen years old. Adventure and magic only existed in fairy tales and daydreams, survival is all he knows anymore. The Civil War ends a little before the Eve Wars. So when the new laws after the Eve Wars come into place, his world was turned upside down and Canada's new government left little choice to the die-hard patriots. Finally escaping to the Sanq Kingdom wasn't the sanctuary he had hoped it would be. Add the former Gundam Pilots to the mix and he might just find his escape, or will he never find the freedom he craves?

Pairings: 4x5, 1x2, 3xOMC, Sx11xOFC

Warnings: Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Mental Health Issues

sylvieforaday

Neighbors

A/U - Meilan is learning, not everything happens the way you thought it would. Sometimes you fall for the perfect girl next door when she gets knocked off her pedestal.

Pairings: Meilan x Relena

Warnings: None

@the-indomitable-bhg, @passingdestinies (BHG and Morbidbirdy)

End of Line

The Grid, the legendary Tron System, has always intrigued Duo Maxwell. After years of dreaming and months of tireless work, he finally receives the final part he needs to unlock the door to the digital frontier. A blast of a digitizing laser later he finds himself in the world of his dreams. However, soon that dream becomes a nightmare as he comes to realize that his existence in this new world is both a danger to him and to the programs who reside there. With the help of Security Program Trowa and a mysteriously damaged and glitchy program named Heero, he embarks on a journey through The Grid to seek help from a mysterious entity known as the Gatekeeper. Will he be able to get out of the Tron System, or will the organizations who are hunting him manage to derez him first?

Pairings: 1x3, 3x4

Warnings: Slash, AU, Angst, Post-Tron: Legacy, Action/Adventure, implied sexual violence, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Complete

white_fox

Life Is A Highway

On an impulsive plan to travel from California to New York City to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Heero Yuy did not plan to pick up a hitchhiker in nowhere Texas. Faced with some setbacks and a growing attraction to his passenger, Heero goes through more challenges than he planned on facing.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR

Warnings: light slash, Fluff, Road Trips, Dubious Morality

Snippets:

@lifeaftermeteor

LAM!verse - Duo and Trowa chatting

@ransomedbard

Snippet Saturday

Photo Edits/Manipulations

@gundamwing-ellesmith​

What if Gundam Wing was real? - Chang Wufei’s office ft. Sally

What if Gundam Wing was real? - Une

What if Gundam Wing was real? - Sally’s table ft. Wufei

@kangofu-cb

Whose Line photo edit - “Gundam Wing, where everything’s made up and the ‘canon’ don’t matter.

Multiple Contributors

Come at me Yuy

Headcanons / Meta / Discussions:

@lifeaftermeteor

L1′s origins and history

@ransomedbard

GW and cars headcanon

Fanart:

@downwarddnaspiral

Relena ice skating

@duointherain

Duo

@hackedmotionart​

Just Wild Beat

@huehanya

Gundam Wing re-watch comic

@lemontrash

Heero doodle

@noelleian

Human Sandrock

@noromax

Wufei

Calendar Events:

Cocktail Friday

https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/

A new prompt every Monday!

Submissions should be posted Fridays between 3 and 5pm EST, and tagged with @gwcocktailfriday

Interview with a Creator by @remsyk-blog @interview-with-a-creator

Remsyk has created an online interview for fandom creators to fill out and then she features one each week so that everyone in the fandom can learn a bit about each other.

If you haven’t filled out her interview, go! do! now!

This week’s featured creator is @cosmostar - check her interview out here!

Calling all GW COSPLAYERS by @ahsimwithsake

Metrowing—our gundam wing cosplay group that comes to metrocon (Tampa Florida) every year—will be hosting a panel at Metrocon 2018!

We’re looking for additional cosplayers to round out the cast for a Q&A panel on Friday 7/20 at 4 pm.

If you’re interested, please private message me here on tumblr. I can provide you with more information and set you up with a group Skype chat with the metrowing cosplayers.Help us celebrate 25 years of Gundam Wing!

Check post for more information.

NHK is running a poll for the 40th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam!

Voting is open here

You can vote for your favorite series (TV, OVA, and Movie only), mobile suit (pick 3), characters (pick 5), and songs (pick 2). Unfortunately the site is in Japanese but with the help of Google Translate, it’s easy enough to navigate. Let’s vote our GW boys to the top!

Gundam Wing Stream Rewatch by @the-indomitable-bhg and @amyole

Post found here - they are currently looking for interest/time suggestions/platform suggestions.

[zenosanalytic]

Zenofriend did you see the New Amplified Official Homestuck Personality quiz????? what are!!! your thoughts!!!

Ok! This is VERY LATE, but I am finally ready to give My Extended Zodiac Thoughts. This is Long :|:

First off, I found the possible answers really limited and limiting. For example #7 -Which option best describes what’s more important to you? Understanding yourself, and fully knowing who you are? Or thinking rationally, and making strong decisions?-is a false choice/dichotomy. Leaving aside the questionable adjective-choice of “strong”(I mean: wth does a “strong” decision even mean???), rational decisions require information, and the more the better; specifically, they require knowing yourself. To make a “rational” choice is to make a choice from reasoning, which is to say “based on reasons” using “Reason”(working from one point to that which it implies). If you are unaware of yourself and your interiority -your biases, your wants, your tendencies, your susceptibilities, your emotions, your impulses, your psychological needs, etc- then you can’t make rational decisions because you aren’t aware of, and aren’t considering, how the “irrational” architecture of your personality and behavior could be influencing your reasoning, nor are you making explicit(to yourself or others) the full set of potential reasons for why you are making the decision the way you are. Indeed, not only are these two NOT opposite extremes and NOT mutually exclusive, they are mutually Necessary. Just as one must “know thyself” to rationally know the world and rationally navigate it, so too must one be able to look at oneself rationally -to dispassionately assess oneself as a subject, as if with the eyes of another; judging your behavior, wants, and biases as a stranger might- to “understand yourself and fully know who you are”. Meaning to do good is irrelevant if you do harm and, if your concept of “good” requires the harm of another, then obviously they will not judge you as “good” and you will not be good, regardless of how you feel about it. The true answer to this question is that you can’t achieve either without achieving both, but that doesn’t fit into the simplistic(and sadly too common in Euroculture) Manichean dualism this quiz is built around -in this instance that emotion/interiority is the opposite of “Reason”/Intellect. And, more broadly, that the specific/practical and general/ideal are at odds- and so it isn’t a choice.

