#i love superpowers!!! i just also love Rules and Consequence

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Okay turns out Worm kinda fucks

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

‘It was so hard to pretend not to know how to swim’

Stars Rebecca Ferguson, Steve Zahn, Common and Tim Robbins on the second season of Apple TV+’s Silo, shooting water sequences and leadership

It’s unique to join a show after it’s already been established, and I thought it was an exceptional show

It’s hard for Rebecca Ferguson not to have a deep connection with nature. She grew up in Stockholm and then moved to the south of Sweden to a remote fishing village, where she got to explore drastic changes in environments and fully embrace her love for the ocean.

So you can imagine why the 41-year-old Golden Globe-nominated Swedish actress — also a trained scuba diver — initially struggled to shoot the underwater sequences as the gruff mechanical engineer Juliette Nichols in season two of Silo, who is awkward in that element, afraid of water and can’t swim until she is forced to confront her fears.

“I was born in Stockholm and we have lots of lakes and an archipelago,” says Ferguson, who is also an executive producer on the series. “I’ve always loved the sensation of swimming and had that feeling that if I could have any superpower — mine was always flying — and I think swimming is similar. The movement is so unregulated, it’s so different from walking. I love the way it feels when you go underneath and you can’t hear anyone.

“It was so hard to pretend not to know how to swim,” says Ferguson, who also stars in three of the Mission: Impossible films: Rogue Nation, Fallout, and Dead Reckoning Part One.

“There’s a natural move, how your hands touch the water and how you paddle, how you move your feet. To be able to look clumsy, it feels silly and it’s also very hard to get into your head how you would move. To get into that mindset, I thought of animals and dogs and what we did when we were young.”

The 10-episode Apple TV+ post-apocalyptic science fiction series, created by Canadian television screenwriter Graham Yost, 65, and adapted from Hugh Howey’s popular New York Times bestselling book Silo trilogy, including Wool, Shift and Dust, is about a dystopian society where 10,000 people are living underground in mysterious circumstances.

The inhabitants of the silo do not know why they are there or who built the place in which they live and work. But they will face fatal consequences if they try to leave and find out.

In season one, Juliette (Ferguson) seeks answers about a loved one’s murder, and defies the authoritarian leadership of the silo. She was framed by the mayor Bernard Holland, played by Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American actor Tim Robbins, 66, star of Mystic River, and Robert Sims, played by Academy Award, Emmy and Grammywinning American rapper and actor Common, 52, who stars in Selma and John Wick: Chapter 2, for violating the cardinal rule: If you say you want to go outside to “clean,” there’s no taking it back.

But when she survives and discovers a man named Solo in a deserted silo 17, played by series newcomer Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award-nominated American actor Steve Zahn, 56, who appears to be the structure’s only survivor, a rebellion breaks out and Juliette realises she must find a way back to her home.

It’s led by Juliette’s former colleagues from the mechanical sector, Knox, played by American actor Shane McRae, 47, who stars in Gossip Girl, and Shirley Campbell, played by British actress Remmie Milner, 35, who stars in A Christmas Carol, and organised by the reclusive engineering genius Martha Walker, played by Olivier Award-winning British actress Harriet Walter, 74, who stars in Killing Eve, Succession and Downton Abbey.

“What I love the most about Juliette [Ferguson], is that she doesn’t feel like a superhero. She’s just tough. She’s just going to keep going until she can’t go anymore, and she’s going to solve that problem even if it kills her. We see more of her humanity in this season, and that’s fun to write,” says Yost.

For Zahn, who also stars in The White Lotus and joined the cast of Silo in the second season, the beauty of relationships and trust was something he also experienced off-screen too.

“It’s unique to join a show after it’s already been established, and I thought it was an exceptional show. I was excited to be a part of it but very nervous about it too because Solo is a broad character. You want to be good, believable and interesting,” says Zahn.

“But for some reason, I think due to the writing and Rebecca [Ferguson], it was easier than I thought. People were cool, it was a great environment to work in, and that’s why the head of the snake is always really important, and that was Graham Yost and Rebecca Ferguson.

“Now if those guys don’t show up, and they don’t know their stuff, or they’re angry, testy or whatever, that’s what you get from the show. But Graham [Yost] is good at creating a cool family of really awesome human beings.”

Season two of Silo comes to Apple TV+ on, November 15

[writing-whump]

Could you write a story where Isaiah has a heart episode with Hector and/or Arnie as the caretaker/s?

Hello Nonny! I loved seeing this request, because this is exactly what needed to happen! Just had to get to this point in the story :3 But very very fitting!

Hiding from you

"We are not going."

Isaiah blinked, turning from the door. "Excuse me?"

Matthew shook off his suit jacket in a dramatic gesture. "I'm saying we are not going. You are in no state to go right now, so the evening is canceled. Simple as that."

Isaiah quietly stared in shock at the declaration. They were preparing for the wolf meet for the whole week. Seline was on a trip with her mom, so Matthew agreed to go. Their pack needed to show up as a pack on official social events, to be taken as such. It was time. They should do it.

Besides, Isaiah had a speech tonight and according to his information, Melissa, Matthew's oldest sister, was also supposed to be there. Isaiah planned on talking with her, and Matthew's presence or no presence wasn't going to stop him.

Matthew's eyebrows furrowed in face of Isaiah's silent resistence. "You look like crap. You are hiding it well, but I can tell you are a breath away from an episode. This is nonsense."

Isaiah carefully smoothed his expression of any emotion, a cold kind of certainly settling over him like second skin.

Matthew had been on a lookout since that fateful night, when he saw Isaiah getting sick from the heart pain. Isaiah knew he messed that up spectacularly, but he never dreamed of the consequences being this long-lasting.

Or that Matthew would get so good at reading the signs that Isaiah was training himself to ignore.

There was a bit of weakness for the last day or two, but he was just tired. His chest was tight, like it was turning to cement, too tense, and his breathing came short and difficult after just a bit of walking or stairs, but he probably just breathed wrong.

This wasn't an episode, this wasn't regular. It wasn't serious.

He wasn't even stressed about anything, there was no cause, so there could by no means be an episode. This was nonsense. He wasn't going to get sick for no apparent reason.

And not Matthew or anyone else, were going to make him. He had changed reality as it suited him many times before. He could do it again.

"Suit yourself. I'm going," Isaiah said resolutely.

He didn't raise his voice, but Matthew still flinched. "Fine. I can't convince you even for your own good? Whatever. But you are not going to make me watch."

Isaiah said nothing. Theathrics he knew well. No point in entertaining them.

"See you later," Isaiah said coldly. "Or not, I guess." It was difficult to close the door without slamming them. But he managed all the same.

...

Isaiah held the speech short.

He had talked with Seline about holding his audience's attention, changing the tone, gesticulating, making pauses at the right time. She watched her students, made notes about different professors and their techniques and had a whole lot of tips to explain and give him. There were so many styles to try.

Now Isaiah knew wolves didn't like speeches and lectures any more than humans did. Especially if he was about to talk about humanity and its advantages, what humans could do, were free to do, where wolves were not.

Talking about shadows as a burden and responsibility instead of a superpower, not entirely a curse, but closer to it, was not something many would agree with. Everyone wanted to think what they had was better. It was hard to go against what someone wanted to see.

But if a wolf with a powerful shadow talked about humans and their weakness as if it was a strength - their freedom to express emotion, their anger and joy not enhanced by their shadow, not having to hold back in what they felt couldn't be trusted not to sourced from an entity made entirely of their most primitive self-centered instincts. Humans had rules and control, selflessness and empathy, the need to belong and go with the flow and pressure, where wolves would think of themselves and only their pack.

Isaiah studied it and he wanted to embody it to the packs gathered at the event. He wanted them to realize the limitations of their shadows, the beauty of their human sides and the respect and jealousy in their contempt for humans.

But he cut it short, counting the uncomfortable silence as a reaction enough, before he stepped away from the toast. One step at a time.

The hall slowly went back to chit chat and quiet conversations as Isaiah drunk his glass of champagne, listening for reactions here and there.

"Most impressive speech, Mr Wolfson. One would almost believe you care about us humans." Melissa's hair was as red as her brother's, though long and tightly bound back from her face.

"Thank you," Isaiah said, pulling out one of his thoughtful smiles. Not too happy or large, but appreciative in a polite, gently genuine way.

He didn't like what a distinction she made between humans and wolves. Between herself and him.

"Though I'm disappointed. I thought we were already on the first-name basis with each other."

Melissa's nose wrinkled like he said something revolting. "You have expressed such wish, yes. Though I don't know why you think inviting my good for nothing brother into your pack makes me more inclined to agree. If anything, all the respect I had for you had been diminished by your choice."

Isaiah made a puzzled expression, eyebrows slightly raised. He let the smile stay put to not look unfriendly. "That is an awfully sad thing to say about your own family."

Melissa scoffed. "He is not family. He is a coincidenal blood related problem of my mother. A scary uncontrollable temperamental wolf that brought us or the world nothing of value."

Isaiah took a sip from his glass. "Hard judgment from someone who never bothered to get to know him. Or are these your mother's words that I'm hearing?"

Melissa's frown deepened, cheeks flushing. Isaiah smiled wider. He had seen this exact frown before he left. Puzzling, how similar it was.

Suggesting Melissa had no opinion of her own was a daring move. Maybe too sensitive. Not born a witch, the oldest daughter of the Blackwell pack had been undoubted haunted by that disappointment, just like she was with the amount of siblings until her mother had her youngest daughter - the long awaited, treasured and strictly protected little girl.

Marcella.

Ironically enough the only person in the family that gave Matthew any benefit of the doubt, despite the 10 years old age difference.

There was no win in humiliating the Blackwell's family hard-working doctor by proving her she was wrong.

