#i understand it has ‘guy’ in it and isn’t like visually gender neutral so i get it if opinions differ on that

[frnkiebby]

Number eight!!!!!

i need frank to wear makeup again please~🎃

[viastro]

areum | lee seokmin

ミ★ synopsis: in which you’re trying to draw out a scene in the park, but end up meeting a lost, gorgeous, dog. who just so happens to have a cute owner with a beautiful smile to match.

ミ★ genre: first meetings!au, artist!reader, pure fluff

ミ★ warnings: none! unless you’re allergic to dogs or something who knows

ミ★ word count: 1,907

ミ★ pairings: seokmin x gender neutral reader

ミ★ notes: hi guys! this was a really cute prompt i thought of as i was staring at my dog’s microchip HAFKWLANGLK i was going to use a gif from the left & right mv but then i saw this gif and started crying because he looks so soft i cant do thisheLP !!! but i hope you guys like this as much as i do <333 

You sit on the bench as you stare at the falling leaves from the maple trees. Pursing your lips, you glance back down at your drawing, letting out a sigh once you realize it looks nothing like what you originally wanted to create. You rip out the page, crumpling it in your hand and shoving it into your backpack. 

You’ve been assigned a project to draw a portrait from your favorite season in the year, and it’s due in a month. Since it’s Fall, you thought it was fitting to draw out the leaves falling from the trees in the city park. However, your instructor told your class that it had to feel personal, he had to be able to look at your creation and feel the emotion you wanted to come out of it.

So you planned to just draw like… a family having a picnic or something to spice things up. Unfortunately, there is no family out having a picnic due to it being 50° F. Not to mention the fact that you’ve been trying to draw the leaves falling from the trees for the past hour and it just hasn’t worked out. You let out a sigh, placing your journal beside you and just looking up to stare at the cloudy sky. 

That is, until you feel something… wet... nudge your ankle. You glance back down, finding a happy golden retriever staring at you with no leash. You let out a smile, raising an eyebrow as you reach out to the bright dog. 

“Hi baby! Where’s your owner?” You ask in a high-pitched voice, and the dog just tip taps on its feet excitedly as you move to check out its collar. You let out a sigh of relief when you find a dog tag, finding that the sweet golden’s name is Areum. You turn the tag over to find the owner’s number, and you quickly pull out your phone. 

“Areum, stay here baby.” You say, holding onto her(?) collar. You quickly glance down again to check their genitals, to find that Areum is, in fact, a female. You pet her head as you type in the number, before placing the phone close to your ear once it rings. After a moment the person on the other end answers.

“Hello?” Your eyes widen at the sweet voice, having not expected that. “Hi! I think I may have found your dog at the park. Do you perhaps own a golden named Areum?” 

You hear the person let out a happy cry, and you laugh as they start thanking you vigorously. You nod your head, “Of course! I’m currently at Yongsan Park, do you want me to meet you or should you come here-”

“I’m already on my way! I’ll be there in like fifteen minutes!!” The owner tells you, and you smile. You say your goodbyes before hanging up the phone, turning to Areum who is just happily tip tapping her feet once again. “Now why did you leave your owner? They sounded worried sick over the phone.” 

Areum just barks in response, reaching up and licking your face as you giggle at her. You pat her head fondly, finding her to be the prettiest dog you’ve ever seen. You lift up your phone to take a picture of her smiling happily at you, tongue out and all. 

“I wonder if your owner is as cute as you.” 

oh my god he is as cute as her. 

You stare in awe as the owner happily hugs Areum, giving her plenty of kisses. He quickly puts on her leash before continuing to coo at the golden retriever. His hair is brown with blue highlights in the front, which would typically look ridiculous on an average person. However, who we have here is not average in the slightest. 

He has a sharp nose and kind eyes, ones that become even sweeter once he smiles. He has a cute little mole on his cheek, and it makes you cry inside because it somehow makes him even prettier. He lets out a laugh once Areum licks his cheek, and you squeeze your fist at how beautiful it sounds. 

You tilt your head to the side when you feel your hand itch with the urge to draw out the scene in front of you. The leaves fall softly from the trees as Areum licks her owner, causing him to laugh loudly. All while the sun is breaking out through the clouds behind them, shining light onto the two. You remind yourself to not forget the visual so that you can paint it later.

“Don’t you ever run away like that! You made me so worried. You’re so lucky that this prett—this nice person found you!” You feel your cheeks aflame at the fact that he almost called you pretty, and you watch as the tips of his ears turn red. Seokmin curses for almost outing himself, but he can’t help it.

you really are quite beautiful.

“Thank you for calling me when Areum came up to you, she ran out of my house as soon as I opened the door and I couldn’t catch her. I almost peed my pants out of fear that I wouldn’t find her.” Seokmin tells you in complete and utter honesty, causing you to let out a laugh. You shake your head, waving a hand at him, “It was no biggie. She’s an absolute sweetheart and I knew her owner must’ve been worried sick.” 

Seokmin smiles, before sticking his hand out for you to shake, “Let me properly introduce myself. Hi, I’m Seokmin.” 

You grin, reaching out and grabbing a hold of his hand, “I’m yn, it’s nice to meet you and Areum.” 

The two of you stare into each other's eyes for a moment, the handshake being long forgotten as you both have gotten distracted by the sight before you. Seokmin tilts his head to the side, smiling softly at the sparkle in your eyes. While you take notice the softness to his eyes, hair falling over his forehead.

“How about I take you out to coffee?” He asks suddenly, and your eyes widen slightly. He releases his grasp of your hand, watching as your arm slowly falls back to your side. “To thank you, because I wouldn’t know what I would’ve done if Areum wasn’t found.” 

You let out a breath, having to remind yourself that he wasn’t asking you on a date. Seokmin grins at your reaction, finding you to be rather cute. You nod your head after a moment, brushing your hand through your hair. “I’d love to.”

Seokmin bites his lip to hold back another smile from forming, and glances down towards Areum, who is happily sitting beside him. The golden looks back and forth between the two of you, and she lets out a tiny bark. 

“I’ll just have to pack up my stuff here first, I was doing an art project.” You tell Seokmin, walking over to the bench to place your art supplies into your bag. A crumpled piece of paper falls from your bag, and he walks over to pick it up. 

“You dropped this.” Seokmin says, about to hand it to you when his eye catches a drawn out leaf. He unwraps it, and you’re about to open your mouth in protest, but the drawing is already unraveled. His eyes widen in surprise at how beautifully drawn the scene is, and he wonders why you would ever throw it away.

“This is amazing! Why is it all crumpled?” He asks you, and you reach up to rub the back of your neck out of shyness. You shrug at him, turning back to shove your art journal into your backpack. “It’s not how I wanted it to look. I’m supposed to make the drawing personal, and have a clear emotion be shown through it. I was going to add a family having a picnic, but I ended up scrapping the whole thing in general. It’s not what I wanted.” 

Seokmin nods his head in understanding, still glancing at the crumpled up artwork. He hands it back to you, and you give him a smile, shaking your head and nudging it back towards him. “You can keep it, it seems like you like it a lot.” 

“Thank you.” He mutters quietly, and you zip up your backpack, turning back towards him. Areum barks excitedly once you show that you’re ready for the impromptu coffee date, and Seokmin grins. 

“Let’s go get coffee and a puppuccino for Areum.” Seokmin states as the two of you walk side by side out of the park, and you chuckle.

“Not from Starbucks though, right?”

“Definitely not.” 

“Epic, they’re problematic.”

“I think this is the start of a wonderful relationship.”

“I think so too, Seokmin.”

“Hi Professor Kim, here’s my project. Thank you for letting me turn it in a bit late, I wanted to make sure it was perfect.” You say as you carefully place the wrapped painting onto his table. He looks up with a smile, removing his glasses and standing up to greet you. “Of course, I know that artists always like to add last minute details.” 

You grin, and you watch as he unwraps your painting. You bite your lip anxiously, watching his reaction as he takes it in. It’s been a month since you first met Seokmin, and the two of you actually became a couple.

he also became your muse.

Your teacher lets out a soft smile after a moment of staring at the piece you created, glancing up at you. You watch as the sunlight hits the orange of the falling leaves on the painting, coordinating with Areum’s golden fur. Seokmin’s face isn’t detailed, but you can see the bright white of his smile as he hugs the beautiful dog. 

“It’s beautiful yn, your use of watercolor really brought out the softness and beauty of this scene. Are these two close to you?” Your professor asks, and you grin. “Yeah, I love them.” 

“I can tell, it really shows through this creation of yours. This is a wonderful painting, yn. Your grade should be in by the end of the week.” You nod, giving him your thanks before stepping out of the classroom. You hug your arms as you turn the corner, seeing Seokmin standing by the brick wall on his phone, waiting for you.