Many of the available answers to the questions are equally limited; some by false dichotomy, some by, just, insufficient choice-scope:

In #6: what if the result sought by the project is learning the process??? 

In #2: what if you prefer to help people learn through the Socratic method; by asking questions? Are you showing them, in that you are modeling for them the process of reasoning their way to an answer with the information available to them, or are you encouraging them, in that you are asking them to collate the information they have and extrapolate from it and doing so non-explicitly?

 #1: what if you see yourself as a protagonist of your story, but also understand that everyone sees themselves as the protagonist of their own story? What if you see “Society” as the emergent, evolutionary outcome of an inevitable “Egotism of Being” coming into contact with innumerable iterations of Self? What if you conceive of your existence as fundamentally lonesome but also of society not as a natural and essential aspect of environment, but as a natural and essential aspect/expression of personality, such that the equal personhood of all “characters” is inescapable, such that “lonesomeness” is a social act/choice just as much as “ensembleness”, and such that “protagonism” can only be understood as a purely narrative conceit and choice? These povs don’t really fit with the choices available.

#3: can’t it be both things? Can’t mystery inspire you to both learn and invent? Can’t learning lead to the realization of new mysteries, which is part of why Curiosity is so satisfying to you in the first place?

#8: to understand the consequences of your behavior is to understand your potential; to understand your potential is to understand what consequences your behavior can effect.

#9: What if your strong convictions are precisely what drives you to deconstruct arguments which said convictions deem inaccurate, limited, and poorly reasoned? What if you deconstruct arguments not because you find them particularly offensive, but because you hold a strong conviction that “Knowledge” is much more difficult or complicated than people tend to think it is, ala Socrates, or even impossible to attain by your own efforts, ala Medieval Christendom and anti-empiricism? “Can’t Decide” implies an ambiguity, indecisiveness, and moral disinterest in the question that would be inaccurate to these mindsets.

#10: doesn’t choosing “burn it all down” imply that one considers “burning it all down” to be a “better” state than the status quo? Wouldn’t it, then COUNT, as “A Plan” and “something better” waiting in the wings??

#11: what if your desire to help others is driven by an instinctive empathy and moral-revulsion towards situations which cause suffering, and allowing suffering to continue? The answers frame the choices as in opposition and empathy as something either to prevent or which prevents action, rather than compelling it.

Ok I’ll stop, but you get the idea.

Second, I thought the lean of each question was really obvious; to the point that you could practically score each available answer along a scale between the two binary choices the question engaged with(probably because this is exactly how the test works). The result of this is that the Test is easily gamed, and thus not really “impartial” or “rigorous” in any way. This is somewhat complicated by the test’s Built in Biases(Hat Tip to @the-awkward-goldfish for chasing this down), which basically require you to “no opinion” every non-Aspect-related questions to get anything “below” Light, but even that just goes to show how partial and contrived the test is, and thus how bad an assessment of one’s “Nature”, or affinity to the Aspects as presented in canon, it provides.

Which, you know, OBVIOUSLY -it really isn’t MEANT to be those things(well, one could reasonably expect it to be decent at Aspect-Affinity)- but this is a central problem of “personality tests” in general, and I’m going to rant about it for a second. When a test asks about The Thing it appears to be asking about, Social Animals will give it either a)the answer they think it wants, b)the answer they feel fulfills their social “role” in the test/situation, c)the answer they would like to be true about themselves(or would like you to think is true about them), or d)the answer they feel creates the least social stress in the situation, rather than an honest answer. Similarly, test-makers will, with stupefying regularity, render their own biases implicit within the tests they create if collaboration and strict oversight are not a part of the test design process. This is because Social Animals are Social Animals, and part of being Social Animals is 1)a near-instinctive awareness of The Rules of whatever Social “Game” happens to be being playing at any moment, and 2)an instinctive desire to project ones personal “Rules” onto the world[1]. This makes gaining an honest assessment of Social Animals(and even asking Honest Questions about them), independent of their own objectives and social assumptions, difficult. This is why modern psych studies are neither upfront about what they’re really studying, nor obvious in their design, and why the question of Method and Test-Design is so important to the field.

None of this matters when personality tests are seen as just A Fun Thing to Play With, but unfortunately lots of people take them really seriously(I will not speculate as to why), so I kinda feel like the huge biparagraphic spiel above about social psychology and why it means personality tests are A Crock is sort of necessary. Though, Ironically and completely tangentially, this also all means that the ominous and impenetrable Voight-Kampff machine and Turing Test it is used to administer from Bladerunner are actually closer to what an “accurate” psychological test should look like than most of the “personality tests” people are familiar with.