"Come meet him," Isaiah suggested, feeling the right moment of shock took Melissa's words from her for a few seconds. "Come see for yourself what he is like. With a pack, goals, in process of getting a degree. Matthew just wants contact with his sister, is that so much to ask?"

Melissa's eyes glittered. "He just wants too meet her because she is a witch. That's all that's connecting them. There are enough wolves all over town who want to make that claim. On a 10 year old girl. Explain to me what a 20 something guy wants to do with a small child. Even if I could not mind his shadow," Melissa put her finger up in the air as Isaiah opened his mouth to protest, "I don't see why he would want that. They live in completely different worlds. Our mother has the right to decide if they should stay separate."

Isaiah watched her with gravity, pulse quickening. "Did you ask what she wants?"

"Childish and naive. She doesn't know what she wants. But if she still insists, she can meet him when she turns 18."

Isaiah raised one eyebrow at her. "You really believe she will have that much leeway...ever in her life?"

Melissa looked away, hurt flashing over her face. She took a deep breath, schooling her expression. He knew that move very well. "Have a good evening, Mr Wolfson."

He accepted the diamissal for what it was, nodding to her. His chest was tight, his heart running a mile a minute against his ribcage.

He felt light-headed with the pressure. Did he just make it better or did he make it worse? It seemed like a long road ahead of them. But he still thought Melissa was the most likely to become a connection to Marcella.

He stumbled, taking a deep breath. Time to get out of here, before he blacked out in front of all the packs in the giant city hall.

...

Hector struggled to keep the glass of champagne in his hand intact.

Speeches about humans being better than wolves!

As if they could even compare! Those weak little things, no shadows, no healing, no strength, no packs. They just had the power of numbers and years of research and technology. Otherwise wolves would be ruling. They certainly should.

Of course Isaiah had to be there, take all the attention for himself and then make big speeches complimenting humans right when Hector was there.

So now everyone wanted to know what he meant and if Hector thought the same thing, since he also went to a human university, and was it really necessary to wolves? Did it really have any value? Was it worth it being around crowds of ignorant humans, who didn't know how to act around them, how to respect them? Protecting themselves with their measly laws made from fear?

Hector was scoffing and denying and grunting the whole evening, his shadow trembling with anger. Such nonsense. He liked the school and he liked the city, but for Shadow's sake, such talks of humans having more free lives than wolves...

He had never thought about it like that. When did Isaiah even come up with such nonsense? Certainly not from their Father. Father valued strong shadows and strong wolves, and witches who knew what they were doing. Humans weren't even worthwhile to consider enemies.

Maybe they should have a talk about it. Or maybe not. Hector wasn't sure he wanted to put himself through the painful confusion that was talking with his big brother about anything.

Where did Isaiah even go? It was like he suddenly disappeared from the hall.

Hector looked around, trying not to look too suspicious. All directions were clear. His second or his witch didn't show up. Lame. Very lame.

He found Isaiah at the balcony at the side with the view of the parking lot that led into the gardens. The most boring view on the lowest of the floors. It was empty because of that.

Isaiah stood there, gripping the railings, eyes focused into the distance. Like he was hypnotising something.

Hector considered just leaving him there, but couldn't resist a snarky comment. "If I had a speech that embarassing, I would be hiding here too."

Isaiah stiffened, a slight wince to his left shoulder. "Ah. Really? I thought it was rather good."

Hector rolled his eyes, stepping closer. "So very humble of you. It was totally lame. I can't believe we share a last name. Now everyone will think I'm the same sentimental fool you are. Which doesn't make sense, since you don't even have stupid humans in your own pack."

Isaiah chuckled dryly, voice quiet. "I have a human brother."

Hector winced at that. Yeah. Arnie was his brother too. He had somehow never counted as human or stupid or lame to Hector. Completely objective opinion.

"You focus too much on being a good wolf that you oversee your human possibilities," Isaiah said breathily. His voice went even quiter than before.

Now that Hector thought about it, there was something off about Isaiah's breathing pattern. It was too fast, too choked.

Hector leaned his elbows on the railing, trying to get a glimpse at Isaiah's face without looking like he was. Was he drunk? Poisoned? What the hell?

"Shouldn't you...go inside?" Isaiah asked suddenly, his voice weirdly amused. Too amused. Too happy. "Don't want to be caught with such an embarassment of a brother, do you?"

Hector bit his lip. Maybe he shouldn't have said that when things were still so fragile between them. Plus something about Isaiah's tone really bothered him.

"Don't tell me what to- Isaiah?"

Isaiah swayed, like literally tilted to the side, despite his grip on the railing. His knees buckled and he lowered himself to the ground like he couldn't stand anymore.

Hector's eyes went wide and he stared in a horrified frozen silence for a few seconds at Isaiah sitting on the ground.

His head was bowed, black hair falling into his face, but Hector could now see his hands were trembling, and that his breaths came more like short little gasps.

Isaiah tried to laugh, then broke himself off with a wince. "Look at that. You said my name. Haven't heard you...say it....for a long time."

Hector knelt down opposite Isaiah, still in shock. "Ehhh, what the- what's wrong with you?"

Isaiah waved a hand dismissively, but the movement was shaky and his arm made a weird wincing stop and turned towards his chest, turning sharply away barely from touching it.

Hector followed the gesture. "Something is wrong." He swallowed, feeling out of place, looking around, half-expecting the moon to blow up or the stars to fall from the sky.

This just didn't happen. Isaiah didn't get hurt and he didn't get sick and he didn't fall to the floor and make gasping noises like he couldn't breathe.

"Go back. It's fine," Isaiah wheezed.

Hector finally caught a glimpsed at his face under his bangs. Isaiah was glistening with sweat and his eyes were bloodshot with such obvious pain Hector's whole body shivered with it in resonance. He felt his shadow wiggle and growl.

"What the hell is going on with you? Where is your shadow? Heal yourself!" Hector whisper-yelled, the realization suddenly downing at him.

There were in the middle of a fucking wolf meet.

Every powerful pack had a representative here and Isaiah was a powerful wolf, a famous wolf. Seeing him like this, they would tear him to pieces.

An icy inkling of panic ran down Hector's back. He shuffled to Isaiah, wrapping a hand around his middle and hurriedly hoisting him up. "Get up, we are leaving."

Isaiah swayed in his hold like he was drunk, legs barely holding under him. Hector took most of his weight, dragging them both towards the stairs. Better get out here than through the main entrance.

"Where...where are we going?" Isaiah slurred as Hector helped him down the stairs awkwardly, half-huggung Isaiah to his side.

"Back to your place, I presume. You need help. Where the hell is your stupid pack when you need them?"

"Huh," Isaiah chuckled, that too amused off scary sound Hector was starting to hate very much. "You don't need to bother either. Shouldn't see you with me...when I'm like this. It could be embarrassing."

"Shut the hell up," Hector snapped, ducking under the balcony and towards the parking lot. He hated he had said it at all, gloom gathering in the pit of his stomach. Isaiah never sounded so hurt and so in denial and amused about it at the same time. Like his mask and his pain blended together, letting him see for the first time how much of it there was.

"Just tell me what's wrong. Are you hurt? Silver? Poison? What is this?!"

Isaiah coughed a little, going more limp in Hector's hold with each step. "Look at that. He cares."

Hector flushed, voice jumping up. "Of fucking course I fucking care if you die-"

Isaiah suddenly stopped, freezing in place. A full bodied shiver ran through him, so Hector stopped as well. "Isaiah?"

Isaiah swallowed heavily, then leaned forward with a wheezing cough that wracked his frame all over.

Hector put a hand to his chest to hold him steady, afraid of Isaiah falling forward, when the coughing turned into gags.

Hector flinched, hearing liquid gurgle up Isaiah's throat as he vomited up yellow tinged champagne and some chunks of ham and olives right in front of them. The puke splattered against their shoes.

Hector almost jumped away in disgust, but Isaiah moaned quietly, which stopped him in his tracks. He went back to holding him up, one arm around Isaiah's back and the other against his chest as Isaiah shivered again and heaved up more vomit.

When the gagging tempered off, Hector grabbed Isaiah's arm to wrap it around his neck. "Just a few steps to the car and you can sit down," Hector managed to say, feeling completely lost and incompetent in face of such sickness.

Isaiah wheezed and wheezed beside him, hand going to his left side of the chest openly this time. He dug his fingers into the suit and white shirt under it, face contorted in pain.

Hector opened his car, settling Isaiah into the passenger seat and crouched down next to him. Lost and terrified out of his mind. This wasn't normal.

Isaiah sat with his legs still out the car, but leaned against the seats, both hands massaging his chest. There was a permanent painful frown on him how that he wasn't trying to hide.

"Your...car?" Isaiah breathed brokenly.

"Yeah. I don't know where yours is and I don't care."

"Will get...sick on the way."

"I don't care," Hector repeated. "Just tell me what do I fucking do? Please?"

Isaiah's unfocused eyes narrowed at the question, looking for Hector's gaze. "I'm fine. This is nothing. Shhhhh."

Hector balled his hands into fists, realizing he wasn't getting an answer. Even out of breath and in pain, his brother wouldn't tell him anything that mattered.

Accepting the anger about this wouldn't help anything, Hector got up, moving Isaiah's legs, one by one into the car and circling around to the driver's seat.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, Hector burying his face in his hands, while Isaiah wheezed and coughed, hands againd this heart. Hector couldn't smell blood or see any injuries, but he could tell that was the source. Whatever it was.

"Hospital? Clinic? What's with your shadow?" He was aware there was a ting of panic in his voice, but couldn't fight it.

Isaiah shook his head, wincing. "There is no help with this. No shadow. It will go away on its own."