“Seok!” He glances up at the call of his name, a smile immediately breaking out onto his face when he sees you walking over to him. “Yn! Did he like it?” He asks once you’re right beside him, wrapping an arm over your shoulders and pressing a kiss to your temple in greeting.

“I think so, and it’s all because of you.” You tell your boyfriend, and he chuckles, shaking his head. 

“Nah, it’s because you’re great at what you do.” You smile, before wrapping your arm around his waist. The two of you walk down the steps, with you explaining how your professor reacted while Seokmin nods. Once you both pass the maple trees, he glances down at you to see you grinning happily. He squeezes your shoulder, smiling softly. 

what a blessing to have you.

“What do you wanna eat, bub?” 

“Hm, pork belly!” 

“You just wanna look at my arms as I grill the meat, don’t you?” 

“And what of it?”

[elorastory]

Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans--A Conspiracy

Tales of Arcadia/Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans—A Conspiracy

I’m expecting some pushback from this. Yes, it’s my opinion based on my personal understanding of the current state of society and the world. No, it is not intended to be offensive; merely thought-provoking and releasing for me personally.

Preface: Tales of Arcadia is still one of my very favorite shows ever. SO much good came from its existence. Nothing, not even a less-than-satisfactory ending, can take away what this series contributed to my journey.

Trigger warnings (yes, my rant has trigger-warnings): this post confronts the possibility of malevolent agendas and secret societies for which Netflix and Hollywood and Disney could be mouthpieces/mediums for mass brain-washing. This post also mentions transgender/gender-queer/gender-dysphoria in a neutral way (does not diss, but mentions possibility of using its acceptance for sterilization purposes), so lovely sensitive beautiful souls, please be prepared. Alludes to but does not outright mention Netflix’s “Cuties” documentary. Harsh and vulgar language ahead. Scattered and incomplete thoughts galore. Read between the lines and do your own research (if you still can in today’s cancel-culture).

The creators of Tales of Arcadia set out to revolutionize animation and push graphics to their limit. Congratulations to them. They absolutely, indisputably achieved their goal (seriously, guys—GORGEOUS visuals).

Unfortunately, instead of applying their passion and talent toward telling beautiful stories with empowering morals to children (the show’s target audience), the creators chose to “step back” and permit the existence of Rise of the Titans (from which the original writers are a little too quick to distance themselves, in my opinion).

It began with Jim’s INCREDIBLY disappointing transformation at the end of Trollhunters, season three. His metamorphosis recanted the show’s original moral of “you, a human, have everything you need inside of you to conquer your greatest fears and darkest demons BECAUSE you are human,” and instead, taught us we do not; we require intervention and enhancement to be worthy.

At first, I didn’t pay too much credence to the idea that this creative choice could have been tied to a trans-humanist agenda (or even a push for mass-acceptance of surgical/hormonal alterations for transgender/gender-dysphoria); however, after watching RotT, I’m drowning in paranoia.

Steve getting pregnant and giving birth on screen was positively treacherous. I am DAMN PROUD of our fandom’s overwhelming pushback against this particular aspect of RotT and I want all of you speaking out to know that you are the REAL Trollhunters here.

Not only is he HOW old (Aaron had enough foresight to make a comment on Twitter a few weeks ago that magically absolved the characters underage status and the writers of their responsibility—how convenient for them), but it’s not like the adults DON’T know (or, at least, suspect) what this concept (probably) parallels in reality.

It’s important to note, ToA as a fandom has expressed a high need for LGBTQ+ space and acceptance (and I am among the individuals requesting this need be met). I believe the creators included enough subtext for the audience to reasonably conclude that Steve is, more than likely, a bisexual himbo, especially for Eli (whom I hoped would come back from A5 a total babe and make Steve question everything he ever thought he knew about himself—especially when Aja (in my opinion) should have realized she had too much responsibility as Queen of a PLANET to maintain a healthy long-long-distance relationship with a boyfriend like STEVE). But the writers just jumped from the lesbian-end-of-the-world-last-chance-first-kiss in 3Below to “boys can have babies, too.”

MAYBE, in today’s political climate, it would have been prudent to save the mPreg for fanfiction (a safe space to process fantasies and triggers alike)—unless, of course, the writers WANTED to plant those seeds in the minds of their intended audience? (I know, rich coming from the chick who writes the Jamie/Blinky fanfic—I promise, it has meaning beyond the nasty.)

As a mother, this was my very biggest complaint about the finale. My children watch this show with me. Of course, after seeing Steve squirt blue all over Eli, my autistic daughter asks, “Can boys have babies, Mommy?”

Warning: Vicious, Accusatory, Conspiracy-Theory-Laden Rant Ahead

*middle fingers galore* Fuck you and your child-sexualizing/human-sterilization agenda, Netflix. Do I want to have to have the transgender talk with my malleable kids right now? Fuck no, I don’t. I do not think it’s bad to be transgender or queer. Y’all will always get love from me and will always be treated the way YOU want to be treated. I do think there’s a rise in rates of transgender/queer individuals because it’s getting a lot of attention and it makes doctors a lot of money, so there are a lot of vulnerable people being taken advantage of right now (especially kids--imagine how the spectrum ones are gonna sponge this shit). I do not want that for my children. I want them to have a comprehensive and complete understanding of all the forces affecting their relationship with their bodies and minds before they decide during puberty (a notoriously uncomfortable and confusing time of life) to chop off body parts and mess with hormones (and, by proxy, mental functioning). My children are not old enough to fully comprehend the shift occurring in our society right now, let alone WHY it’s even happening or what it means for them (how convenient for the proponents of depopulation by self-sterilization).

And on the subject of such agendas… Blinky. What were they thinking using him as a mouthpiece for ANY human-hating philosophy? When he stated outright that wiping the planet of humanity was SAVING the earth, I about shit a brick. HE LOVES ALL THINGS HUMAN! He’s supposed to be FASCINATED by them! He LIVED as one! He considers Jim his son! Not only was this the WORST example of the movie’s complete inability to maintain his character (besides MISSING A PAGE IN THE BOOK, being SCARED of FLYING (yeahfuckingright), and NOT reading horoscopes (bitch, please, of course Trolls read horoscopes—it’s cosmic feng-shui with giant space-rocks)), but he’s a CONSPIRACY THEORIST! He’d be SO onto this bullshit.

Wrapping up the agenda-pushing shenanigans: “For the good of all???”Are you KIDDING ME?! The four most dangerous words in history are, “For the greater good” (followed closely by “this time it’s different”), and y’all are just gonna rephrase it and use it to convince us that anyone fighting for the “greater good” is obviously the GOOD GUY? Of course, Jim IS the good guy and has the benefit of our loyal viewership and support, but acclimating the younger audience to this phrase, to the very concept that there is a “one size fits all” sort of “good” is dangerous and manipulative. What happens when “the greater good” isn’t good for you? Are you gonna be able to fight back and be heard?

Am I reading too much into this? Maybe. Is this my way of processing the steaming pile of propaganda my favorite show became without needed to re-watch RotT to leave a more comprehensive review? Probably. If I get cancelled for this post, am I gonna know I’m right? Absolutely.

If you made it this far, thanks for indulging me in my spazzy rant. As always, I am curious to hear your thoughts.

 Yours,

Elora Story

[rosecoloredbi-writes]

Settle (Chapter 3)

Summary: After the death of your best friend and their spouse, you went from Godparent to Parent overnight. Now, Mio is your world. Because of this new role, you move back to Tokyo, Japan in order to keep Mio with her friends and her school, even if it means you might run into *him*.

Warnings: Mentions of stalking. Swearing probably. Cannon violence. Single parenthood. barely mentions Mio’s parents passing. Mentions of needles/tattooing at home. First look at Dabi and the reader's abusive relationship...

Gender Neutral!Reader x ?????

Mentions of past GN!Reader x Dabi

A/N: So... I decided the direction for the pairing has changed and it could be anyone even though I made this with the intention of it being Shouta... but who knows!! It sure as hell isn't me in charge of this :)

Tags: @dungeons-and-awkwarddragons @encrytpta

The next day, Aizawa escorts you and Mio to a Quirk Testing Facility nearby, wary of any watching eyes. He expects Hawks to be there, maybe a few others who are involved in the case, even a few involved from afar. This is one of those multi-agency cases. All hands on deck when it comes to the League of Villains.

Aizawa watches as you step out of the changing room with Mio in matching athletic gear, although yours shows more skin for ease of use of your quirk. You go sit down in the chair next to his as you both wait for the quirk tester to appear. Mio puts in headphones to listen to music.