Third, I found the Test really unsatisfying from a canon-perspective. Some of them fit, others kind of fit but with important provisos, and others are just wildly far off. For example:

Sagittarius. Equius might count as an enthusiast, but inconstant? His interests are long-term and rigid. Expansive? He is self-effacing to the point of suicide. Magnetic? Everyone but Nepeta and Gamzee find him repulsive(though Aradia is attracted, at times, by her disgust for him). Rebellious? 8/ Optimistic? 8/ 8/ Surprising? 8/ 8/ 8/ Not Knowing his own Strength? He obsesses over it. Skeptical? He accepts Alternian Convention without question or complaint(Aradia being the notable semi-exception). Secretive? While he doesn’t put himself forward, neither does he keep his opinions -no matter how offensive- to himself, ever. A stronger argument could be made for this description fitting Roxy, but even then she’s rather single-minded and constant in her interests and feelings, and, contra the description of Derse-dreamers, not terribly self-aware, as symbolized by her dream-self -a metaphor for her self-knowledge- being asleep, albeit ambulatory, until she dies(minus seeing Rose once). Her most important arcs are about seeking answers, not accepting mysteries(Rose and Calliope).

Sagiries&Sagipia: Again, the Sagittarius description, specifically the “enthusiast” and “inconstant” bits, don’t really fit either Dave or Rose. While they ARE “enthusiastic” about their interests, those interests are rather constant, focused, and rather than trying to teach or pull others into those interests, they display them through creative endeavor. “Derse” fits them both pretty well, minus the “self-awareness”, and their approach to hiding insecurity is the opposite of “self-deprecating humor” and “false humility”; they do it through “evincing hyper-competence” and “false arrogance”. Dave is certainly a “Fighter”, but against Fighting, and while he can be goal-oriented he much prefers perambulation, even to the point of contributing to problems which he then must rush to fix. Really I’d say the description for Space fits him better than Time(though this Time description entirely ignores the repeated recycling/recontextualizing/remixing theme in Time characters in HS). Light fits Rose better, but it ignores how her interest in mystery and the unexplained drives her interest in learning, how personal and not “for its own sake” her seeking is, and how actual knowledge can petrify her if she is in the wrong place emotionally.

Sagigo: This is nitpicking, but I wouldn’t describe Jade as “careless”, and she, mostly successfully, struggles to remain tactful in the face of universe-ending levels of buffoonery and extra-amphibian-interference.

Leo: Again, Nitpicking, but I don’t think Nepeta can be described as having herself as her “favorite subject”. I think the rest fits well though

Gemini: Sollux isn’t preachy, nor railroady in conversation, nor difficult to understand, and his interests -at least what we see of them- are all about computers, networks, and the internet. The description of Doom I’m iffy on: it certainly describes him, but his willingness to drop everything and dedicate himself to a project he believed would save his planet, even though he hates it, doesn’t really fit with it.

Pisces: “Forget to actually do things”, “enigmatic”, “recalcitrant”(i.e., not being open about their feelings), “worrier”, and “trouble with follow-through”, are not things I would describe Feferi with. Meenah clashes even worse with this description.

Scorpio: “Blue Signs are the ones to watch”? Yes for Vriska, Aspirational for Aranea. “Those bound to the aspect of Light are the universe’s knowledge-seekers. They are, above all, driven to learn and understand”? “learn about it” certainly, but I don’t think either Vriska or Aranea feel any real impulse to understand anything. They’re more about hoarding information and manipulating it to their advantage/purposes, and Vriska’s interest in knowledge is highly selective, personal, and instrumental. “Marked by a flexible optimism”? For a given, and extremely idiosyncratic, definition of “optimism”; and provided it allows for bouts of deep negativity, and an intense, arrogant cynicism about the world and others. “They have a mask for every occasion”?More so for Aranea given he secretiveness about herself, but Not Really for either of them as Aranea really just has the one. “They often resent those they see as more well-positioned than they are”? This fits Aranea well, but I never got the sense Vriska was envious of her “social betters”; she seemed to be more envious of people with healthier relationships to less overbearing Lususes, and who had an easier time forging relationships.

I’m not going to go through all of these obvsl. There are those -like John’s, Terezi’s, and Kanaya’s- that fit near-to-perfectly, and those -like Eridan’s- that fit thematically while being wildly off-base on the specifics, but mostly I found them disappointing.

Fourthly, I object to it aesthetically. The signs are well designed; what I mean is that I very much dislike the idea that this is a complete Troll Symbology. If it were, it would make the Troll world and society much smaller and less creative than I would like it to be. There’s not enough signs here for a population as large as the Trolls would need to support a galaxy-spanning empire, and certainly not enough for sign-repetition in the context of such a vast population to be so rare as to become a mythical sign of genetic reincarnation. There’s not enough room here for imagination and invention. Part of what I liked about the Homestuck Fandom, and still like, is the empty places in it for the fandom to fill in. Presenting this as a complete list of signs, based on a complete Hemospectrum(and yes, I also object to the canon Trolls having the only canon blood-colors; minus Lime which apparently Karkat is now, which doesn’t make any sense[2]), makes the Homestuck Universe a far, far, smaller pond to swim in, which is less fun from a fan perspective.