Hector watched him with wide horrified eyes, feeling nausea rise in his throat at the very idea of a problem like that. What could possibly be so incurable, so unsolvable? What was this thing?

"Drive me home? That...would help."

"I will." Hector wanted to touch him, comfort him, help him somehow. His shadow was shaking, all but weiling inside him, but he didn't let it out. There would be enough time for that later.

Hector started the car, his eyes burning with helplessness, when he felt a weight on his shoulder.

Isaiah leaned his forehead against it, breathing in those short little bursts, but his face relaxed a tiny bit. "Sorry. Just let me stay like this...for a second?"

Hector's shoulders slumped as he turned his head to lean against Isaiah's sweaty wheezing form with his cheek. He held his breath.

This was the closest they were together in years and he hated that pain was the reason.

"Yeah," Hector whispered back.

@bellysoupset

[maxwell-grant]

Thoughts on Lupin: Part 3

Covered my thoughts on seasons 1 and 2 already and I just finished season 3 so I'm gonna write about it here. Bottom line: HahahahaHA this show rules so much man.

Everything that was strong about the prior seasons is still there if not better, and they patched up several things I otherwise disliked about it. Also god I missed the mark big time by watching the prior seasons with the English dub for some reason, no wonder I didn't like most of the characters when they all sounded like they were sleepwalking. Just, watch with the French audio, don't be an idiot like me.

I actually like Assane's family now? Maybe that's because of the dub thing letting me see the actual performances, but there seemed to be a lot more effort this season to make us care about Claire and Raoul's own struggles and the really bad things they have to deal with because of Assane and how they deal with them. There's an extent to which these characters exist because otherwise Assane would suffer no consequences and no caveats to just doing whatever he wants, a.k.a the cool Lupin stuff we signed up for but can't be too over-indulged in, and that made them feel more like roadblocks than people, but to me this time they actually feel more like people, and people who can have their own things going on or even get involved in the good stuff without compromising their importance, and those consequences thus actually matter more.

God I can't believe how great the disguises were this season and how many there were. Again, definitely feels like they had to refine the process in the first two seasons so we can have this one with Assane actually going the nine yards with multiple overlapping fake personas and disguises per episode. Omar is masterful in all of them and the show seems so confident that it even lets Ben, Guedira and Claire dip their toes in the action a bit. I was actually really impressed by Coach Alex, even though he does look a bit uncanny and a little A.I-ish. I could still buy that as a real person.

It's doing this thing I really like that The Shadow does, where the character has a lot of different methods by which he achieves his disguises ranging from high-tech/borderline fantasy to very simple DIY tools, but the process featured is obscured enough that you can never fully tell which is being used, and so the character can have this borderline superpower still grounded enough to not look like one.

I actually didn't mind the villain this time around. There's a nice progression of putting Assane against an invisible and seemingly invincible shadowy gang forcing him to do their bidding (which lets them do the heist-of-the-week format without compromising the larger plot), that turns out to be just one horrible man from his past armed with henchmen and a grudge, which means he gets to be developed and taken out within the season without much delay and without Assane having to make stupid out-of-character blunders to let him escape to menace another day (which was a problem I had with Pelligrini). I like that Keller gets to be legitimately scary as a threat to Assane's loved ones, but is also undone by being a stupid piece of shit who only knows how to abuse and manipulate children until they all turn on him, and once he and Assane are on even ground he goes out like a chump.

Putting Pellegrini completely out of sight and saving him for the final twist where he's been pulling a Kingpin in prison with god knows what consequences even warmed me up to him as a villain, if nothing else because, okay, a Lupin worth his name needs a Cagliostro menace, and the ending twist isn't even about him so much as it's about the betrayal of someone Assane confided in.

And unfortunately that ending twist is good enough that it would be awful if any of those three turned out to be the backstabbers and there's equal arguments for being any of them (I don't think it's going to be Pellegrini's daughter precisely because she's the most predictable, I don't think they'd do the Countess of Cagliostro that 1-to-1)

(Art is from the cover of Lupin: Échec à la reine, which is a prequel novel focused on Benjamin. I don't think it's been translated to English but it got published in Brazil.)

Look, it's good drama, yes, we need stakes to keep this going, yes, but BEN NOOOOO, GODDAMNIT ASSANE

Unfortunately I can't fault Assane that much despite the fact that he barely knew his mom. There was no good option there, Ben would have fumbled it if he was even a little on the plan, and I'm not sure if he later realized why Assane did it or if he didn't realize at all, I mean the ending twist sets him up as one of the potential backstabbers and it's gonna be really fucking heartbreaking if so, but...man, I don't fault the way everyone reacted to that episode, but I can't get that mad at Assane for what he did.

The heist he did with his mom at the prime minister's mansion complete with jetski escape added another 10 years to our lifespan. Utterly delightful. I love this show so much.

I was a bit iffy on how the prior seasons approached the existence of Arsene Lupin books in-text and I'm still a little mixed on it. However, the sheer reverence and omnipresent popularity of Arsene Lupin the character actually isn't even that unrealistic to the character's real life popularity in France or elsewhere, or how much the show has done to refuel said popularity. I mean, hell, I and others got to see it firsthand Lupin being the talk of the town non-stop. It still takes me a little out of the show, but it's far from a dealbreaker.

Major major leg that this thing has above so many other contemporary reboots/adaptations is that this is FUN, Lupin in general should always get to be fun and more than a little stupid sometimes, and this gets it. This thing delights in carrying us through every step of the process by which the main character does his impressive things, laying out all the components in plain sight and putting them together and even letting you feel smart for realizing how it's coming together and still being surprised when it does.

This is the show that Sherlock wishes it was, because of course Lupin can't make a comeback without putting one over his good old rival Sholmes.

The show was always strong, I think, but every season so far's just been refining things and making all of it's strengths better. It's so so good and I hope it keeps going, this thing does crazy numbers every season, I just never see it talked about much in English circles. I'm glad it's been going strong the way it has. Assane has become one of my favorite protagonists in anything and I might even watch the show again soon.

Still unbelievably good and has only gotten better from what was already a very strong start.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

So it’s 5am and I currently can barely read but I thought I’d share my thoughts on Adrien as someone who hates him for who he is but also because of the writers (apologies if this ends up incoherent).

So this guy is rich, 14, and has family issues. I don’t want to put too much spoilers (idk the rules if I can) he grew up in Paris with a supposedly loving family that was overprotective and homeschooled him and only let him have two friends. One year before canon, his “mom” disappeared and his life changed to having no mom and an overprotective yet neglectful (at best, at worst abusive) father. NOW WITH ALL THIS IN MIND- people will defend any and every poor action he has ever made between three options: he’s only fourteen/a kid, he doesn’t know better, or he’s hurting (but stans won’t give the same leniency to the main character who is also fourteen, might not know better, and is hurting)

While these are fine explanations, let’s go over some of things he’s done in canon (or slightly off-canon for tv specials): attempted to kill multiple people for poor reasons, did kill someone (accidentally) because he wasn’t focused on a fight after being (rightfully) called out for a major error (leaving his city unprotected and not even trying to inform the main character who also had to leave but at least had counter measures and informed him), shamelessly continued flirting and harassing the female lead/main character despite multiple instances where after she realized he was serious/in love with her and told him to stop/that she loved someone else/or that she didn’t like him doing that, destroyed property multiple times intentionally due to emotional reasons without remorse, abandoned his duty multiple times either by not helping to fight villains for petty reasons (main character got additional to help beat the villain, couldn’t tell him a secret that wasn’t hers to share, main character didn’t reciprocate his feelings or bend over backwards to tend to his needs) or completely gave up/or threaten to give up his duty (if I remember correctly four times), manipulate the main character both in and out of the suit, side with bullies and victim blame because either they were his friend and didn’t know better or they just wanted friends and he didn’t want them to be hurt/cause more work for the heroes, leave his ring that gave him his superpower in a place during one of his quits in a place where nobody might have found it or anybody could have just picked it up (despite it giving him the power to destroy anything and one half of a pair that could completely alter reality if used together), almost never gets lasting consequences, and is almost always depicted as perfect or correct, EVEN WHEN HES NOT.

I could go on but I think I may have overdone it.

In his defense, or rather in the offense of the writing staff, the creator of the show not only has ruined many characters over the years of the show for a variety of poor writing decisions, but he deemed Adrien perfect as he was and didn’t need to change so from the very beginning this boy was doomed to fail in my opinion rather than fall from grace like other characters. So while I may dislike the character, I understand that people might go to fanon stuff instead of write him better than the creators ever did. Still doesn’t mean I like him or ever want to read about him (especially positively or involved with the female lead) ever again.

wait the miraculouses are killing people???

[editoress]

@hooded-and-cloaked said: I’ve never read any SJM books, but aside from the plagiarism, can you elaborate on the writing crutches that you’ve also seen in other books (for my edification. I haven’t written in years, but maybe I will again)?

For sure!

Perhaps the broadest and most egregious thing I keep encountering is super special omnipotent characters. SJM loves to heap on unlikely inheritances, never-before-seen powers, connections to gods, etc., onto the same person. I think there's real fun to be had with overpowered characters, but in her writing, it's purely a bestowing of authorial favor. And it's EVERY time. The protagonist gets the most powers and advantages; secondary characters get less but still have insane, impossible gifts compared to most people in the world; and if any of the heroes misbehave, they lose what makes them special as a consequence.

The reason I call this a crutch and not just an annoyance is because her characters aren't very strong—you know, writing wise. They act inconsistently, and she has no sense of nuance or moral gray area when writing their decisions. Sooo I'm not sure whether giving them super-special-awesome powers is shorthand to let the reader know who to like (e.g. the protag has seven magic powers, therefore she is the coolest, therefore she should be liked the most)? Or if it's an attempt to make the characters more interesting, or what? But it's tiring and unnecessary. The truth is that if you hand me a well-written character, whether they're a scruffy nobody or have godlike powers, I'll like them!