A scowl shows up involuntarily on your face as soon as Hawks walks in. A smirk on his stupid, punchable fa-

“Why don’t you like Hawks?” Aizawa interrupts your thoughts before they can start to get violent.

Your eyes slid over to meet his for a moment before you turned back to the man in question, “I know his type.”

“And what exactly is my type?” Hawks interrupts from across the room.

Damn his excellent hearing.

You stood, going toe to toe with the bird boy, glad in this moment that Mio is busy listening to music. “You're the kind of guy who is a little too cocky for his own good, who doesn't care if he hurts anyone else to get what he wants.” You flush slightly when you realize just how close you had gotten to him.

“Sounds like a compliment to me,” he winks, a stupid lopsided grin on his lips.

It makes you want to-

“Alright Mx. L/N,” a woman walks in with her eyes on a clipboard, “Let’s see what you can do!” She looks up to see the impending clash and gives a look that tells you this is something she is used to.

You send Hawks a mischievous glare, “I can demonstrate on him if you’d like.”

Hawks is about to volunteer when the woman, Professor Tanaka, sighs and tells Hawks to sit down.

He sits next to Mio who begins admiring his feathers.

You start warming up your muscles and make quick but concise observations of the testing room. It made you nervous. You hadn’t gone to a hero school because you never wanted to be a hero. You would have been perfectly happy being quirkless however, you weren’t. You had this quirk and now that you had Mio, you would use it to protect her. Gone were the days of others using you for your quirk.

A chime goes off and a few bots appear for the upper left-hand corner. As you turn you begin to form a staff from your right side, pulling it up and out so that it doesn’t get caught on your shorts, you’d learned that the hard way. A few quick jabs and the bots fell to the floor and different ones come in. They were built to mimic common quirks so you had no way of knowing what they’d use, but you weren’t going to give them any time to show you. You quickly create the throwing knives you had tattooed on your hands/arms and threw them with precision so that they strike anywhere a bot could deploy a quirk. Then, you pick your staff back up and strike them. They explode on each other and you duck away from the blast. A chime goes off informing you the current test was over. So, you stand up and take a bow.

They were content with your performance, so now Professor Tanaka was having you make as many things as you could in succession. You look back to see your audience, Hawks is doing his best to look bored, Mio had excitement and pride written over her features, and Aizawa… you couldn’t read him. You had no idea what he was thinking or feeling and that made you nervous.

You were getting bored, so you had Mio come over and point at a tattoo for you to create rather than you picking at random. You created vines that extended past your arms and crept around the testing room, one wrapping around Hawks’ ankles and another up Aizawa’s chair to his chest. They moved in a snake-like fashion, curling and slinking up and around whatever you wanted. This went on for about 10 minutes before they began to disintegrate back into nothingness. You were drained, but now Mio had touched the butterfly, it was her favorite of all your creations. With the last of your energy, you create a swarm of butterflies that gently flit throughout the room.

Hawks gasps. You turn, intending to give him a smug look, but your eyes catch on Aizawa, who looks on with an almost childlike wonder. His eyes meet yours and that sparkle is back for just a second before it’s gone again.

You now look back to the professor who is writing in her notebook quickly. You had anticipated this. Most people with creation quirks could only make non-living things. You were somewhat of an anomaly. Before the professor could ask questions, you began explaining your quirk.

“My father’s side is full of run-of-the-mill creation quirks while my mother had an illusion quirk. I got the mix of the two. I’ve never been able to create anything more complicated than bugs and insects. My vines seem alive, but they’re probably closer to working like Eraser Head’s capture weapon. Inanimate objects are easier. I can keep those up for hours if need be. My vines didn’t last long because I’m already worn out and I’m directing multiple parts at once. The butterflies last longer because I don’t control where they go or what they do, at least so far.”

Professor Tanaka nodded as she continues taking notes, Mio was having the time of her life running around amidst all the butterflies, Aizawa was trying not to stare, and Hawks had a look on his face that causes you concern. He stands and approaches you quickly, wings puffed, back straight.

“Y/N, why the hell aren’t you a hero? We could use someone like you!” he was exasperated, but you knew he didn’t understand.

“Hawks,” You said as you stand. Your butterflies begin to swarm behind you causing a beautiful but terrifying visual. “Why do you think you know what's best for everyone around you? Why do you think you know me? I’ve played hero before and it was hell. I am not an object, a weapon to be used by someone else!”

Your butterflies swarm him, following the emotion you carry with your words. They aren’t going to hurt him, but Hawks uses his feathers to disintegrate your creation. You shake your head at him and he feels something odd in the pit of his stomach. You almost reach Mio when you collapse and luckily Aizawa is there, catching you quickly.

“I fear we pushed them too far,” a distant voice comments. “We ought to save Mio’s testing for another time.”

“You know why we need these results, Professor,” A smoothly annoying voice responds. “I say we do it anyway.”

Professor Tanaka speaks again, “We need parental or guardian permission before we can perform testing on minors. I will not skip a step because you *need* something.”

Then a third voice pipes up, “I’m lead on this investigation and I say we wait.” His tone is bored but straight to the point.

Thank you Aizawa, you think before you lose consciousness again.

Dabi has been in this damn tree for hours by the time you return, the erasure hero helping you walk up to your apartment. Dabi moves so he can keep an eye on you as you walk through your bedroom door. You begin to shed clothing as soon as the door is shut and Dabi takes a moment to look over your naked form, taking count of the different tattoos that cover your skin. Most are new- at least new to him. But he sees the dagger he inked into your skin so many years ago placed on the back of your thigh before you jump in the shower.

Dabi had helped you get out of a scrap with some lowlifes who would have picked a fight with anyone. You didn’t have many weapons at your disposal. So far a few throwing knives and your vines, but you’d have yet to master your throw or control of the weaving plant.

The plan for the evening had been to grab some pizza, but you were left exhausted. Whatever was in the fridge would have to do. Dabi picks you up and gets you back to your dingy shared apartment. It took a few hours, but you eventually woke up and stiffly got up from the spot Dabi had discarded you on the couch. Carefully you sat down at the desk with transfer paper and began to work on a design. You weren’t sure how much time had passed when a shadow covered your lighting.

“What do you think?” you ask, still focused on correcting an edge of the blade.

“I think it’s sexy,” he whispers, lips at the shell of your ear.

He gives you a few suggestions and then you print the drawing on the transfer paper.

“Where do I put it?” you’ve got an eyebrow raised suggestively.

“Let’s see,” he circles you, looking over every inch of skin that was currently exposed. “Pants,” he demands more than asks.

You do as he said and wiggle out of your pants. He gets closer, crouching down to run a rough finger down your leg before he determines the spot, leaving a kiss just below your left ass cheek.

Then he gets to work prepping the workspace, making sure everything was sterile. He places the stencil, taking his time. When he removes the paper you turn to look in the mirror and nod.

The only time Dabi is tender is when he has the needle in his hand inking you with your drawings. This process is what keeps you there. You know he’ll never let anyone touch you, he’s too possessive… and obsessive. But, you were drawn together for a reason- you were both too broken and too angry at the society of heroes everyone worships.

Dabi sighs, feeling odd about the hero making you dinner. “How disgustingly domestic,” he mutters to no one. “I'll give you one more night of peace,” he says decidedly. “League be damned. I’m doing this my way.”

[cass-watson]

⋆ ⠀⠀⠀࿐ྃ ▸ ; ⠀ [ crystal reed. human/feeder. 36. Bisexual. cisfemale. ] was that just CASSANDRA WATSON, I saw coming out of THE GYM? the SELF-DEFENSE INSTRUCTOR is best to be described as + INDEPENDENT, but pronouns could also be - RECKLESS and as well as being previously unmarked they can easily be noticed by RUNNING HEADFIRST TOWARDS THE DANGER, LIVING WITHIN HER MEANS, DENIM JACKETS, as well as THE HEAD OF MEDUSA, which has only just appeared. @lovebitestarter

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Alcoholism, Mentions of Infidelity, Mentions of drug use, Mentions of overdose, Mentions of Physical, Verbal, and Emotional Abuse (None of it is explicit or heavily touched upon beyond a sentence or two, but it is still there) [[If anyone cannot read this due to the triggers let me know and I will give you the short version! I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to force themselves to read something that’s potentially triggering.]]

About You

My name is Damian and I live in the cst timezone. I’m twenty-five, currently working from home, and have two dogs of my own. I am open to any kinds of plotting! Currently my discord is not setup so for now the best way to reach me via tumblr messenger. The biggest plot I am looking for is for a vampire who Cass is the personal feeder for! Other than that I enjoy drinking iced tea and knitting while listening to podcasts.