And it also, through the “True Sign” designations, makes the canon Trolls far larger and more obvious fish than they(minus Feferi and Kanaya) ought to be. If the rest of the signs are seen as derivative of the “True Signs”, as the phrase and the EZ’s naming conventions imply, and the signs are associated with specific ancestors, then it’s reasonable to assume that the Ancestors associated with those signs would be seen as “Truer”, or perhaps more Significant and Primary to Troll History, than the ancestors of the other signs. Those who inherited them would then be inheriting not just the unfinished business of their immediate predecessor, but a historical heritage that every Troll would be taught to consider “Truer” and “More Significant” to Trolldom than that of the other signs. I don’t like this idea. The Betas were hardly social coded in a way that would have made them completely representative of Earthican culture, so why would the Trolls? And also: why wouldn’t any of the signs bear any resemblance to their writing? But this is getting into worldbuilding :T

So, basically, I think it’s a fun thing to play around with. But, I also find it a bit inconsistent, more than a bit biased, a bit limited, somewhat backwards and somewhat derivative(all signs derived from 12 prefixes and suffixes, themselves derived from the Earth-Zodiac, which was only made up of the signs of those Trolls who played The Game? Really??). As additional fan-fodder, it’s ok; as something comprehensive that invalidates fan-signs and fan-theories, I take exception.

[1]a weird sort of “Personification”. Coincidentally, we also see this in philosophy, where the pronouncement that moral decisions “declare a rule for all” can be found from Kant to Sartre.

[2]”Candy-Red Blood” is a mutation. It isn’t natural. Which is to say: It doesn’t fit into the Hemospectrum. The “Signless” had no sign because of this. So the idea that it would be the “True” Cancer symbol, rather than a later addition so insignificant that the breeding-bureaucracy didn’t even notice when it was snuck into the registry, is doubly ludicrous. Also: Why would the breeding registry 1)not notice a new Lime sign being added when the Lime Bloods were exterminated, and 2) not immediately destroy the grub when it was assigned the sign of a blood-caste registered for extermination? How is giving a mutant blood a caste-sign that would get them immediately destroyed any better than them not having one??

[motorcyclegirlfriends]

Is it canon that Lena actually hates aliens? I've seen that tossed around in a couple of recaps and I never got the vibe that she hated aliens at all. Apprehensive of them and their potential powers, sure. But hating them seems strongly like other the other Luthors that she's trying to distance herself from. That and she doesn't want to be judged so how could she justify judging the entire alien population, excluding Supergirl?

Well let’s start off by tackling whether or not being “Apprehensive of them and their potential powers” is just common sense… or if it’s xenophobia.

Because I think you’re right about Lena not “hating” aliens, but she certainly fears them.

Now, the situation in the show was clearly intended as a direct parallel to the immigration narrative going on in the states currently, but it has complicated the politics of the show from it’s intended mirroring of reality, because forcing muslims to tell you their religion for ‘your protection’ is obviously wrong, but if they had powers?

And it’s true that many aliens have great abilities that humans do not have, that could easily hurt people. 

(Who knows what the percentage is, as most of the aliens we encounter on the show cause problems by necessity of the plot, but we know that aliens who can harm and who do harm exist.)

…But in America, people are also legally allowed to carry concealed weapons.

Someone could pull out a gun and kill you in a second. Or a knife. Another could be a black belt and easily able to over power you without a weapon. Maybe another knows ten ways to kill you right now because they’re obsessed with some edgy™ documentaries.

Who knows?

The people all around us have capabilities to harm us that we cannot see or know.

That, in reality, we rarely even think about.

But when it comes to people that look or behave differently from us it’s suddenly our biggest concern.

Essentially, there’s an issue when we start identifying those who have the capacity to harm us with those who are “other” than us.

Because Johnny Whiteman down the street owns a rifle and that’s his business but Xoun’gof’s skin turns purple and get’s spikey when he eats something he likes so we’re gonna have to know everything about that right away.

I mean… it’s pretty safe to assume that if you need a device that tells you when someone is an alien, that you think of aliens as dangerous. 

And that’s like… pretty xenophobic. 

“But Aliens are dangerous! They have all these fantastical destructive powers!”

But that’s not what makes someone dangerous. 

What makes someone dangerous is not only ability, but the want to do harm.

So an alien could easily blow up a mall.

Lena could, too, probably. With her money and intellect and the circles that she has connections to, she could easily pull it off.

But are we afraid that she’s going to do that? Nah.

If she met another human who theoretically had that same capability, would she fear them? Probably not.

But if she met an alien who had that capability…

It’s about trust. And when you specifically don’t trust those who are foreign, it’s xenophobic. 

And the only reason Lena wants to know and wants others to know who is an alien and who isn’t (as demonstrated by her creation of the alien detection device) is because she doesn’t trust aliens specifically.

So… that’s xenophobic. 

Plus, there are some other things shown in the way she talks about her alien detection device that suggests a very… other-ing view on aliens.

“Not truly one of them” suggests something different and darker than “has abilities humans don’t have.”

Pictured: Kara looking at a device that would reveal she “isn’t actually one of them.”

And after she successfully passes Lena’s Human™ test:

And I don’t know about you guys but to me this reads differently than “Golly gee, someone almost found out that I’m Supergirl!”

This feels like “Someone almost found out I’m different.”

And it’s in response to Lena’s obvious belief that aliens are not only dangerous, but inherently not one of her kind.

Now, in the later couch scene, they bring it back around to just being about dangerous people and protecting yourself and drop the “not one of us” talk. And Kara is experiencing and giving into her own biases about other aliens at this point (which A. she Learns Is Wrong by the end of the episode and B. are based on her view of Daxamites, a view which turned out to be surprisingly valid considering they were literal slave owners…)

They also make it about Lena’s general distrust of people because of her experiences with Lex. 

But that doesn’t erase the shady language she used earlier, or the fact that she isn’t just acting like “some people are just bad”, she’s putting something out there specifically against aliens- even if Kara is in Empathy Mode™ and is trying to understand Lena’s point of view.

“But hating them seems strongly like other the other Luthors that she’s trying to distance herself from.”

This is very true. But at the beginning of the season, the only obvious Luthor Hate™ that Lena was trying to avoid was against the Supers.