Related to the superpowers is the way the stakes of the story make insane jumps and become impersonal. In short, her plots aren't very good. Later villains are one-note, moustache-twirling forces of evil who are going to destroy the entire world for no reason unless the heroes stop them. Basically, SJM uses the highest stakes imaginable (world blows up, etc.) in lieu of planning out a plot with any intrigue or complexity.

A lot of new authors have bought into the idea of a Force of Evil rather than a villain, some nebulous badness that must be defeated. And to me, that's lazy writing. Come up with an interesting reason for someone to oppose your heroes! Give me a villain and a plot!

Anyway, to accomplish these stakes half the time, she has to retcon everything. It's another side effect of her not planning out her world or her story: she finds herself stuck in a corner, having to make something up. (It's also a side effect of her work no longer being edited.) This is absolutely a crutch, and she leans all her weight on it. She presents things that contradict earlier writing in order to achieve:

more powers bestowed upon the protagonist (Even though we know her heritage already, she is ALSO related to ANOTHER magical being!)

an even bigger bad force (I know we said the last guy was the only one who could use the demon powers, but now there's another one who is somehow worse!)

moving characters from the Good to Bad category or vise versa (Actually he never did that bad thing earlier! He's never done anything wrong in his life!)

I see a lot of that last bullet point especially in other books. Rather than character development, some authors spring for explaining away a character's crimes. Hastily wiping clean the slate rather than letting a story work through anything. Boooooo.

Retconning is straight up awful writing and I'm tired of seeing it. It's so much fun to create a world and rules within it, and then make characters work within those limits! Breaking those rules very occasionally can be such a great dramatic hit. But constantly? No. Stop lying to me in every book. >:[

Last but not least, SJM needed a way for all of her female characters to be sad and frightened and undeniably damaged, and it's rape trauma. Around every figurative corner is another woman with PTSD from rape. It's a shortcut to get the audience's sympathy and show you that a character is a broken woman who needs love. But please note that several of her male characters have also been raped, and that's just kind of :/ and never brought up again. And while some authors have written characters with rape trauma and done it well, many have not. At all.

So yeah, I wish new authors wouldn't copy the class clown's homework.

[emailscripterr]

-----💌 You got Mail 💌-----

One of my favorite things to do art-wise is character design. Thus, I decided to create a “prompt list” for myself with the hopes that I will actually complete it for once. I essentially just asked ChatGTP to give me a bunch of character attributes (Species, aesthetic, superpower, etc.) to create a prompt I could use as inspiration for a possible character. I did 12 of them, so the goal is to make a character roughly each month. I figured that fewer prompts over a longer period of time would reduce the possibility of me getting overwhelmed or losing motivation. We’ll have to see how that goes lol.

This challenge is VERY loose and open-ended. I wanted prompts that gave me a unique starting point and challenged my artistic abilities but also allowed me to experiment with different ideas and make mistakes at the same time. The prompts are there to guide me, but I’m not confining myself to the “rules” of each one. If I get a cool idea or something isn’t working I’m giving myself the ability to change whatever I want without judgement or consequences. I find that trying to force ideas when they just aren’t working is one of the biggest reasons I tend to give up on these challenges, so I’m curious to see how abandoning that perfectionist mindset can help me expand my creativity. 

I mainly posted this challenge to showcase my process, but if anyone out there wants to try and give it a crack, by all means, go ahead! I’d love to see what other ideas people come up with, but absolutely no pressure. I hope that whatever dumb stuff I manage to pull out of my brain with this is entertaining for you to watch regardless. 

With that being said, I will do my darn best to stay updated with this challenge. I already have some fun ideas and I’m super excited to play around with them and see what I can make. At the end of the day, I just hope I have fun with it and can create something memorable. Will I actually be able to pull this one off? Guess you’ll have to stay tuned and find out. Stay tuned!

XOXO

-Email

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Prompt #1: The Starcatcher 🌟🪐💫

“Tall, ethereal figure with glowing freckles resembling constellations, flowing silver hair, and a diaphanous gown that shimmers like the night sky.” 

Gender: Female (She/Her)

Species: Celestial BeingAesthetic: Cosmic, dreamy & futuristic

Personality: Wise, enigmatic & nurturingSkill/Power: Can harness energy from starlight to heal and guide others, and can open portals to celestial realmsCreature Companion: A small, luminous starbird that flickers like a firefly

Color Pallete (Optional): Pink, purple, blue, teal, & mint green 

[finitevoid]

like you have to understand. ed is the normal human wife. hes lois lane. iris west. linda park. hes the grounded foil to bart's elevated intensity. This is important in flash comics because of how their powers work: they become so disconnected from reality that staying is more difficult than leaving, and the only remedy for this is a lightning rod-- i.e. a connection and intimacy with a person who isnt connected to the speedforce, thus making them, by definition, the speedsters anchor to reality. if this person isnt in the speedforce, then the speedster sure as fuck cant leave-- at least, not without leaving this person, too. flash comics have a long history with characters like this-- joan garrick is the classic, quintessential The Girl You Leave Behind To Go Fight In The War. jay was probably petting polaroids of her in the literal trenches. iris west is the 70s career woman-- she works and shes good at it and thats what she does. shes independent, but chooses to settle down of her own volition (shocking). linda park is very 90s comics, rocking the boat. for one, she isnt white, for two, shes the breadwinner. wally consistently gets himself into shit in his real life and linda is consistently the one dragging him out of it. they have this very intense back-and-forth at first, where wallys chauvinistic tendencies grind RIGHT up linda's second-wave feminism. but despite all this, these characters all get subsumed into the wider Speedster's Wife trope. like all things, a good writer wont mishandle the sheer breadth of possibility with any of them, but a bad writer most certainly will. and generally, they dont really exist outside of flash solos unless linda is showing up to corral her kids at the end of the world during final crisis, or something

but the importance of this character cannot be understated. not only in the literal sense of the superpowers, but also in that the comics NEED a grounded foil to it all. superheroes are meant to be this power fantasy, yeah, but for the most part, the average comics reader has more in common with iris west than they do barry allen. while the flash is off running through space and time, linda is writing her thesis. good writers will understand that these characters are just as, if not more, important than the actual superhero themselves. its why every solo ever has the superhero having a thousand civvie friends, or, often in the case of older characters, a civvie spouse. so in hh, ed is waltzing not only into the position of lightning rod in a literal, in-universe way, thus dragging him into this insane subculture, hes also slotting himself into the metatext of this decades (decades) old trope. and MY intention for leaning into this, is the sheer possibility for subversion. i have 2 rules for ed as a love interest, ones that if I ever break, hh will be an actual failure of a project:

ed will always have a life, thoughts, and wants that exist outside of his position as love interest

ed can never, ever, ever become a superhero

the reason for the first one is obvious-- its a common pitfall of "love interests" as a literary device, particularly outside of romance as a genre. a character being presented as more of a prize than a person, something for the hero to attain and then own. its just not an accurate portrayal of how a relationship works, and i really intensely dislike it. also I like ed and i want to explore him and his psyche, its fun and enjoyable. but whats actually more important than either of those is that this is VITAL to portray him as grounded in reality. "love interests" who are a prize to be won dont feel real; they're larger than life, in the same way that mythological heroes themselves are. nobody is actually like that, and consequently theres very little room for empathy with that character. and that is NOT what the Speedster's Wife does. ed needs to be normal, but more than normal, he needs to be real. he needs to feel, as much as i can possibly make him, like a real college student.

bart exists as this larger than life figure-- literally. i liken him, frequently, to thespianism. not only about his powers, but literally, the base of his personality that I explore in hh. he wears masks and personas to divert and deceive and confuse. ed, as the closest thing it has to a second protagonist, needs to be honest and upfront and blunt. ed's scenes take place in mundanity: at work, at school, driving, doing chores, hanging out with friends, at parties. bart's scenes take place in fantasy: sci-fi superhero bases, on violent missions, in space, outside of reality. ed is the point of reference. hes the axis of familiarity. his presence makes the characters around him feel more real, too. his flaws play of their flaws and his strengths play off theirs.

ed can never become a superhero because it would completely uproot this. it would completely muddy my carefully laid arc about a kid thrown into a peer counselor/management position to a bunch of traumatized teens barely younger than him. yj as a show likes for its characters to be a million things-- saving the world as superheroes and as civilians. but i think theres a quiet strength in the civilian characters in worlds like the dcu; what does normal life look like in a world where aliens invade like every 2 weeks, sometimes the multiverse breaks and almost ends the world, and people with unimaginable power want to use that power to enact grand, public violence? how does that work? ultimately, the jla, and the team (and the titans and the outsiders and the suicide squad and young justice) are all just a very, very intense, very, very vocal minority in a world thats otherwise populated by people just like our own.

civilian characters have always been one of my absolute favorite parts of superhero comics. i think the intersections between the mundane and fantastical (can be) really encapsulated by a relationship between a superhero and a civilian, and especially when that civilian is given the room to have their own life that they explore on their own terms, and how the wild nature of the world they live in interacts with their attempts to pursue their own dreams and life. the civilian is important because without them, superheroes dont exist. its the backdrop to every comic book ever.