— *    ⟢ 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕤𝕚𝕔𝕤 !

full name: Cassandra Ann Watson

species: human

age: thirty-six

date of birth: april 19, 1987

hometown: everett, washington

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: bisexual

+ likes: working out, yoga, going for walks with her dog, autumn, cooking, gardening - dislikes: people who get into her business, the ocean, heights, coffee, mustard

positive traits: Independent, Courageous, Protective, Dependable

negative traits: Reckless, Impatient, Impulsive, Possessive

hobbies: Archery, Yoga, Cooking, Gardening, Trying various new foods

fears: The Ocean, Heights, Being Cheated On

Biography

You were born in a town in Washington. To two high school sweethearts who loved each other and they loved you. The apple of their eye. Doting on you, supporting you, you walked with them hand in hand. And when your family grew bigger that just meant more love and attention to go around. You loved your siblings, even if they did not resemble you or your father, your mother told you that meant god wished for your family to be as colorful as a rainbow.

You are a child no longer

Your childhood was a lie. A lie you would not see until you were finally old enough to understand. Your father is an alcoholic and when he’s not out on the job he’s at the bar, you rarely see him sober. Your mother got pregnant in high school and the year you were born was the year she dropped out, to raise you. She reminds you constantly that if it weren’t for you her life would be better. Your siblings, whom you love so dearly do not have the same father as you or each other. Your mother sleeps with other men a lot. Sometimes she’s doesn’t come home. On those nights it’s up to you to take care of the home, of your family. You are more of a parent than your own parents ever will be.

You cannot escape their claws

When you graduated high school it was with honors. You were almost valedictorian. You wanted to be more than your parents were and more than they thought you would be. You get accepted into the college of your dreams on full scholarship. There is nothing that is stopping you from finally achieving your goals. In your first year, only a few months in and you get a phone call. Your father beat up your mother and her current secret lover pretty bad. Both are in the hospital, your father in jail. Your mother begs you to come home. She needs you. You drop everything and move back home. To take care of your family again. Your mother tries to be better, do better now that your father isn’t around but she falls back into old habits. She tells you that with you back home where you belong and your father in jail she can do what she wants. You are left back at square one.

You love so much but who will love you

You are now turning twenty and working at the local diner, trying to make ends meet. Your brother picks up a job after school and your sister watches your two youngest siblings while you’re at work. There is a guy your age at the diner. His name is Derek and he washes the dishes, maybe even cooks if the diner is short staffed. He flirts with you often and you just roll your eyes with a smile. You have no time for dating or flings. But one night you both work late. You both talk as you work and for once you felt seen, all your issues, your baggage is accepted. You feel lighter than you have in years. You decide to go on one date with him. It turns into two that turns into more. You are in love, truly in love and you tell yourself that this is will last. Through the rose colored glasses you don’t see him breaking your heart until it is too late. Another woman is in his bed and you see red. You want to murder him, no you want to hurt him like he hurt you and it takes everything you are to not do it. Instead you break the nearest thing he owns, you slash his tires, you make sure he knows that you will kill him if you see him again. 

You don’t let yourself cry

Four years later and you set foot into Everwinter for the first time. You had to get away, you needed a fresh start. You needed to bring yourself happiness for once. And the first couple of years go by fine. Until, almost like deja vu you get another dreaded phone call. Your mother overdose on her pills. She’s in the hospital. She needs you. It is like you are back in college. Like your mother has you like a puppet on strings that she tugs when she thinks you’ve been happy for too long. This time is different. You are not returning home this time. You are not giving up the life you are finally building for yourself. You tell her in no uncertain terms that you will be sending money each month to your brother, he will use it to take care of the family as he sees fit. Your mother will not get direct access to it. Unless she once and for all gets better, does better, actions speak louder than words. When you hang up that phone you feel like a puppet who cut its strings. And you feel good.

You broke the water’s surface and finally draw breath

You spend a year with your feeder buddy before you become an official feeder. The first vampire who employs you is for the most part nice and that’s it. Neither of you try to become friends and that is fine for you. Few years with them then you are employed by a different vampire, your current employer. They’re different. They talk to you before they feed, sometimes even chat afterwards. At first you are guarded however they have a knack for wearing you down. You’re not the biggest fan of your job but the money is nothing to sneeze at and your employer doesn’t care that you send all your earnings back home. You don’t have a use for such luxury. Life is good, you are content.

Your mark appears and the water begins to ripple

———

Other Info

Has a 3 year old blue nose pitbull named Maggie that tends to be at her side at all hours of the day. Cassandra loves her and doesn’t think she would have gotten through the past couple of years without her. (image)

She is bisexual, leans towards men/masculine presenting people.

Is a Self Defense Instructor at a local gym. However due to also being a feeder she just gives verbal instructions while using her coworkers as visual aids.

Speaks English and German fluently. Does have a basic understanding of ASL. Currently learning Spanish.

Does not take cheating well at all. If she is in a relationship with someone or with two others then she expects it to be exclusive. She does not share.

———

Wanted Connections

Cassandra’s Current Vampire Employer: either gender or non-gender. She has been a feeder since turning twenty-six and they would be her current vampire employer, possibly only been feeding from her for at most five years or so. They have a not quite friend but not strictly business relationship. They would know that Cassandra sends all the money she earns to her parent and siblings.

Cassandra’s friends: either new or old friends though she has a difficult time keeping up with her friends and isn’t proud that she sometimes leaves them on read. Has been trying her darndest to do better and do right by her friends, hanging out a lot more. 

———

species

Cassandra is a human through and through, she can’t imagine being anything else. Living forever or being stronger does not hold much appeal to her.

The potential that she is bonded to a different species is terrifying. But the idea of her being bonded to anyone is terrifying to her.

Vampires: she feels neutral about vampires as a whole. Her vampire employer isn’t too bad. However she is often warned by other feeders that most rogue vampires, and those of the Malkavian Clan are practically evil incarnate while they consider the Menesis Clan heroes. Cass knows that like humans even vampires are not black and white.

Witches: she does not hold much opinion on witches. To her they seem the closest to humans, if you just think of it from a mortality perspective. Each witch is vastly different from each other so most of her opinions are based on individuals.

———

soulmarks

Cassandra is terrified of being bonded to someone or someones. She does not want it to become another string to control her like her mother did. Or another Derek situation. If she can avoid it she will and is somewhat grateful the mark is in an easy to hide spot.

Getting her mark only recently Cassandra knows, at least assumes the person she’s bound to is a vampire. At least one of them is. She feels pulled in more than one direction.

She does not plan to let her mark disrupt her life. Hopefully. She is trying her best. Cassandra focuses on her two jobs and her dog.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Higurashi New 2 | Wandering Witch 2 | Moriarty 1 | Taiso Samurai 1 | Kamisama 1 | Munou na Nana 2 | Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25) | Yashahime 2

I’m trying a seasonal challenge this time...so that means I have to leave some Crunchyroll anime to the side. That’s why I’m putting in the tags now.

Higurashi New 2

Apparently, now this Higurashi is called “Gou”…I dunno what that means in the context of this series, but *Saitama face* OK.

Is this girl…Rika? Or this Hanyuu girl I heard of on ANN? Update: Wait a bit from that point. You’ll get your answer.

Do they ever examine why the girls in Higurashi are what they are? Rika seems to have something supernatural going on, but Rena…is just a psycho girl right now, so it’s hard to care.

LOL, I was wondering where this “nipah” Rika meme came from, but it is present in the dialogue.

I predicted that Gilligan cu-er, transition far too easily…

Why is that kid’s face so tanned (?) in comparison to the rest of him???

How did these girls get up the building so fast??? (LOL?)

Wow, the cicada noise was pretty loud there, so…props to the sound guys for making that sound stifling.

Can we really trust what Mion is saying about Tomitake…?

I thought we were going to see Watanagashi in ep 3, but…okay.

Satoko speaks rather formally. She says kochira de gozaimasuyo! instead of kocchi! or kochiradesuyo!.

Who’s that blonde lady? Someone from Umineko?

The bright colours really help to sell the ominous nature of this ED and anime. I don’t think I understand everything that’s happening in said ED, though…

Gonna pause it here because I heard you need to watch the OG and Rei to understand this, now that the new Higurashi is operating under its “proper” name.

Wandering Witch 2

…Elaina’s a bit full of herself still…

…what the heck was that instrument playing over the titlecard? Bagpipes…?

LOL, it’s the Attack on Titan world!

Did Elaina lose her hat when she fell? That must be a very stable hat indeed.

Ooh, particle effects! However…there’s CGI here, although it’s only kinda noticeable.

Have you never heard of money…?

Wait, witches get discounts???

It seems Saya comes from Japan.

LOL, this is basically Quidditch without a snitch!

I like mushrooms, so I don’t get why people kick up such a fuss about them.

Saya seems to act like this is yuri bait…*sigh*

Saya’s crying like her sister died…c’mon, it’s not that bad!