In fact, when Lena tells Kara of the alien detection device, she goes as far as to say she’s doing it “for the good of the world”. 

So obviously she doesn’t see the issues with it (I mean, it literally could put aliens at physical risk because humans are scary and violent) or see how her view of aliens would then coincide with the rest of her family. 

And seeing as Lillian’s hatred of aliens surged when Superman imprisoned Lex and ‘drove him mad’ (gathered from Lillian mentioning what happened to Lex every time she did something evil against aliens), I wouldn’t be surprised if xenophobia was fairly new to the Luthors, or if it was just low-key enough for Lena to not realize what it was.

But weirdly luckily for Lena, Lillian got a lot more intense about her xenophobia.

Throughout the rest of the season, Lillian drew some very obvious lines between right and wrong regarding aliens.

Lillian became a danger to aliens, rather than the other way around. And Lillian’s knowledge of who was an alien (via the registry) was what allowed her to attack them.

Since Lena’s stance has been firmly against her mother at every turn, and since her mother’s actions mirror the ideas behind the device, it would follow that her evaluation of the alien detection device may have shifted.

But then there’s her reaction to Rhea being an alien, which was… not positive…

She read Rhea’s act of not revealing that she’s an alien to a virtual stranger as a betrayal which means she still thinks she has a right to the information and that she thinks the information is important for her to know.

But there’s also the factor of Lena feeling like she, personally needs to be trusted or they must think she’s like her mother, which Rhea ultimately played off of.

So because of Lena’s issues, it’s kind of like… a friend feeling betrayed that you didn’t tell them that you’re gay because they think that means you don’t trust them, vs someone expecting you to tell them that you’re gay when you first meet.

Neither are right, but the one is more a warped feeling of personal betrayal than a political view.

And when Lena realizes “oh, my mom would hate her for hiding that she’s an alien,” she reevaluates things.

Hell, she even calls Kara to ask her opinion, because she’s been shifting more and more to Kara’s worldview over the course of these months.

If Lillian where not to stray by the moral compass, then Kara is true north.

Now, by the end of it all, when Rhea turns out to have been lying to Lena, and when an alien race is threatening the planet, Lena still doesn’t side with her mother.

She sees these Daxamites as a specific threat and seeks to get rid of them, but she doesn’t denounce all aliens and knows even that there are non-evil Daxamites, Kara’s boyfriend.

So perhaps she’s working through any xenophobia her family trickled in as she grew up and overcoming even the more insidious and hidden parts of it. 

There’s a definite progression from the scene I picked apart above and the end of the season re: Lena’s relationship to aliens.

But there’s no way to know for sure until we again see how she views aliens she doesn’t know personally. Until we see if she thinks it’s more important to have humans know who is an alien than to keep aliens safe from persecution. Until we see how she reacts to Kara secretly being an alien.

[gingervsblondie]

Blondie Brings Up Baby (1939)

8:38 PM, Thursday, 26 September 2019

Nineteen. Ni- Ni- Nineteen.

Ni- Ni- Nineteen.

Nineteen thirty-nine.

How does our favourite zany

Nuclear familial vignette

Get themselves into another casse-tête?

Dagwood’s filled with sandwiches while Flournoy’s filled with regret

And Alexander’s traumatized

You ready for more yet?

Blondie Brings Up Baby. Let’s get into it.

By the way, we’ve got a new head screenwriter, Gladys Lehman. Our old friend Dick Flournoy’s still on the Wikipedia page as “story by, (uncredited)” though.

8:40

I don’t know if I’ve only just noticed this or if this movie just gave the first indication of it, but Dagwood is really bad at his job.

8:42

8:43

UHHH. There’s a woman in the Bumsteads’ house. There hasn’t been a woman in the Bumsteads’ house before. I have no idea who she is and the movie moved swiftly on without explaining who she is.

8:46

UHHHHHHHH. They cut from a scene of Dagwood and Blondie at a police station telling a receptionist that Alexander is missing, after he didn’t show up to school, to a scene where Dagwood is in a shed, and COMPLETELY INEXPLICABLY, a bunch of police with tommy guns have him surrounded and start firing on him and throwing tear gas bombs.

I have no fucking clue what is going on in this movie.

8:51

UHHHHHHHHHHHHH. All of that was the build up to the intro. The intro is playing now.

The movie hasn’t even started yet.

WHAT.

WHAT IS HAPPENING.

They haven’t had anything before the intro on any of the other movies.

8:52

OKAY. SO.

The last few movies I’ve watched on YouTube. They’re in the public domain anyway as far as I can tell. But I couldn’t find a version of Blondie Brings Up Baby with good enough quality, so I switched to Amazon Prime.

Turns out, I’ve just discovered, all the Blondie movies on Amazon Prime have 3-5 minutes of scenes with ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEXT pinned onto the beginning before the intro. So I just watched 4 minutes and 40 seconds of Blondie Brings Up Baby SPOILERS.

And I’m furious about it.

9:05

There’s a “huh?” that Dagwood does in these whenever he does a double-take, and it’s gotta be my least favourite recurring bit. They use it like a rimshot or a catchphrase to punctuate jokes, and 100% of the time it just extends something that wasn’t funny.

9:11

See okay: He just did one, but silently. There was no “huh?”, just Dagwood looking confused. And it was a little bit funny! That’s all it took. No “huh?”.

9:16

K, this time Blondie’s the one being a bad parent. A guy showed up at the door offering a free IQ test for Alexander. Is that a thing that happened in the 30s? No idea, but it’s what’s happening in the movie so let’s just go with it. Alvin, Alexander’s friend/enemy/neighbour who he occasionally brains with a fucking brick, has been over and has been calling Alexander (and also Dagwood) a dumbbell all day. So to get revenge on Alvin, Blondie is getting all competitive about the IQ test, telling Alexander that he has to beat Alvin.