Anyway. I wrote all of this because i think it would be really good for hummingbird heartbeat's sequel to open with a scene where ed, having been bullied into getting a drivers license by his father, drives his dads car into a supervillain that bart's losing a fight to, mid-monologue

[fern717]

i know the person who made the above post had good intentions, but the statement they are making here is a harmful one and i want to talk about why that is.

first of all, “neurodivergent” describes anyone who’s brain develops differently from what is considered the norm. this includes not only autistic people and people with adhd, but people with ocd, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and other conditions. the things that are being called “superpowers” in the above tweet are typically brought up when discussing specifically autism and adhd. using the term “neurodivergency” here reinforces the idea that autism and adhd is all that neurodivergence is. 

now, onto the part that caused me the most irritation: describing traits shown in autistic people and people with adhd as “superpowers.”

earlier today i was in pain because my mom was putting the plates away and the sounds they were making when they touched each other hurt. i can get so overwhelmed in loud places or around large groups of people that i struggle to speak. when i focus too much on the textures of certain foods, i feel sickish. those things are not superpowers. they are all simply things that i have to deal with because i am more sensitive to sensory inputs because of the way my brain is wired.

my sensitivity to sensory inputs also has benefits. i appreciate comfy blankets and nice smells more because i can feel them with more intensity than others. since my senses are heightened, not only is my discomfort from certain sensory inputs heightened, but my appreciation and enjoyment from others is as well!

my deep focus on my interests (among other social difficulties) led to me being a target for bullying for a large portion of my time at school. people found me annoying because i was so enthusiastic about the things i loved, so they would pretend to want to be my friend or to be interested in the things i liked as a joke to amuse their real friends. it was funny to them because they found the idea of someone actually wanting to talk to or spend time with me to be ridiculous. eventually, i began to agree with them. even now, there are times when i still struggle to understand why anyone would want to spend time engaging with me. my self esteem is incredibly low. eventually i learned to not express enthusiasm about or excitement for things that i liked while at school.

my deep focus on my interests also has benefits. when i get really into a piece of media, i often create characters based around it, which helps foster my creativity. my parents often ask me questions about pokémon when they’re playing pokémon go because i was really into pokémon when i was younger and, as such, know a lot about the characters and rules and am able to help them with the game. if it wasn’t for the intense interest i had in homestuck back in 2019, i wouldn’t have met my best friend of four (going on five) years! my intense interest in certain topics has had some negatives consequences, but it has had many positive ones as well.

it’s irritating and hurtful to see people treat autistic people and people with adhd like we’re going through such tragedy because of the struggles that we face due to the way we function. however, putting us on a pedestal and acting as if we’re so impressive and strong due to the benefits our neurodivergence gives us just puts unfair expectations on us and minimizes the difficulties we face. everyone has strengths and difficulties, but when the person who has them is neurodivergent, it seems that neurotypical people don’t know how to acknowledge them in a manner that isn’t over-the-top in one way or another. that gets really tiring. 

[dj-yukio]

You know, while I was plotting for the no terastalization au (currently naming it A Treasure of My Own), it just really occurred to me how much of a good word Nemona must have put in for us to even receive the Tera Orb, and also I don't consider these spoilers because this is just the introduction as to the game's new gimmick which everyone knows about

Because like think about it, we're a new, first year student at the academy. Nemona mentions that we would usually need classes on how to use that, but somehow she managed to convince the person giving out tera orbs, likely a teacher, to give her one

To recall, we are literally a nobody in this school. The school has no previous records on our behavior, and unless Paldea is behind on the news there have been evil organizations before using some really effed up version of the region's superpower. By all accounts, Tera Orbs probably are regulated heavily by the League, no one wants some evil person ruling the world. In fact, you see this regularly, the only way you can recharge the Tera Orb is at Pokemon centres, most students don't have Tera Orbs, or if they do than they're not applying themselves

And as much as I would love for Nemona to have just straight up stolen the Tera Orb due to her need for us to get it, she doesn't seem to be the kind to do that, what with her being head of the student council and all, and I want to believe that all the staff in the academy happen to be competent at their jobs and wouldn't just give in to a student asking for something that probably has a lot of legal consequences for their damn job

Of course, it's possible that she just asked Geeta for one and then took the flying taxi to school to meet us, but that just seems unlikely, because Geeta probably has no reason to believe that we will indeed become her rival, at least not until we beat a few gyms, and Nemona is still a teenager out for blood, there is no clue as to what the actual reality is compared to her intention-blinded story, for all Geeta knows we're being forced into this. I mean it's possible Geeta just decided to humour her also but once again, if you're the chairwoman that's just irresponsible because another thing is we never get the Tera Orb lessons? Like we have math biology art history but no tera orb lessons, we don't even know how these things work on a scientific level other than throw orb POWER recharge orb start cycle again

At this point like girl must have been on her knees, begging the teacher for the Tera orb, and probably had to get it on writing that she'll be responsible if we used it for illegal purposes or something

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

How do you respond to people who say Batman is just a rich guy who beats up poor people? Not to take it too seriously, I’m wondering if my love for him is blinding me to parts of him that are problematic. Because I don’t see him that way?

Oh sure, I guess I should begin by saying that I don't think you're being blinded to anything. I'll divide my thoughts into two sections here: out of universe and in-universe.

To start, I really can't stress enough that we're talking about a fictional character in a genre that requires considerable suspension of belief.

Batman comic books ask me to accept a world where there are superpowered folks that shoot lasers out of their eyes, an entire universe of inhabited planets and sentient aliens, underwater cultures, and technology far past my current reality. I'm also supposed to accept this improbable, human guy who runs around rooftops in a cape fighting crime.

He's supposed to be one of the best fighters in the galaxy, and he's a master escape artist, and he's the World's Greatest DetectiveTM, and he can hold his breath obscene amounts of time, and he has near-perfect aim, and he can operate any vehicle you can think of, and he's dizzyingly intelligent, and he's unimaginably rich, and all the most powerful people in the universe are his best friends or his worst enemies, but either way they're obsessed with him.

Ah, what a realistic man.

Here's the thing, anon. I really think that any argument that asks you to apply, I don't know, real-world consequences? To Batman is either made in bad faith or missing a pretty necessary piece of framing. Take what I would consider the obvious example: doesn't Batman use child soldiers?

Well, yeah. He's had roughly 2,086,917 sidekicks, several of whom have met gristly, if impermanent, ends. Whether they survive or not, those kids all sustain significant mental and physical damage. If Batman were a real person, I would personally skin him alive for child endangerment. Luckily for me, he isn't a real person-- he's a comic book character in a universe where minor sidekicks are a normal part of the fiction.

Why? Out of universe, Robin exists to give child readers a character to identify with and root for. It expands the potential audience, which means more sales, which means more money. It opens up all kinds of interesting narrative angles. It's also a twist on the Watsonian figure in traditional detective fiction, which is one of the genres Batman came out of.

In the same way that we're supposed to accept that Bruce can do Batman stuff for something like 15 years, surviving the whole time and maintaining a secret identity, we're asked as an audience to agree that in this universe, a child could do the same, and it might be the right thing to let them. Maybe the child in question is already a talented athlete. Maybe the kid can read body language so well that they're near-unbeatable. Maybe this ten year old is so well-trained it's actually not that big of a deal.

In real life? Unequivocally immoral. But that's comics, baby! That's the rules of the fiction. Child sidekick? Fine. Vigilantism? It’s chill, and if the government or anyone else tries to shut it down, they're the villains. Ethical billionaires? Possible, and Bruce Wayne is one of them. 

Let me briefly flash my politics here, just so we’re all on the same page: I think that in real life, it’s inherently unethical to hoard wealth. I don’t care for rich folks or capitalism, and I have a lot to say on the subject, though I don’t intend to say it on this particular blog. If Bruce Wayne were a real person, I would want him to give away almost all of his money as fast as possible. 

Why is Bruce a billionaire? Out of universe, we’re creating a character that can fight crime without institutional support. He isn’t government, and the money has to come from somewhere, so maybe the best way to justify it is independent wealth. We want the aesthetic of opulent corruption (keep this word in mind)-- balls and champagne and luxury cars-- and our hero slips away from it, into the night where he belongs. 

We’re designing a character who everybody knows and recognizes, and he’s American, and our celebrities are the rich. We want him to be, and to have been from birth, one of the most important people in the setting he inhabits, because we need that for a dozen different plot points. 

So Bruce Wayne is rich. Why does he get to be a vigilante? Out of universe, we’re writing a response to the institutional corruption in law enforcement and the judicial system-- we’ve got a dark city full of people that the police aren’t helping, and we’re creating something to save them that isn’t the police. He’s going to appear from the shadows and protect folks in the way that he wasn’t protected. 

As a recap, Batman is a fictional character in a fantasy universe, and there are narrative reasons for him to be (1) rich and (2) a vigilante that beats folks up. I’d invite you to think of those qualities primarily as creative decisions made to tell a specific story-- a dark knight protecting a city that corrupt powers abandoned. I would also invite you to consider as context the time period (1939, the beginning of WWII) and the folks that created Batman (Bill Finger and Bob Kane, two Jewish men), and why they might be invested in telling that story. 

All of that is my out of universe answer to your question, and I do actually think it’s the more important one, because Bruce isn’t a real person. I’ll be brief with my in-universe answer. 

Within the fiction of the DC universe, Bruce spends a lot of time and resources on aid and reform that doesn’t involve punching folks. I’m sure you can find comprehensive lists of this stuff, so I won’t go on another research spree to pull panels. 

Off the top of my head, he has progressive hiring practices, then pays tuition for employees and their families. He canonically donates far more money than I’ve ever seen a real billionaire give, to the point where he’s almost singlehandedly funding most aid operating in at least Gotham, if not a bigger chunk of the country. He’s proactive about creating community resources and personally involved in city development. He’s outspoken to other one percenters and politicians about his beliefs and projects. He’s also behind anything monetary the JLA puts out, which I have to assume means his international impact is pretty big. 

How ever you come down on the ethics of vigilantism, Bruce is not just beating folks up. He seems to canonically understand and acknowledge addiction, institutionalized discrimination, and socioeconomic privilege. 