I’m hitting pause. If this is actually how the series is, then it’s primed for a drop, but I can’t help but keep it on for the spectacular visuals and the fact it’s basically anime Harry Potter.

Taiso Samurai 1

I keep swearing I’ll finish my old simulcasts…but then new ones pop up like daisies…(I guess it’s better than having no anime to finish, right?)

I just realised how pretty Jotaro’s eyes are…! The fact he just sort of splats and then doesn’t get up shows how weary he is, unlike Sakura from Moon Land, who would’ve probably gotten up and never tried doing gymnastics again if he were in the same position.

Just by glancing over the results when I google for this Montreal gold, it seems it was done by a Kouhei Uchimura, but I might be wrong on that front…oh wait, there are 3 golds, so it’s not necessarily just that one…

You can tell this is 2002 because of that flip phone.

Intai Zamurai…it’s constructed the same way as the anime’s title. Two characters and then “samurai”.

BB (Big Bird) on the side there is so goofy, he’s…kind of distracting. <- Note the official website refers to Big Bird as BB, hence my use of it.

I was wondering if Rei was the daughter or the wife…so it’s the former.

Kinugawa Ropeway…it rings a bell, somehow. Maybe the Boueibu crew went there as DVD/BD extras.

…does everyone know that a ryokan is like a mini hotel with a traditional set-up?

*snorts* LOL, Keanu (Reeves, obviously).

That montage was a bit worrying…maybe the CGI took out part of the budget? I was a bit worried when I could tell there was CGI in that one starting segment.

…LOL, wut. Agent Smith (from the Matrix)?

Yamakasi seems to be a parkour thing which has its own movie.

…I’m sort of wondering: was that ninja a woman? If Jotaro gets another wife…I dunno if I’ll like the anime as much. Things could become far too dramatic if he did. Update: You do find out later in this episode.

I think – from lip reading – the ninja used -de gozaimasu. I remember getting it drilled into me that people don’t use that these days, but in the time of ninja and samurai, they did.

…another anime set in Ikebukuro. I knew from the station, but…’bukuro must be a nice place if people are reppin’ it all of a sudden.

Was Tomoyo an actress…?

“Kinugawa, as in the river where ogres get mad?” – See, that’s the pun I made about Boueibu’s Atsushi years ago…

This Takizawa guy’s so expressive, LOL.

Gotta love a man in a suit, yes…

…they keep building up to this retirement, only for him to not retire??? Which is it?! (LOL) That declaration works better in Japanese because the -shimasen goes at the end of the sentence so the weird sentence structure in the English translation actually makes Jotaro look like he really messed up due to nervousness speaking in front of crowds. Update: He just sounds like he stopped in the middle of a sentence in Japanese, which he obviously did.

There’s no time travel for sure, but there are ninjas! Plus dudes in jumpsuits!...plus, of course, gymnastics! It could still work, but I keep swearing there’s something supernatural coming around the corner for this…Also, this “gymnast trying to retire” thing seems to be drawing me in because of my whole current lack of direction in basically everything, much like Rikuo of Sing Yesterday for Me.

Kamisama 1

Hmm…Kamisama ni Natta Hi…it doesn’t say the subject stating this became a god, so the pronoun could be “she” or “you” rather than “I”, which seems to be the current standard for it. Update: It says on the title card “I”, so it should have an I then…I guess(?)

There’s a fish on the logo.

…this girl, I already know her name is Hina. That’s the 2nd Odin this season (the first is in Sigdrifa…or however it’s spelt)…she’s gonna be annoying, isn’t she…?

What’s this about a date…?

There are two Izanamis this season, too. The second is Hifumi from HypMic.

Looks like there was an accident, according to one of the signs.

…This feels exactly like a visual novel. I’m surprised it’s an original.

I was wondering why “Key Ramen” (Kagi Ramen) sounded weird…then it hit me. Key! You motherf**kers!!! *shakes fist* You were hiding right under my nose all along!

Hey, Potato-kun! (I know his name is Youta, but…eh, aside from having a possible girlfriend candidate and being a Nice Guy, he’s still a Potato-kun.) Stop staring in disbelief and do something!

…Why Potato-kun, anyway? Is it because his name means “become god”???

…This Izanami is so emotionless…it’s hard to imagine her cheering, Youta was right on that front.

…that style in Hina’s background…I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it for Sailor Moon Crystal, but I’ve forgotten what the artist’s name is (the one that inspired that artstyle)…

I almost expected Hina to interrupt the confession, like Leo from Taiso Samurai.

I kinda just shrugged near the end of the episode and finished it just to see if the confession would be interrupted, so…big fat drop there. I must not like much Key beyond Angel Beats (and even then, it’s only okay because it’s the relic of a time gone by).

Moriarty 1

I’ve been picking up Sherlock-related things left and right ever since I was a fan of Detective Conan…not Sherlock, Elementary or that Robert Downey Jr. movie, but the stuff Conan Doyle had his hands in. (I’d also like to keep an eye out for that Miyazaki movie, but I don’t know if I can/should go out of my way for it.) Therefore, I was a pretty easy mark for a bishonen Moriarty.

Who’s this “El” guy anyway?

…That OP is basically Black Butler all over again. I admit I went, “Oh, stuff this” for a second when I saw Rasmus Faber’s name on credits – when I went to entire series for him, they always ended badly for me – but I couldn’t stop watching the episode (since I skipped forward to the actual episode due to background noise), so this might be the anime to change everything.

I’ll be real with you – aside from Japan, America and China (the former two of which I’ve gone to and the latter I’ve technically gone to Hong Kong, which I have stronger ties to anyway), I honestly don’t have anywhere on my bucket list. That said, anime (obviously, the London arc from DC was a big factor) and this one movie called What a Girl Wants have been pretty instrumental in making Great Britain…almost make the list of places I want to go to. Key word: almost.

…I want a dub. With accents like Princess Principal.

Also, I forgot Soma Saito was our Moriarty…LOL.

“…for Man of Standing” (sic).

Turn the other cheek, Mr. Tailor.

The eyes really tell you everything about a person in this anime.

Ooh, this has absolutely no holes in its logic. It’s a strong contender!

Yashahime 2

Holy s***, is that Kagome’s brother?(!) He kinda reminds me of Takagi from Detective Conan for some reason…

Come to think of it…writers like Takahashi don’t normally have androgynous leads like Towa, do they?

That was…not the best fight scene, man.

Ooh, naginata. I’ve read a bit about them, but I’ve never really seen one used in an anime before…not to my memory. Not even the naginata in Touken Ranbu (plural) can help with that.

…this Rainbow Pearl business reminds me of Sailor Moon’s…uh, whatever they’re called…Rainbow Crystals, that’s right.

There’s something oddly comfy about predicting the “it won’t be my crying face, it’s yours you’ll get!” line, as bad as that sign may be for predictability on the whole.

I’ve felt in the years leading up to now, the progressive nations are slowly causing the entire gender binary to unravel. The more I think about my own relationship with my concept of gender – I accept gender-neutral third-person pronouns because initially I wanted to be anonymous on the internet, but now I’m just generally fine with it, for instance – the more I can agree and yet also disagree because of the progress the LGBTIQ+ community has made in recent years.

Munou na Nana 2

Ah-hah! People were calling it that the enemies of humanity were actually the superpowered kids and this proves it.

Ah, I think this Shibusawa is Masuda. I was here for him, so here he is.

Nana just says konnichiwa, which is the most basic of Japanese greetings. I don’t think it was phrased as a question, so…why did the subbers go with that?

Nana keeps breaking her chopsticks by leaving a bit at the end.

Lemme guess…Shibusawa’s talent is actually reversing time, not stopping it.

Is…that Shibusawa Nana’s giving flowers to…?

Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25)

If this is episode 25, was this always planned as a split-cour with season 2? I wonder…

Lingonberries! Oh, lingonberries! They’re those berries Ikea puts into their jam, right? (I’ve never tasted a lingonberry, but…yeah. That’s how I know of them.)

The sign says “Hurep Honpo” (backwards, as some older Japanese/Chinese things do), so it really just says “hurep” (since “honpo” = main shop). Update: Hurep actually means “lingonberry” and not the berry wine like I thought it did here, so it says “hurep wine” after all.

Thank goodness for 2D bears! (LOL)

Ratel?...uh, honey badger! That’s what they’re called in English!

…uh, and then it turns out to be a wolverine. I don’t know my Mustelidae, it seems.

There’s nothing like someone throwing a wolverine to know this is Golden Kamuy…(as weird as that sounds.)

…what was that random line about boobs about…? (Maybe it was just said to be random…?)