It’s giving me flashbacks to a music teacher I had in high school. We were going to a concert band competition in another province, and she told us she wouldn’t accept us bringing home anything other than gold. In the middle of the performance, we lost time with each other (because we’d never played in an auditorium and weren’t used to the acoustics) and had to start the song over. We got bronze. On the bus ride home, she didn’t talk to us. I don’t think she even looked at us.

The next year, I took drama instead of music.

9:27

Ok. So. The dude with the IQ test watched Alexander build a house out of toy blocks. Based on that, he told Blondie that Alexander is a genius, and that his IQ is 168.

(What follows is me disassembling the logic of this, which I’ll shortly learn was a pointless endeavour.)

First of all, no way can he determine an IQ that specific based on a house Alexander built out of toy blocks. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be telling a child they’re a genius, since they’d end up developing less motivation, thinking that their accomplishments are a result of natural gifts rather than hard work. And third, UNLESS they turn around and reveal that the IQ test, which I’ll note happened off-screen, was somehow wrong and Alexander isn’t actually a genius, then I am going to spend the remaining movies in this series frustrated at their continued insistence on calling him “Baby Dumpling.” Which, you know, I already am anyway. Although maybe demeaning him like that will balance out them telling him he’s a genius.

9:34

Oh ok. The test wasn’t wrong. The IQ dude is just a con artist selling encyclopedias.

Should’ve seen that coming.

9:38

Dagwood thought IQ meant temperature, and came rushing home thinking Alexander was terribly sick. It cut to him ripping up the encyclopedias Blondie just bought, saying “This guy’s crazy, coming around here with books at a time like this.”

What an insufferable doofus.

9:41

I’m not a fan of Blondie entirely falling for this con artist’s BS. I feel like she hasn’t been that gullible before. She’s gotten mad at Dagwood based on comical misunderstandings, but that’s been understandable based on the context she didn’t have. But we as an audience are given just as much context as Blondie is to know that this dude is swindling her. It just makes her seem stupid.

9:48

Teacher: “Well, how do you do young man? So you want to start to school?”

Blondie: “NO MA'AM!”

Mood.

9:51

Man, elementary school is a bonkers institution. Just send your small child to a building they cannot leave full of strangers who have absolute authority over them, and are sometimes totally insane people, where they’ll be taught things they not only cannot use but definitely will not remember because they’re tiny tiny children. And sometimes the insane adult strangers will yell at your child. For not behaving. And they’re not behaving because they’re in a place they don’t want to be and cannot leave where strangers have the authority to yell at them for mistakes they’re making FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIVES BECAUSE THEY’RE SMALL SMALL CHILDREN.

10:11

Huh. I think they just broke the canon? I’ve been calling Baby Dumpling Alexander because the Wikipedia for the first movie listed him as Alexander "Baby Dumpling" Bumstead, but in Blondie Brings Up Baby, they just had this exchange:

Alexander: “[They beat me up] ’cause my name’s Baby Dumpling.”

Dagwood: “Well, your real name’s Dagwood, after me. Maybe we’ll call you that now that you’re going to school?”

Alexander: “Noooo. Guess I’ll stay Baby Dumpling.”

I dunno if his real name’s Alexander in the comic strip and they just forgot while they were writing this? They haven’t called him Alexander in the other movies, I was just basing that entirely off the Wikipedia article. I can’t believe they’d make 28 movies without a clear story bible.

(Future Euan looked it up. In the comic strip, Baby Dumpling grew up into a teenager, and became Alexander.)

I’m still gonna call him Alexander by the way.

10:17

As these movies have gone on, I’ve been increasingly concerned about the wellbeing of the dog. Like, the real dog, behind the scenes. I really hope they weren’t abusing her to get her to do all the stuff she does. But I can’t say I’d be surprised if they were. She kinda gives the vibe of “dog doing impressive tricks because they’ll punish her if she doesn’t.” Maybe I’m wrong though. Maybe they had, like, a super good treat to give her every time she did a trick.

10:23

10:24

God I wish I were watching Peanuts.

10:25

Or reading Peanuts.

10:26

You ever notice how in old movies when they cross-fade between two shots, there’ll be an abrupt change in the brightness of the footage right before it fades, and then again after it stops fading? One day I’ll learn why that was.

(Here’s the answer, courtesy of future Euan: https://www.quora.com/How-did-movies-do-a-cross-fade-with-real-film)

10:36

Only moment I’ve liked so far: Daisy’s gone missing (because a dogcatcher caught her and brought her to the pound). The mailman, a young guy on a bike who’s had a recurring bit through every movie where he whistles and Daisy comes running to take the paper from him, just whistled, and instead of Daisy, Alexander came to take the mail and tells him Daisy’s missing. And he says “As soon as I’m finished delivering, I’ll look for her. I’ll look on my bike.”

That’s kinda sweet. No sweet moments between Dagwood and Blondie yet this time, but one sweet moment between a mailman who’s barely talked before and a dog.

10:42

There’s a lot of punching in these movies. Like, just Dagwood suddenly becoming infuriated and decking someone in the face.

What a violent doofus.

10:47

Dagwood got arrested for assaulting the dude who got him fired and didn’t have enough to pay it off so he got put in jail. His boss, Mr. Dithers, came to pay it off for him, while the dude’s in court.

Dithers: “How much is it your honour?”

Judge: “Ten dollars.”

Dithers: “Is that all that cost?”