On a larger scale, I would argue that Bruce is canonically driven by compassion and the desire to protect folks, and characterizing him primarily as violent sort of misses the point. As I say that, though, I have to acknowledge a feature of comic books as media: there’s canon that’s “out of character.” 

I can’t get around the fact that there are very much real Batman stories that portray Bruce as violent for the sake of being violent, as well as all kinds of cruel. I think of them as the temporary runs of writers who just don’t get it, but they’re canon too, and we may reach a point sometime in the future where those stories outnumber what I think of as “good” Batman characterization. If we get there, I guess I’ll reevaluate. 

Until then, here’s a tl;dr

Batman is a fictional character that exists in a fantasy universe. The rules of that universe aren’t the same as ours, and many things that would be immoral in our universe are features of his. We as the readers are asked to suspend disbelief and accept the framing of the fiction. 

Bill Finger and Bob Kane, two Jewish men, created Batman at the beginning of WWII to tell a specific story that’s sort of fundamentally about vigilantism-- about protecting a community that institutions aren’t protecting. 

There are narrative reasons to make Bruce wealthy. 

Within his own story, Bruce is socially aware and active. He does give away a lot of his money, and he does use his wealth to help folks just as much as he uses vigilantism. 

Yes, there are stories were Batman comes across very badly, and it’s possible to look at those and think, “wow, am I rooting for the wrong person?” Unfortunately, that’s a function of the medium. Batman comics are contradictory because they’ve been written by hundreds of different people with varying levels of skill and character knowledge, and any discussion of Batman needs to remember that fact. 

I hope all of that at least a little bit answers your question. I’d apologize for length, but I figure you knew what you were getting into

XOXO, A

[whoiwanttoday]

So I was very resistant to the Boys for many reasons. The biggest being I do not like Garth Ennis and his body of work. I think he writes like a teenage edge lord and his legion of toxic followers when he was at the height of his popularity are all the kids who went on to reddit's gross atheist communities and helped start Gamergate and became alt-right. I mean, obviously not all of them but literally I see people from when the internet was smaller and they were doing lines off their computer desk declaring others to be not edgy enough for the internet now as internet Nazis. It was a short trip. That's a lot to put on Ennis and he can't really be held accountable for all that but at the end of the day he writes for children who think what he says is deep. Beyond that, while people I know love the Boys they often tell me how it's unlike any other Superhero thing I have ever heard of and... guys I tried the comics years ago and I have bad news, the capes and their sick and twisted kicks was a tired, overdone trope 40 years ago. So I was not excited to see it on TV even if I get how it might seem remarkably fresh if your whole knowledge of Superheroes is the Marvel movies. Honestly, it's never for me. I could tell you about hope and Superheroes existing to be aspirational but I can't deny the concept has always been inherently fascist. We have always known that and it's been talked to death. I just find lazy nihilism about one of the most distasteful things in the world, it's an easy out to say nothing matters and excuse doing nothing. Again, I have seen people use that as an excuse to just be low key shit heads my entire life. So shows that espouse that philosophy tend to not be my bag. That's a lot to put on a show I have never seen and people have asked that I watch it. I was assured it departs pretty hard from the comics. I was resistant but finally someone asked me to who is someone who I never actually say no to. So I am watching it. My reaction? It's not dreadful. I was a big Supernatural fan when it started and unsurprisingly some elements feel familiar to me and it has departed from the comics. Glad everyone didn't rape Starlight for starters but also Ennis has a habit of making his superheroes one note idiots because he despises heroes (really fun to read stuff written by a guy with contempt for the material and reader btw) and his villains as well are often one note monsters and just never interesting to me. So a book where the bad guys are the superheroes? Just the worst, most boring people ever to exist on the page. On the show that's not true. Oh, they are awful. Morally bankrupt dicks in large part but they are also people. Like you understand them, they have real feelings and things you can relate to and that goes a long way in make it all more interesting. I have a feeling this show will probably be bleaker than I like, among the reasons I tend to dislike "If someone really had superpowers they'd be a murderer rapist" is besides it being devoid of all creativity I don't believe it says a single thing about the human condition, just about the writer, who is really saying what he would do in a consequence free world. All that said I am posting Erin Moriarty and I am not surprised and I am relieved. I was really worried I'd be most attracted to the Nazi, and you know maybe I will be, she hasn't shown up yet. For now though I do like Starlight. I feel awful for her because everyone around her is awful and I am worried the show will inevitably corrupt her but maybe not. Also her costume fucking rules. Very Mary Marvel and I love it. Today I want to fuck Erin Moriarty.

[lesbianmarrow]

watched legends of tomorrow 7.01. BULLET BLONDES!!!!!! good season premiere, not the best in this show but not the worst either. i liked sara’s little ringmaster outfit. i guess it seems like the legends will be staying in the 1920s for a good portion of the season? that’s fine. i was worried that since the waverider was destroyed it meant we wouldnt have gideon but then HUMAN gideon showed up. and she was naked. i feel like she didn’t have to be naked but that’s fine. 

legends likes to change things up each season and this season i guess the big change is no waverider and no memory flashers or time couriers. but at least we have constantine’s pocket dimension to serve as our home base/liminal space. it’s not as bold a change as going to space but it’s still pretty bold. i think it will be interesting to see how this change affects the story. since they have no memory flashers it means the legends have to deal with the consequences of their actions, which will be fun and new. the emphasis on how the legends’ reckless actions were hurting gloria in this episode seemed to point to that. and of course ava’s iou notebook. it makes sense that ava is the most freaked out by this new change since she is the one who most relies on rules and structure. will be fun to see how she adjusts to it. and how gideon reacts. right now i guess the story is split up between the bullet blondes crew and spooner, astra, and gideon at gloria’s house, with zari chilling in the pocket dimension. i wouldn’t mind if that lasted for a few episodes. 

spooner and astra are sooooo cute together of course i am going to ship them. i know someone sent me an anon message saying not to ship them but that just makes me want to ship them more. i like their height difference. and when astra injured herself and how spooner was at her bedside mad that she drew more attention to her mom but really she was mad that astra hurt herself because she cares about her. i don’t quite have a sense of where spooner’s character arc is going now that her mom is safe but i like that she has this friendship with astra. as for astra i think it’s clear that her arc is about proving her own worth to herself and not feeling inferior to constantine. i’m really liking where the writers and actress have settled with astra and i hope she has some good episodes incoming. it rules how her spell brought gideon to life - i wonder if constantine would have been able to do that, or if it was all astra. 

i found nate far less annoying than usual this episode which is good i think. i thought it was funny when sara said his superpower is being a white man. and i like his friendship with ava. they are bros. funny as fuck when he accidentally killed j edgar hoover. i dont really know anything about that man aside from what wikipedia tells me but he sucked so he deserved it probably. 

interesting how zari decided to retreat to the pocket dimension for the time being. i am hoping we will get more exploration of her character this season since she was a bit neglected last season. i love her so much and she looked so cute in her circus outfit and she was so excited to give everyone a makeover. i liked how behrad was listening to her share her feelings about her breakup. hes a good supportive brother even if he is always pushing her to do drugs which i feel like is probably haram? but anyway i just really love zari you guys. would love to see her do some more self-reflection which i think was implied when she looked in the mirror. 

ummm i also just wanted to mention i liked when ava was freaking out and lay on the ground and then realized she could put her crime knowledge to use and made gary eat the dead body. and it was so funny how sara was like into ava taking charge. i also liked when they robbed the bank together and ava had the silly accent and kept shooting the ceiling but she made sure to steal ONLY as much as they needed to get to new york. oh i hope theres an nyc episode it would be so fun to see them where i am right now. i think the portrayal of the bullet blondes gang as criminals and vigilantes but the kind you root for is very interesting and very in the spirit of who the legends are as a team. it’s very different from them as like time cops. it’s fun and i’m interested to see where the show goes from here :)

[marginal-notes]

Would you mind sharing your thoughts about mha’s world building? I never put much thought into it positive or negative. Where do you think there was wasted potential? I am curious

OH BOY, OKAY. BUCKLE UP. This isn’t really a cohesive essay covering all my thoughts, just some bigger points immediately coming to mind.

First things first, some context.

I have yet to run into any other fandom that lives off its own fanon the same way as the MHA fandom does. It’s not even like how the HP fandom did it, where they completely threw out the burning dredges of canon they didn’t like. Reading MHA fanfiction, there’s a lot of broadly accepted fanon that still gets treated like it could be canon. Idk, it’s weird and fascinating.

As you’ve probably figured out from my ramblings here and the random details I like stuffing into my writing, I care a lot about how fictional narratives can convey and explore societal institutions and conventions. Form should drive function, and everything should have consequences.

I am absolutely aware that MHA’s a mainstream shonen primarily functioning off the rule of cool, and thus isn’t supposed to operate at the level I keep trying to bully it onto.

Anyways, short story of my love/hate relationship with this series boils down to: it keeps bringing up tiny details that implies that SOMEONE on that writing/editing team is trying to make this series deeper than an almost dried out puddle, and then abandoning all thought for more of the same old “who can punch hardest” boring shonen tropes.

Also, I’m an American reading this without the full Japanese cultural context.

Here’s the long story.

Inherently, My Hero Academia is telling a story of a society reaching its breaking point under the strain of its social politics, through the lens of a highly influential and powerful industry associated with law enforcement. From the beginning, the series introduces the concept of a social hierarchy constructed on the basis of having a quirk and its raw talent. It’s a story of blind veneration and a country still not fully ready to accept a world of superpowers.