…ohhhhhhhh. These yellow eyes work much better than the standard red eyes you see in Munou na Nana or Moriarty. They’re so sinister.

Why did it suddenly change to an interview style…? Weren’t we waiting for a fight? Update: Seems the answer is “padding”. Not that I mind, I think it was interesting actually. Do more of that if you can.

[blackasteriia]

13!

Super Duper Deep Character Questions

||First question is shown but the rest is under the cut because it’s a doozy||

13.

Thank you @lunsai for the fantastic header. 

Let’s talk about Nomura’s portrayal of Xion’s gender in canon! We are introduced to ‘Xion’ through the eyes of Roxas. He sees a silent, hooded figure who he feels an immediate connection to. Xion does not speak to him for almost two weeks. They run a mission or two together. Then she removes her hood and he sees a young girl. She uses she/ her pronouns. Although there are attempts to misgender her, Xion seems uncomfortable with attempts to enforce a different gender than ‘female’ on her. Then, we have a conversation where we hear Xemnas’ --and assumably Nomura’s-- explanation of Xion’s gender. He says:

“But then through Roxas, Sora himself began to shape ‘it’ into ‘her’ giving Xion a sense of identity.”

Xemnas doesn’t care about Xion’s gender. He cares that she’s trapping Sora’s memories and ensuring that the keyblade remains in his use. However, the explanation of Xion’s gender leans into Nomura’s opinion of her character. Xion is not real to him. She is a fake person. Sora’s impression of Kairi, nothing more, nothing less. Her sense of identity comes from Sora’s memories that she stole from him and Roxas. Sora wanted her to be Kairi, so he made ‘it’ into ‘her.’ I know that Nomura doesn’t believe Xion isn’t a real person because she died at the end of the game. When he removed Sora from her character, there was nothing left of her. He even showed that with all of Sora’s memories, she is just Sora after all. Now, here are some of my observations:

1. It is terrible writing to build a character’s arc on them developing their own identity and personhood, then rip it away at the end. Xion’s story arc literally proves Xemnas right by its ending. 

2. Xion’s ‘gender’ is subjective to Roxas’ experience of her. She is a girl only in the sense that Roxas wanted her to be one. As soon as she has enough of Sora’s memory, she visually becomes a ‘boy.’ Well, that’s kinda gross and objectifying isn’t it? It’s almost like Nomura wants all his protagonists to have their own pet Kairi-- 

3. Xion’s story is parallel --yeah, I’ll go with that word-- to the experience of being transgender. I have zero faith that Nomura intended that. Yet, we have a character that is assigned one gender at birth (although it is a non-gender, I guess?). Who identifies as a different gender. Who deals with misgendering and other attempts to force them into their assigned gender. Hell, it’s almost a good story. Saïx,the guy misgendering her, is treated with contempt. Well, it’s good right up until she’s murdered and the guy abusing her is proven right by de facto. It’s Nomura, though, can’t win it all.

Hey, you know who is a character that is a lot like Xion? 

Steven Universe. 

No, no, no, come back I’m not joking. Spoilers for season 5 of the show, though. 

Steven Universe is a character that identifies as a boy. He has his mother’s gem and many people who see him, see her instead of him. Because of this, Steven is constantly misgendered and referred to as ‘Rose,’ or ‘Pink Diamond.’ Steven is compared through-out the show to Rose and struggles to live-up to her immense legacy. However, he affirms that he is a boy and that he is Steven. He wants to save the Earth and fulfill his destiny is his own Steven-y way. Through-out the series, we see him grow and mature into a heroic lead in his own right. In Season 5 we are introduced to White Diamond. White Diamond plays a role that could be considered akin to Pink Diamond’s mother. White Diamond claims that Steven is just another ‘trick’ and ‘game’ of Pink Diamond. Pink Diamond is hiding behind Steven in order to shirk her duties. So that White can restore her family, her home, and the order of the gem society, Pink must return to her station. To White Diamond, the problem is Pink being convinced that she is a boy named Steven Universe. Pink is so deluded she is even, ‘deceiving herself.’

So, to prove her point, White Diamond removes his gemstone. Steven was born with this gemstone, he has never lived without it. We have been told that he is both human and gem. That Rose ‘gave-up her physical body’ to have him. It is not inaccurate to say that apart of him is literally his mother. This is the most critical question of Steven’s character, is he, after all, really just Pink Diamond hiding? White Diamond risked killing Steven to return Pink Diamond. The gemstone glows and out emerges-- Steven. Pink Diamond is gone and its time for everyone to accept it. Steven then embraces himself and reunites with his gem in a heartfelt scene. White Diamond is left to throw a temper tantrum, but eventually learns to appreciate Steven for who he is. 

Now, can you imagine if Rebecca Sugar decided that Pink Diamond popped out of the gemstone instead of Steven? What kind of message would that send? Steven was never Steven. He was only Pink Diamond pretending to be Steven. He was never ‘him,’ only she pretending to be him. It would also work against Steven’s character arc. You know, his arc to establish himself as an independent and unique person, worthy of love, outside of his relationship to Rose? Yeah, that arc. So, now look at Xion’s character arc. Xion’s arc where her independence and identity were stomped on, thrown into the trash, then outright erased. Xion’s arc where she was constantly told ‘you don’t deserve to exist’ even though all she ever wanted was a life of peace with her friends. Xion’s arc which ended in her murder and her abusers absolved, with no consequences for their crimes against her. Xion’s arc where everyone who insulted, degraded, and oppressed her, was proven right. Now, look at Steven’s character arc. You tell me who did it better. 

Steven’s story, like Xion’s, has echos of the experience of being transgender. (Quick disclaimer: I am cis and I will never be able to represent the experience of someone who is transgender as well as someone who actually has that identity. I will do my best though and please let me know if I misrepresent something.) He is misgendered and dead named by characters who struggle to accept his (or really, Rose’s) change in identity. Neither Xion nor Steven’s characters are one-for-one and I don’t think they have to be? His character arc works to affirm the lesson of self-love and acceptance of identity that the show hammers on in every episode. I have no idea how intentional Steven’s story is. I do know that Rebecca Sugar is a fantastic writer, with a deep understanding of her characters, and who understands queer identity. Any other outcome than Steven emerging from that gem would cause more harm to young, LGBT+ viewers than good. Xion dying at the end of 358/2 Days is an insensitive, cruel, and needless message of the ‘villain wins, your abuser is right’ directed right to the viewer. 

Okay, so now that’s all cleared-up. Let’s do better by Xion than literally everything Nomura has ever done. 

First of all, Roxas is not the deciding factor in Xion’s gender. We can keep the influence of Sora’s memories or whatever, but ‘Sora wanting it to be Kairi’ is not a good enough point. So, let’s rewrite that. 

No. i had no biological sex and no gender identity at its inception. Whenever I refer to ‘No. i’ on the blog, I refer to it with neutral pronouns. I do this because No. i is not fundamentally Xion. Vexen could recreate a thousand No. i and none of them would be Xion. More than that, not all of them would be girls, or even boys, or individuals that don’t fit between the hard dichotomy. They could be anything or anyone they want. Xion however, came about when she was: named by Xemnas, lived under the influenced of the Organization members, experienced Sora’s memories, and made fundamental choices about her identity. Xion is a gradual creation and unique person who can’t just be ‘remade’ from notes. One of the influences on Xion was Larxene. An incredibly brief and one-sided influence, but effective nonetheless. 

I once joked that Xion saw Larxene beat up Demyx one day and decided that girls are cool, therefore she wants to be one. Well, a year later, that is effectively blog canon. Gender is arbitrary and really more based upon our expression than any hard limits anyway. Xion learned from Larxene a few things:

1. girls are cool, boys drool

2. feminine expression and style is badass

3. making boys terrified of you is fun

4. be sassy

And Larxene uses she/her pronouns, and calls herself a ‘girl.’ Therefore, Xion will use she/her pronouns and also call herself a girl. And because Xion thinks of herself as a girl, that’s enough for her to be one. The influence of Sora’s memories may’ve pressed upon her the appearance of Kairi, but that’s only because Xion agreed with that image. Kairi was a suitable blue print to ‘be more girl’ and therefore more badass. 

If you ask Xion about her gender she’ll just tell you she’s a girl. I don’t think she’ll ever really evolve past that either. It’s not complex to her. She dresses how she wants. She likes sort’ve feminine clothes too, purples, red, blues. Boots are pratical and shirts should be comfy. The next thing about gender is that we can choose how we express it and what it means to us. As an adult Xion can look at her gender as apart of her identity, one way she can define and describe herself. As someone who has fought so hard and struggled for so long to establish herself as a distinct person, the affirmation of Xion’s gender is powerful and meaningful to her.

[margoshansons]

My Power’s Turned On:

Part Three in the My Mother’s Daughter mini-series /// 01. 02.