Judge: “Mm.”

(Dithers punches the dude out)

Dithers: (offering money) “Here’s another one, your honour.”

I don’t want to hear another word about video games inciting violence in young people. Goddamn the rest of culture is responsible for glorifying violence.

10:53

Alexander: “You’re a girl. I don’t like girls.”

Girl: “Why?”

Alexander: “Oh… Don’t know. I learned it in school.”

Ho-ly shit. Movie spitting straight truth.

10:59

Might as well drop this here:

I’ve decided that once I’ve watched all the movies, I’m gonna write my own Blondie, A 60 page screenplay with all the hallmarks and the structure of the other ones. I mean, if I’m gonna be dragging them through the dirt, it’s only fair that I see if I could do any better.

11:02

I Want a Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown. That’d be a good one to be watching right about now.

11:07

No, I tell you what:

There are Blondie movies for every year between 1939 and 1950, EXCEPT for 1944. So that’s when I’ll write my script. Once I’ve watched the first 14, every Blondie movie between 1939 and 1943, I’ll write the Blondie movie to have come out in 1944.

11:10

I now have the context for why the police surrounded the shed that Dagwood was in. It still doesn’t make sense though. He was trespassing on a rich guy’s yard, a gardener knocked him out with a shovel and dragged him into the shed, and then presumably called for all of the police to come pick him up, and bring enough weapons to keep a city-wide riot at bay.

11:13

So the police thought Dagwood was somehow responsible for Alexander and the rich dude’s daughter going missing?

Well I’m riveted.

11:16

Or Why, Charlie Brown, Why?

11:19

“You see, playing with other children is the solution. Oh, if only this city had some place where this sort of thing could be carried out. Where the weak children could get courage from the strong, and the strong could learn compassion.”

So not school then.

“Why, I could do something like that. A sort of home for children! I’ll build it myself. It’ll be light and airy, with plenty of windows and playgrounds.”

THE ORPHANAGE

11:25

This movie ends with Dagwood getting insulted again by Alvin. He finds a tear gas bomb that he put in his pocket earlier when the police were attacking him, and says “Here’s a nice ball for you to play with.”

Dagwood just tried to tear gas a child.

What a dangerous doofus.

And once again, no Dagwood Sandwich Watch 2019. However, I’ll give the movie a rating all the same.

Turns out Willie Best isn’t in the movie. Wikipedia was wrong. I’m guessing somebody copied and pasted the cast from the first movie, so that they could put in the regular cast, and forgot to take him out. And the movie wasn’t, as I assumed from the title, about Dagwood being a stay-at-home father. Which, I’ve only just realized, is still me thinking Blondie means Dagwood because he’s so much more prominent in the franchise, and I somehow still haven’t managed to internalize that his name is Dagwood. It’s like I’ve learned nothing since I started this. ANYWAY point is the movie wasn’t racist or sexist. It was just boring. Terribly terribly boring.

My rating is: One Dagwood Sandwich with some ham on the outside and nothing on the inside. Blame Amazon.

[fiircbird-archive-blog]

Because we all need a retcon that elaborates on that 7 year gap ;) and makes Phoenora canon amirite ~ <3

It just didn’t feel right. That entire trial, the evidence shared, the knowledge of the prosecution… Lenora turned it over in her mind a thousand times and everything she saw threw up red flags.

She had never personally met Phoenix Wright, but she had run plenty of toxicology and forensics tests for him. She, like the rest of the LAPD, knew of his ridiculous accomplishments and infamous turnabout cases. He had exposed corruption in the legal system plenty of times before, had sent plenty of crooks before –

So why? Why would he of all people use forged evidence in court? It didn’t make sense. It was wrong. To see someone so well-respected crash and burn at the drop of a hat – or in this case, a diary page – just didn’t sit well with her. She had to speak with him herself.

When he emerged from his office, she could tell by the look on his face that he hadn’t slept in days; he had been harassed, she knew. The media had caught wind of the whole debacle and now people were questioning every case he had ever won, every defendant he had ever gotten acquitted. God, was it not enough that he had been disbarred? The look in his eyes assured her he was innocent.

She spoke plainly, but with careful consideration of all that he felt. Introduced herself and informed him of her observations, her opinions He still seemed weary – but he invited her in. They sat and spoke for about an hour. Near the conversation’s end, she mentioned off-hand how she worried for the defendant’s daughter; he seemed to perk up at that.

“Would you happen to know how I could get in contact with her?”

It was a strange request, but she provided the information necessary. She even escorted Trucy Gramarye to his office herself, although she allowed them privacy and waited in the main room while they spoke. Phoenix had offered to find her relatives to stay, but apparently there were none. Lenora was shocked to learn that, upon hearing that, he offered to adopt Trucy as his own. Just what sort of man was he?

She would keep an eye on the two regardless, as well as offer to help in investigating what had really happened. Phoenix took to the streets, she remained in the LAPD, keeping an ear to the ground for suspicious activity. As cases came in and out, there certainly was a harsher demeanor when it came to the court system. Full acquittals became rare; it sounded like the LAPD was simply great at its job, but…no. No, she knew who she worked with: idiots.

Although a bit skeptical at the start, Lenora had become completely committed to seeking out the stray thread that would lead to the unraveling of this conspiracy. If she wasn’t working late nights at the lab, she was looking into suspicious individuals at Phoenix’s request, or even going out on investigations with him herself. Either way, there was plenty of time to get to know each other.

Developing feelings hadn’t been her intent – nor his. They both just wanted to get to the bottom of things and to right the wrongs of the legal system. That was it. That was all.