And to me, it’s extremely important to understand that for all that professional heroes are technically public servants, professional heroics is first and foremost an industry.

~~~

Okay, let’s just start with quirks themselves.

To this day, I’m still a much bigger fan of the spinoff manga than the main manga itself. I like the cast better, I love their interactions with each other, the plot makes sense, and it still has spent more actual panels discussing the impact of trying to accommodate quirks in universe than the main series has. Sure, Hori put in tidbits into the end of chapter extras, but that’s it.

Vigilantes actually takes the time to discuss how people with non-humanoid quirk mutations can run into difficulty finding affordable housing and the inadequate government assistance on that front. This piece of worldbuilding actually has consequences on characters and as the plot progresses, the consequences actually have influence on locations that appear as settings.

The main manga just doesn’t have this level of thought.

How do highways and mass transportation handle very large individuals and very small individuals? What changes to building codes and architecture has there been? What changes had to come to product design to accommodate different quirks? How do you as a society deal with individuals whose biology aren’t close to the old quirkless standard? What happened to food production and distribution? How well are government agencies addressing concerns brought up among the citizens due to their quirks? What impact has quirks had on the medical system?

(Minor pet peeve, and this is more directed towards fanon. I personally hate healing quirks, from a logistical and ethical standpoint. Canon proves that repeated use and high stress causes quirks to evolve and change over time. If you’re medical personnel and you’re using your quirk on your job, that quirk’s going to change its effects and abilities over time. Hello? Do you have any idea what the short- and long-term side effects of your quirk fully are? How did you figure out its full benefits and drawbacks? Are you taking a risk with each new patient that something completely unexpected could occur? Do you know how annoying it is when you can’t replicate or standardize procedures in a field like medicine where you need to carefully evaluate safety through scientific investigations? Do you know what using healing quirks sound like to me? Dangerous human experimentation, on both the patient and the doctor. AAAAUGH.)

I really want to know the political history behind the rise of quirks. What rate did it spread across the world and through generations? How did the politics around quirk rights shift over time? When did society stop using language like “meta-humans” or “quirked individuals” and started assuming having a quirk should be the default for describing humans? When did quirks first appear in the Imperial family? What shifts happened in rhetoric across the political spectrum over time in relation to quirks? How did that influence legislation and law enforcement? How does that influence employment statistics and population demographics? How did what was considered “desirable” change with each generation and decade? What influence did quirks have on the international scene? What really happened during the period of chaos and violence in the earlier quirk years? What pressured the system to finally hitting its boiling point? What were all the influences that finally calmed that period down?

Hori, for the love of god, shut up about daddy issues and fuck you for turning AFO into a stupid, boring cartoon villain.

~~~

If you’re going to introduce a corrupt government institution that has no problems abusing its power to order assassinations and partake in child trafficking, go all in. And I don’t mean go all in the way the “HPSC Bashing” tag on AO3 tends to. I mean stop treating the HPSC like some kind of singular monolith that didn’t derive its power through its connections and influence.

If you have corruption in the HPSC, that means you have corruption in the Ministry of Justice. You have influence and competition with the police force. You have relationships with the courts and the judges ruling cases. You have the ears of politicians in the National Diet writing laws on criminal justice and prison infrastructure. You have sway through your own regulations and oversight on heroes and their agencies. You can steer the industry towards addressing one kind of crime over the other by dangling the secret ranking algorithm over the heroes’ heads.

You can create a society where the shiny surface covers over the reality of letting violent offenders go on light sentences, if they’re prosecuted at all, so you can have enough repeat offenders to feed and inflate the apprehension and arrest performance metrics of heroes. You can create a society where powerful businesses can lobby with their money to influence patrol routes. You can create a society where the insular press clubs dutifully spread your party message across the country. You can actively craft a society that forces large portions of your population into crimes of desperation in order to feed the gaping maw of an oversaturated hero industry.

This is just run of the mill politics and dealmaking, folks. You don’t need to turn towards torture and more cartoonishly evil entities to create conflict. Freaking – god, I hate whump. (EDIT: it occurred to me after posting that this is a great place for me to wax poetic about how much I LOVE, ADORE, APPRECIATE “may death never stop you” by slex on AO3 for addressing some of my points in a witty and engaging way. Superb writing.)

Of course, MHA also doesn’t go into goddamn ANY OF THIS even in the background as flavoring that can color the plot in interesting ways. Hori, it’s not enough to just have Aizawa point out that his students are being drafted as child soldiers, and then move on. HELLO? HELLO?

~~~

MHA, I swear, is your technology more advanced or not? You can’t just throw in “Detnerat makes support tech and now it’s moving to hero gear” and then bail. And the way it’s portrayed? As making all this custom gear? Tailored to each customers’ quirk? MAKES NO SENSE FOR A LARGE CORPORATION? How did you scale that?? How are your logistical supply chains not a profit killing mess? What on earth is your manufacturing and fabrication process like? How inefficient are your operations that no one freaks out or notices your prototypes being intentionally leaked to the black market? How did you even make those connections, you’re a bunch of –

Using the excuse that they’re the arc’s villains is such lazy worldbuilding. Sure it’s in-line with the series LITERALLY going “UA’s Sports Festival has replaced the Olympics in importance” (w h a t, no, bullshit, get back here, STOP MOVING ON, HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE), but still it’s frustrating and it’s lazy.

Smartphones and vehicles?? Still look the same?? Even though chapter one implies it’s been around a couple centuries since roughly modern times?? Are holographs cheap tricks or not?? If they are, why aren’t they more widespread? Why are there still plenty of normal monitors and TVs? If they’re not, then why is UA able to jam them into their acceptance letters and it’s able to be some kind of bonus item among Kirishima’s merch?

I swear there was no thought put into tech beyond pure rule of cool. Which creates completely arbitrary hijinks and aesthetics without a lot of internal consistency, for something that really should be extremely important in universe across society, not just with heroes.

Like at least ATLA’s consistent and there’s logic going on with its tech. They’ve pulled off some things that also raise a ton of question marks with me (again, putting all that fire right next to the airship fleets is a recipe for disaster), but there’s at least an internal logic. Take Sokka’s submarines for example. The thought behind their design makes sense in a world with waterbending.

MHA’s just like, “And now UA’s a flying fortress.” WHAT??

(Disclaimer: Like how I don’t consider material outside the original shows canon for ATLA, I don’t really treat the movies as canon to MHA either. If people try bringing up I-Island at me, they’re just going to get a different giant but WHY rant.)

~~~

Uuuugh, the Todoroki family situation.

This response is already clocking in over two thousand words, so I’ll save my giant rant about Hori’s and Japan’s stand on abusers for another day. Suffice it to say, I’m extremely cynical about the various redemption arcs and why they occur the ways they do. I believe the driving force behind those arcs is highly motivated by real world profits and massaging the series’ messaging to conform to an easy to digest black and white mentality.

But, it always makes me. so frustrated. how fic proves again and again how the Todoroki plot can be an excellent lens into the trappings and failings of elite pro hero society. It can be a really engaging lens into the corrupting influence of power and the dangers of blind hero worship. It can discuss people’s choices when the system fails them and their different decisions on how to take matters into their own hand. It can show the dangerous and corrosive effects vigilantism has on a society (ugh, more personal beef from me against some fandom tropes, ANYWAYS) through some of vigilantism’s more extreme manifestations.

The implications and consequences involved here are pure Navi bait. And Hori and his team just.

The things going on right now in canon always, guaranteed, makes me so angry.

~~~

Also, as a final insult to injury, Hori’s self-insert is basically Mineta, whose main character trait is being a repeatedly aggressive sexual harasser. Dude.

~~~

Idk if you really got anything out of this, I’ve been obsessively thinking about different parts and facets of the MHA universe for over a year now. My thoughts are just all over the place.

I still haven’t gone into the whole AFO situation from an organized crime perspective. Nor have I addressed the full impact of the ranking system on the hero industry as a whole, when you split heroes into a pyramid of the top elites, mid-tier, and bottom-tier groupings. Nor have I gone into all the wild potential and shenanigans of an elite, exclusive, and wealthy place like UA (that’s a whole fic in progress right now). Or about what kinds of social insecurities and concerns craft the look and feel of each generation of heroes.

There is just so much that can be explored in MHA, and since it’s a mainstream shonen, all it cares about is punching people real hard.

[pochiperpe90]

Here comes “The Old Guard”. Marinelli goes to Hollywood, alongside Charlize Theron.

“Alone, fragile and immortal.”

A story of love, friendship and compassion with an ancient warrior and a young African American, who has just discovered she is immortal, as protagonists. Because the world needs women and courage knows no gender differences. 20 years after “Love & Basketball” and after “The Secret Life of Bees” and “Beyond the Lights - Find Your Voice”, Gina Prince-Bythewood comes to the action movie with very clear ideas on how to reinvent the rules. We talked to her over the phone while she was in Los Angeles during the lockdown. 

A superhero movie that doesn't look like a superhero movie. Is that why you decided to make it? 

Absolutely yes, when I read the script I realized that despite the fantastic genre there was a very realistic background. These characters are real and it's easy for the audience to relate to them despite being immortal. They fight for goals and reasons that people understand. The more realistic the film, the more viewers can reflect themselves in the protagonists. 

In fact, the most fascinating aspect of the characters is their vulnerability: they are immortal, but up to a certain point, which is a paradox. They too have to deal with the sense of the end. 

There is a possibility that they may die, that their immortality is interrupted, that they still suffer from their wounds, and this brings them closer to us. The public still feels sorry for them when they see them in danger.

Immortals suffer, and not just physically.

Many think that being able to live forever would be extraordinary, but no one asks what this really means. Immortality has consequences: it can be a gift, but it can also be a curse.

And we don’t know why immortality fell to them. 

The thing I loved about the graphic novel and the script is the fact that there is no explanation. Not only do we not know it, but neither do the protagonists. But it is a trilogy and therefore there is still a lot to tell.

Could you offer your contribution to the script? 