Summary: After being sent on her first international SHIELD mission, Y/N Danvers discovers several well-kept secrets.

Notes: I may have fudged the timeline a bit, seeing as this takes place about a month before Winter Soldier, but I’m also kinda re-writing the MCU with this so...

“You joined SHIELD?!” Carol Danvers’ voice yelled through the Kree communications device. Y/N sighed, annoyance rising in her chest. “The one thing I specifically told you not to do? And you did it?”

“Yes, Mom” Y/N replied, rolling her eyes, “Look, you are the one who flies off every year to save the universe, so really you only have yourself to blame.”

Carol scoffed, “How the hell is this my fault?”

Y/N shrugged, “You set too good of an example when I was a kid. Besides, I’m twenty-five, not fifteen. I can handle my powers.”

“That’s not why I want you away from SHIELD” Carol confessed. “Look, Fury has told me something that could potentially put you and Monica in danger. I know you two can handle yourselves, but this is beyond anything Fury had ever planned for this organization.”

Y/N nodded, her annoyance fading, “I’ll be careful, I promise.” The comm shut off, with the agent promising to give her briefing to the woman who raised her after her mission.

“Mom says hi,” Y/N told Monica, collapsing into the seat of the Quadjet beside her. “She’s worried about us.”

“She’s always worried,” Monica smirked, “But I guess she has good reason to be.”

Y/N tugged on the collar of her new suit. The older ones always burned up when she went binary, hopefully, this one would last. The synthetic polymer sat tightly around her chest and inner thigh, while the more lightweight material stretched from her hips and shoulders down her limbs. She was thankful for the similarities to her mom’s suit, no doubt Fury’s idea. Camoflague was useful, especially on SHIELD missions.

“Agents Danvers and Rambeau come in” Fury’s harsh voice came over the comms, the two women affirming their presence.

“The city of Sokovia has been struggling with internal struggles for years, your job is to keep citizens safe while you try and take down the base.” Fury relayed, his neutral tone sounding out of place for the two women. 

“Yes sir” Monica replied.

“Danvers” Fury addressed, his tone growing dark.

“Yes, sir?” Y/N asked, unsure why he was singling her out. 

“Keep the glowing to a minimum until you get inside the base. Sokovia doesn’t need any more destruction.”

“But sir” Y/N protested, knowing she could do more good than evil with the binary. “These people need our help, if I can do some good--”

“These people are not your mission Danvers” Fury called her out, “Your mission is to take down the Hydra base, understood?”

Silence filled the jet as she met Monica’s brown orbs in confusion. “Understood Sir.” She replied resentfully, taking her place in the cockpit with Monica, ready to complete the mission. 

“Target in sight” Monica replied, the small city base growing larger as they grew closer. The ship shook, sending Y/N into a flashback four years ago when a similar position revealed the existence of aliens near Earth.

“What the hell was that?” Y/N asked, scanning the controls for any idea.

Monica shook her head in confusion, “They seem to have some kind of energy tech, hold on” She veered right, taking a sharp turn before moving upward, flipping the jet to face the attackers. “It looks too similar to the Chithari to be a coincidence.”

Y/N put it together before anyone else did. “They have the Scepter.” She stood up, securing her gloves and hitting several buttons, the hatch opening up to the chilly Eastern European weather. 

“Y/N, what are you doing?” Monica yelled from the cockpit.

“We can’t take them down just using our weapons, we need something stronger.” She responded. 

“Danvers stand down!” Fury yelled, “That’s an order!”

Monica shut off the comms and turned to face her sister. “You sure you can do this?”

Y/N smiled, “I’ll get you an opening, when I say so, fire.”

Monica nodded, turning the comms back on. Y/N pressed a button near her ear, the protective mask crawling over her eyes as she launched from the jet, allowing herself the brief sensation of free fall before her body warmed, the binary propelling her forward. She shrieked in joy, the experience never growing old. 

She pushed forward, wind flying past her as the chilly weather remained. The gunners were easy to spot, and their attempts at hitting a target smaller than the Hulk were just pitiful. Metal clashed against her unbreakable skin as she flew through the middle of the ship, her surrounding energy destroying every piece of the HYDRA owned vehicle. She stared down with pride at her work, pushing forward to continue it. The ships fell one by one with ease, and Monica had an opening. 

She had done it. 

Y/N smiled, her sister flying beside her as the two pushed forward. A shot of pain hit her stomach and sent her reeling, her body crashing against the snow. The energy had hit her. 

It had taken her down.

What the hell was in that Scepter?

She launched upward, flying above the trees to see what she had missed. 

The vantage point. They were on a hill. They had a shield. 

“Monica!” Y/N called over the comms, “Don’t engage, I repeat don’t engage!”

She flew forward, her body whipping through the air as she continued to repeat her warning. “The base is covered by the same energy we’ve been experiencing. Unless you can find a way to take it down, we’re not getting inside.”

“Scan for any weak points” Fury encouraged, the slightest shake in his voice. Y/N heard Monica announce that she would. 

“I’ll go into the field, see if there’s any other way inside” Y/N yelled, ignoring the protests in her ears. Gathering energy once more she slammed the ground of the base, sending soldiers flying and explosions raging. 

Her fists blasted any of the other remaining ones as she fought her way through. HYDRA may have had defenses, but they were pretty poor ones if she said so herself. 

It wasn't until she managed to get ahold of one of the energy spears that an idea came to her. “Monica, how fast are you able to find that weak spot?”

“I’m scanning now” Her sister replied, “There's nothing concrete, our best bet seems to be on top of the leftmost tower.”

Y/N shot upward, headed in the direction Monica had suggested. “When I tell you to, fire”

“Y/N” Monica protested, “Our firing system isn’t that accurate, if we end up missing then--”

The agent cut herself off as she realized what her sister was planning. “If this goes wrong, I am so telling Mom.”

Y/N smirked as she took her spot, her body warming as she charged up, the glass encasing her face strong enough to withstand the power inside her. The spear began to spark and Y/N kept her eye on the Quadjet. It flew closer, and closer until--

“Fire!” Y/N shouted, thrusting downward with the spear, energies colliding with the artillery, blowing a hole straight through the base. 

She was in.

Finding the room with the Scepter was much easier than actually getting into the building. Y/N swore up and down that she could almost feel her energy getting stronger as she approached.

“Attention Headquarters” She whispered in her Comm as the Scepter entered her vision. “I have a visual on Loki’s Scepter.”

“The Scepter’s there?” Fury’s surprise was cut off by a scream coming from the adjacent room. Something pulled her there. Whether it was her own conscious or her curiosity, she couldn’t tell. 

She stared at the glass wall before her, shock filling her system as she watched the scene unfold before her eyes. On the opposite side of the glass stood two teenagers, identical in everything except gender, chained to the wall. Y/N stood in horror as the Scepter blasted the two kids, their screams the ones she had heard earlier.

“Hey!” She tried to call through the glass, “Hey! You guys okay?” The chains fell and so did the kids. The girl collapsed into the arms of what she assumed was her brother, their furious eyes meeting hers. 

“Y/N!” Monica’s voice yelled in her ear. “They know we know about the Scepter. You need to get out of there now.”

She could see what lay behind the anger in the siblings’ eyes. Fear. They were afraid of what she would do next. 

Y/N’s body began to warm. Except, she wasn’t in control of it. Her eyes landed on the Scepter, finally understanding what Loki had coveted two years ago. Finally understanding why HYDRA was after.

The Scepter was an energy core. Like the Tesseract that gave her binary. 

These kids had been exposed to enough energy to give them the same abilities she had. They were enhanced like her. And she couldn’t leave them behind. 

She retreated back into the hall, slipping into the adjacent room. The room with the Scepter. Her body began to pulse, the yellow photons she had become familiar with surrounding her hands. 

“Hands up!” The HYDRA agent announced his presence and Y/N made her decision. Grasping the Scepter, she felt their energies collide, mixing until her body was at an unholy temperature, reddening her skin and sticking her hair to the back of her neck. 

She slammed the Scepter to the ground, an earthquake shaking the core of the base, rattling it, causing the glass wall to collapse behind her, killing the agents that had entered that room. 

She took a look behind her and met the newly empowered eyes of the enhanced siblings. “Take care of this” She instructed, placing the Scepter back on the table before launching upward, deciding it was time to follow her Director’s orders. 

“Y/N!” Monica shouted, her voice hoarse like she had been screaming for minutes. When the ringing in her ears finally stopped, she could hear what her sister had been saying for the past several minutes. “They’re firing at the civilians, what do we do?”

“You take down the gunners,” She instructed, shaking herself free of the experience she had just performed, “I’ll protect the citizens.” 