But things took a turn when the MASON System came into play. It was a terrifyingly brilliant piece of technology that allowed users to access, review, and replay scenes from their memories – something out of a science fiction novel. It wasn’t, though. Sayoko Robbins was the top neurologist/memory specialist in her field, and her husband Richard an impeccable software developer; Lenora had met Dr. Robbins while working at a military base, and it didn’t take much convincing to get her to help with their endeavors.

The minor dilemma, however, was that the first iteration of the system required two people to use it. This meant the source of the memories had to be hooked up to the system, while the other reviewed them and chose what memories to search for and save; and that meant taking a very intimate look at Phoenix’s life.

“Phoenix. Are you really sure you trust me with this?”

“Yeah, I do.” He glanced up at her from the chair. Over the years, he had grown bolder – a development that was necessary for the potentially dangerous work he had done – and changed how he carried himself. But now, in this moment, he was looking at her with the same clear expression he had when he practiced law. Careful, comforting, observant. “I wouldn’t want it to be anyone else, Lenora. Go ahead.”

It also couldn’t be anyone else, as only they knew the information shared between them. But… still, how he had said it made her look away to hide the flush of her cheeks. Murmuring a promise that she would be careful and respectful as possible, she turned the machine on as she had been instructed, and started the search.

It wasn’t easy. She ended up seeing a lot through his eyes, even though she did her best to skip what wasn’t in the correct timeframe. Terrifying, heartbreaking experiences – both in and out of court. She had to step away from the screen a few times. It was more intense than she had anticipated.

But they got the job done eventually. It took a solid two weeks to sort through everything, and to package it up and send it back to the Robbins for further development into the system. Between then and later, Lenora couldn’t help but talk with Phoenix over what she had seen. Some of it was really…well, nobody had a perfect life. But some of it would be stuck with her – the encounters with that redhead, specifically. He had been abused.

“Lenora – sweetheart, I’m fine,” It wasn’t the first time he had called her that, but it was the first time he had done so with such alarm. Probably because she was crying. He pulled her into his arms and pet her hair, murmuring apologies that she had to experience that – but no! No, she protested, why was he sorry? He wasn’t at fault! And she short of talked in circles about it for a bit, clearly distressed, and he nodded along, assuring her he was okay. At some point she kissed him. He kissed back. It sort of went on from there.

It didn’t affect their investigations. If anything, it gave them the strength to power through it even more. Trucy was happy, too, once she realized the reasons for Lenora’s frequent visits. They had developed quite the bond as well. Together, they felt like an unstoppable force.

But they weren’t. Lenora knew that. The more she dug and uncovered, the higher that corruption ladder grew: every rung reached revealed two more, and suddenly the forging of evidence was the least of their problems. This was insane.

Lenora kept it to herself for months, debating on whether or not to share her findings. She needed Phoenix’s help, certainly, but this was the sort of thing people disappeared for. She couldn’t do that to him. Couldn’t put him or Trucy at risk.

So she decided to leave.

“Lenora—“

This is the only way, Phoenix. “ She shook her head, steeling her tears still. “if I tell you what I know, you’ll be a target. You have an investigation to complete and a daughter to raise. I…I can’t put a target on your head.”

“So you’ll put one on yours?”

“No. That was accidental.” She smiled weakly. “But now I have to see it through. Otherwise, we’ll never be safe. And…at this point, Phoenix. That’s all I want.” She moved forward, taking his face in her hands. “I love you. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t.” Her forehead pressed to his. “When…when I come back. Let’s get married, okay? When I’m back, it’ll mean we’re safe. And then we can finally start the life together we’ve talked about. Okay?” Despite her best efforts, she started crying. God, she wept so easily when it came to him. “I’ll contact you whenever I can. But… but that doesn’t mean you have to wait. If you find some—“

“Stop.” He curled his arms around her. “Don’t even imply that. There won’t be anyone else, Lenora. Never. It’s you or no one else.” His voice was starting to break, too. “I know you have to do what you have to do. I trust you. Just come back safe.”

“I will. I promise.”

~

Years slipped by, more than she had hoped would. Her communication with Phoenix was as frequent and secure as possible. She never spoke about what she was doing or where she was, or who she was meeting with. The forensics chemist had somehow turned into a private investigator with a specialization in whistleblowing along the way. That was all he had to know. That and how much she loved him and his – their daughter.

For a few weeks, there was no communication. There couldn’t be, even though she knew he was worried. She was wrapping it up – snipping loose ends, cutting ties, fading back into obscurity. She couldn’t leave a trace. It had to be that way, so for nearly two months it was nothing but radio silence.

Then she flew back into California. His office was closed, so she could only imagine he was in court. Once this was confirmed, she slipped into the defense lobby and waited.

To her surprise, Trucy was with him. She wasn’t sure of the details as to why, but she certainly wasn’t opposed to seeing her all grown up. They hadn’t been able to send pictures, after all, and yet she was even more beautiful than she had envisioned. And Phoenix… he was… he was a lawyer again, and the pride he took in that position and how it helped others was evident on his face. His client thanked him enthusiastically before running off to enjoy her freedom – rushing right past her, which finally drew the father-daughter pair to the stranger in the room.

“—Daddy? Who’s that?”

Of course they wouldn’t know. She looked awfully suspicious, all covered up in a trench coat and sunglasses, hair cut significantly shorter than he had last seen. Yet somehow, even before she turned to face them and remove said sunglasses, she could see in Phoenix’s expression that he had an idea.

“Hey, stranger,” Tucking her hair behind her ear, she smiled and took a few steps closer; her trenchcoat, parted to reveal a short, white little cocktail dress beneath. Trucy immediately started to squeal, understanding. “You feel like getting married today?”