It was a great script, with great roles based on the graphic novel so I stayed very true to the text. With the author, Greg Rucka, we wanted to reflect on the fear of taking someone's life, the one that sometimes overwhelms soldiers in war, whose psychology is often neglected. Hollywood films have never been very concerned with this aspect, as if killing had no consequences. The protagonists are forced to kill, but if someone has been doing it for centuries, for others it’s the first time. 

What struck you about Luca Marinelli? 

I could talk about him for days, I love him, he's the actor that all directors dream of having on set. He loved the character and gave him life in a very credible way. Between him and Marwan Kenzari is born a great complicity, necessary between two people who have been together for centuries. Luca's eyes are full of soul, his Nicky is the heart of the group, he’s the most sensitive character of all of them. 

Charlize Theron, who is also one of the producers, has an increasingly and more torn body.

Charlize has already played roles like this one, she is very credible in the genre of action and has been helpful to who had never faced it before. From her, who really worked hard, others learned to do the same. She is very credible in the role of a woman who lived for thousands of years.

Matthias Schoenaerts, on the other hand, has an insidious role. 

He embodies the tragedy of immortality, loneliness, betrayal. He is the actor who most resembles his character in the graphic novel. He wanted to make the film at all costs because he had never measured himself with the action genre and felt he had things to express. 

The film underlines how today it’s no longer possible to hide, images can capture you at any time. 

In a scene near the end, when the immortals look at photos and articles about them, they truly become aware for the first time of everything they have done to protect humanity. They understand the power of images from which they continually try to escape in order to hide their identity. 

And then we talk about science and profit. 

In the film, people from different places join forces to protect the world, a need even more relevant today. Yet it is increasingly evident that profit matters more than human lives. 

Do you think the film industry is becoming more inclusive with women? 

Things are finally changing and I am grateful that, despite having no other action films on my resume, I have been entrusted with The Old Guard. I am grateful for the trust they have placed in me. It should be taken for granted by now that women are capable of coping with any film genre and I think how much pressure from the industry Patty Jenkins, who directed Wonder Woman to success and opening the door for many of us, went through. But the door must be wide open because there are still few who have such opportunities. 

In your opinion, have opportunities grown with the arrival of platforms like Netflix? 

Netflix wasn't afraid to trust a series of directors. Which studio would have produced Roma or Irishman? He has the courage to make films that Hollywood deems too risky.

The Golden boy

“Luca Marinelli, as we have never seen him before: in his Hollywood debut, he becomes an immortal and fights with Charlize Theron to save the world.”

Just before the lockdown he was one of the jury members of the 70th Berlinale in the city where he has lived for years - and he swears he had so much fun watching three films a day. The audience awaits him in theatre in the role of Diabolik, in the film directed by Manetti Bros., but on July 10th he arrives on Netflix with The Old Guard, the action movie that sees him alongside Charlize Theron. And where he plays the Italian Nicolo, Nicky for the group of immortals he belongs to. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, the film offers Luca Marinelli an insidious superpower, an endless love and a new opportunity to demonstrate his talent as a true champion. We reached him on the phone and he, less shy than usual, told us how he became a secular "superhero".

How did you get to the project? 

I auditioned in London, where I later returned and met the director. Lastly, there was a final meeting between me and Marwan Kenzari. We made a scene together and then they announced to me, "We'd love for you to be Nicky." 

What struck you about this character? 

The story fascinated me because it tells of immortals as if they were the damned. Nicky and Joe live this condition as a gift because they are linked by a wonderful love story and they are not alone. They met in an absurd and paradoxical situation, during the Crusades, ready to kill themselves. They did it a hundred times and then they looked at each other and fell in love. But others suffer from it, like Andy and Booker. In a beautiful scene, Booker, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, explains what happens to them: they see the people they love die and blame them because they cannot prevent it. And they are tired of watching the world repeat itself following the same dynamics. They fight to save people, but everything seems to go on the same way. Only in the end will they discover what they have done and what they are doing. 

How did it go with Charlize Theron? 

Well, it was wonderful! As I read the script I said to myself: am I really going to make a film with Charlize Theron? And hug as well! I was very excited and intimidated already while reading. She is an extraordinary actress. In the scene where we are at the table and everyone tells Nile something about us, Andy tells her what we are and it was nice to see her running and venturing into the midst of emotions and thoughts. Sometimes I got distracted and didn't say my line. But Charlyze is also a crazy athlete. You have to be really athletes, otherwise you don't survive at the end of the day. And Charlize is an athlete of the body and the heart. 

What about her athletic training? 

We got together a month before shooting to start working with the stunts. I had to get some athleticism back: when I arrived and they looked at me I think they were a little worried. We had to become familiar with martial arts and then we switched from the sword to other weapons and to hand-to-hand combat. We prepared scene by scene, including the choreographies, different for each fight, and each of us had his own rubber reproduction of the sword. It was an unforgettable training.

The immortals come from different places in the world. How much of Italy is there in Nicky? 

Apart from the pronunciation? They still laugh at some of the things I said. Marwan and Matthias, but also Charlize, speak Italian at different levels and every now and then I enjoyed shooting a few sentences to which they could answer me. 

Did you offer your character something that wasn't in the script? 

Well, being in such a group, shy as I am ... I tried. I have always focused on the bond between Nicky, Joe and the other members of the group, because I am interested in discovering what is inside a character, his feelings, how he looks at the world, what excites him. Nicky has lived for centuries, but still greets the people he meets in the desert with a smile, inside him there is the flame of an infinite good. Each character has a different sensitivity and their own armor. Nicky is perhaps the least armored one.

The challenge was also to make people believe in a love story that has lasted for centuries. 

Marwan recites a beautiful monologue in which he talks about their love story. I hope that each of us, in their short life, can say the same thing about the person they love. 

You’ve already had superpowers in “They Call Me Jeeg”. What is your relationship with this genre? 

I like it very much and I think that both films, very different from each other, have a very interesting soul. In Jeeg Robot, Enzo Ceccotti uses his superpowers to help others, taking on a social responsibility. In The Old Guard the protagonists put themselves at the service of others, even if no one has asked them to. “This is what we do,” they repeat over and over to each other. What they do is save people, participate in what they think is right. 

How do you think they would react to protests on American streets and around the world?

I don't feel like playing games, mixing reality and fiction on a terribly real subject like this. I think that in reality, outside of any cinematic fiction, it’s fundamental to fight for equality, within society, but also within ourselves. To go back to our film, if in a microscopic way we manage to carry a message in that direction, I would be very happy. 

What director was Gina Prince-Bythewood? 

She is always ready to listen, and I am someone who asks a lot of questions even at inappropriate times. She always had great patience and was very attentive to the emotional side of the film, to the interiority and beauty of the characters.

CIAK Magazine - Luglio 2020

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)

[nagipops]

COOKING HEADCANONS!

FEATURING: kiba inuzuka, naruto uzumaki, shikamaru nara

WARNINGS: food cw

KIBA

kiba, you would’ve loved crock pots

does not understand the concept of cooking

“why not throw everything in a pot and be done with it?! if it’s going into your belly, what’s the point of going through all this hassle?!”

he was literally just waiting for the water to heat up

still eats anything and everything though

seriously, you could feed this man straight up DOG FOOD and he’d rate it five michelin stars

loves anything and everything involving meat!

sneaks scraps of meat and veggies to akamaru under the counter. ALWAYS.

you would reprimand him for it, saying you needed those for a broth, but him and akamaru would give you the cutest puppy eyes that you just gave up

kiba has mistaken salt for sugar. and sugar for salt.

it happens nearly every time that you think it’s some sort of superpower?? to always mistake salt for sugar??

either way, he loves spending time with you and the two of you goof off a lot in the kitchen!

NARUTO

SOOO impatient

“is it done yet?” “no.” “is it done yet?” “no.” “is it done... now?” “no.” “how about now?” “no.” “oiiii, i’m starving!” “yelling at the ramen isn’t going to make it cook faster, idiot!”

this exact conversation goes down every time you cook with him

while the broth was boiling, he decided he needed to taste it so that it “wasn’t too salty”

you both well know he was just impatient

this man leaned over the steaming pot, took a sniff, and reached his finger in and dipped it in the pot. in the boiling broth.

the sound that ensued nearly deafened you, making you drop whatever you were holding in the process. (lets hope it wasn’t a knife)

naruto was flailing his arms all over the place, screaming and crying out for help

you knew you should reprimand him for his idiocy foolish actions, but it appears he’s already learned that his actions have consequences

loves making ramen with you, especially

one day you hid the naruto fishcakes as a joke and replace it with menma, and this man got SO DISAPPOINTED that he physically deflated and sulked in the corner of the living room for half an hour

you felt so bad that you finally brought out the fishcakes and this man lit up like the SUN

the hard-earned meal afterwards is always worth it, especially for naruto!

SHIKAMARU

just slumps his body over your shoulders while you’re trying to cook

“shikamaru! if you’re going to be in the kitchen, make yourself useful!” “but (y/nnnnnn)...”

yawns heavily and stretches before obeying your commands

definitely calls you ma’am/sir/boss in the kitchen and you love it

he would never admit it, but he secretly adores when you notice he’s having some trouble doing something and you come up behind him, guiding his hands with yours

he gets all flustered and blushy, saying “i-i can do this myself!”

you both know he probably can’t, but you also both secretly love when this happens which is quite often

sometimes he even pretends to struggle at something just so you’d help him

“hmm... i’m having such a hard time slicing these, if only i had a pair of hands to help me...”

such a tease in the kitchen

might heat the water up or maybe even peel an apple, but you know he’s devoted when he dices an onion for you

even if he dislikes doing the work, it’s worth it to spend time with his favorite person while enjoying a delicious meal together

warms up to cooking with you as time goes on, and he even looks forward to it after a long mission!

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