She flew toward the wartorn city of Sokovia, the citizens desperately crawling for cover. Ships were decimating the city, all in an attempt to get her away from the base. She propelled through them like a knife through butter, her newfound energy coursing through her veins like nothing she had ever experienced. 

She landed on her knees in the middle of the city, facing down the sniper determined to take out every man, woman, and child in the village. It should’ve taken her less than a second, just one photon blast and he would be decimated. 

Instead, she was the one hit with an energy blast. The weapon left a lightning-shaped hole in her uniform, the synthetic polymer hanging on by mere threads while her tank top was exposed. She struggled up, barely avoiding a dodge from another blast. The building beside her crumbled and she ran over, holding it up, urging the citizens to escape. 

She fell to her knees as another blast scraped her leg. The building couldn’t stay up forever. There were still people that needed to be saved. A blur passed her gaze and before she knew it someone gave her a verbal confirmation that the building was truly emptied. Using whatever strength she had left, she dropped the ceiling behind her, flying forward to meet the Sniper firsthand. She dodged several more blasts before using one of her own. 

The man went flying, his gun disabled.

Y/N heard the sound of planes above her, and she looked up, seeing the Quadjet make an appearance. Her mask had flown off during the toppling of the base, and the citizens of Sokovia gathered around to take a look at the woman who had saved their lives. 

The jet opened and Monica collided into her, the older sister squeezing Y/N so tight, she almost couldn’t breathe. 

“Looks like we need to get you another suit” Monica joked, a chuckle coming from the two siblings before they embraced again.

A light touch brought Josie back to the Sokovians, and her gaze met the grateful one of the girl she had saved from HYDRA earlier. 

“We wanted to thank you,” The boy said, “List told us that experimentation was the only way, now we know it is not.”

Y/N nodded, “You were trying to protect your home. Keep doing that, but know that there are better ways than just the first option someone offers you.”

The siblings went silent at that. 

“Take care of this place,” She urged, “You’re its protectors now but if you ever need any help…”

She reached in the pocket of her suit and pulled out a similar pager to her mom’s. “Just hit that button. Don’t worry” She assured as confusion crossed the pair’s faces. “It uh, has international coverage.”

The girl gingerly took the pager, twirling it in her hands before stuffing it in her pocket. Y/N sent the siblings a smile before heading back into the Quinjet.

***

Wanda fingered the strange device in her hand for a few minutes, her mind still on the woman who had saved them earlier. Something in that stone had given Wanda her powers, and she suspected that if the woman’s display was anything to go by, she had obtained hers from a stone as well.

They were calling her The Commander in the streets, the woman who came from the skies. Wanda couldn’t help but be impressed by her dedication. Hardly anyone knew that Sokovia existed, let alone cared enough about its citizens to sacrifice her strength for them.

She had to smile.

“Still thinking about The Commander sestra?” Pietro teased, sending a playful look her way. 

“Shut up” Wanda retorted, failing to keep the blushing smile off her face.

***

“You sure you don’t want to get another suit?” Monica asked as Maria helped put the finishing touches on the damaged fabric, the golden polymer filling the hole the sniper had left.

Y/n shook her head, “Nah, this way I always have a reminder of my first international mission on my chest.”

Monica rolled her eyes as she flipped through the book she had purchased earlier that day, “You’re such a sentimental dork.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, pulling the suit on over her singlet. 

“She’s not wrong” A familiar voice rang through the house. Y/N turned around, her gaze meeting the bright one of Carol Danvers. 

“MOM!” She shouted, bolting from Maria’s side to embrace her mother. Carol squeezed almost as tightly as Monica, relief flowing from her.

“About time you showed up” Maria retorted. Carol pulled away from Y/N to embrace the woman she had been missing for so long.

“Yeah, well I was going to stop by sooner, but their other mom is a bit of a pain.”

“Shut up” Maria chuckled, pulling Carol toward her. 

“Gladly”

The two women smiled as they kissed for the first time in two years. Monica and Y/N linked arms at the sight, wide smiles across their face.

Hell yeah, that’s some Carol/Maria right there. They deserved to kiss onscreen and you can’t change my mind. Also, I know Wanda is like sixteen in AOU so her attraction is more of a crush than a serious thing.

If you wanna be tagged let me know and feel free to leave a request in my inbox!

Don’t forget to like, comment, and reblog! Thanks!

[dvp95]

quiet on widow’s peak (6)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, mystery, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 2.9k (this chapter), 19.7k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Hope my friends and I didn't make things weird for you yesterday. We're heading to the city around noon if you're still up for helping us with the boring part.

noon?? fucking alright i guess i gotta put pants on

lmao yeah, sorry. My parents woke us up at EIGHT like that's a normal time to be awake????

desgostang

What?

ill send u the link later and also no i didnt feel weird yesterday you guys are nice

That's good! And hey I wanted to ask. You were kind of put on the spot with introducing yourself, would you rather we called you Dan or Winnie? I just wanna make sure we aren't making you uncomfortable at all lmao

no its all fine you can call me dan idc and actually its best if you do call me dan when youre in my work lmao

Are you totally sure?

why would i lie abt this. dont be an idiot it isnt a good look on you

haha okay. I’ll see you around noon.

--

“Christopher is a nice boy,” Phil’s mum is telling him as she helps him with their fancy new coffeemaker. There are so many buttons and Phil is so, so tired. “And Sophie is lovely, such a soft-spoken thing. Why haven’t we met them before, dear?”

“Dunno,” Phil says instead of the truth, which is that he’d had no idea how he was supposed to introduce them. “You have now, though.”

His mum laughs and reaches up to pat his cheek. “True enough. I’m so happy that you’ve got good people around you, Philip. I’ve gotten quite worried about you down there by yourself, you know.”

“I’m not by myself,” says Phil. “I live with, like, thirty people.”

“Bunch of strangers, I’ll bet,” she says, because she knows him. “Aside from those three.”

The thing is, she’s not wrong. Phil’s obviously exaggerating about the number of people under the roof of the creaky Brighton house, but the truth is that he can’t keep track half the time. A lot of the rooms get sublet out randomly, or a significant other will start spending so much time around the place that they might as well pay rent, and Phil really isn’t good with new people. He gets along fine with Holly and Dave, but they’ve been there as long as he has and the closest they’ve ever come to a heart-to-heart was comparing anxiety meds over burned pancakes.

Chris and Sophie were there when Phil moved in, and they’d taken one look at him and decided to just keep shoving into his space until he liked having them there, like they were on a mission to adopt PJ’s sad, ghost-obsessed friend from the internet.

“You might be right,” Phil says, feeling a smile tug at his lips for the first time all morning. He’s already had a coffee - and a half, when PJ declared that not even Kath could make coffee taste good and shoved the rest of his Phil’s way - but he still doesn’t feel fully awake. “I’m only really friends with Chris and Soph because of PJ.”

“PJ is a good friend to you, isn’t he?” his mum hums. That slightly pointed tone doesn’t get to Phil the way it usually does, because he knows that she’s just trying to understand him.

It doesn’t escape Phil’s notice that he’s looking into a mirror whenever he sees his parents watching him carefully, waiting for him to tell them something he hasn’t explicitly said, because he’s been doing the exact same thing to his housemates for nearly two years.

Maybe he’ll tell his parents when he’s got someone serious or even, like, semi-serious. Longer than two dates would be a record at this point. But right now he already feels like he’s been one misstep away from disappointing them, and he doesn’t want to take the gamble that his sexuality will be that misstep.

He’s not up for this conversation, though, isn’t sure he’ll ever be, so he just says, “Yeah, he is.”

--

Dan is late. They’re so late, actually, that Phil’s wheel of worst case scenarios has been spinning silently and getting faster and faster the more caffeine he chugs. They roll in with flushed cheeks and a jacket that looks too thin, apologies on their shiny lips that Phil doesn’t even hear for a couple of seconds because he’s too busy staring at them.

“No worries,” Sophie says, interrupting their rambling before they lose another half hour to it. “You want something? I’m getting a refill.”

“No, no, let me,” says Dan. They shrug off their jacket and hang it on one of the empty chairs. Phil and his friends have co-opted the largest table in the place so they can spread out with their laptops and notebooks, and it doesn’t escape Phil’s notice that Dan has decided to sit next to him when they’ve got a couple of options. “I get free drinks if Gabe’s in a good mood. Anyone else need a refill?”

“Me,” Chris says, not looking up from his screen. “Not Phil. He’s cut off.”

“Hey,” Phil protests weakly. His heart rate really has picked up since they sat down, so he knows Chris has a point.

Dan grins, their soft cheeks giving way to the dimples that Phil is very quickly growing obsessed with. He just wants to make Dan smile and laugh constantly, to hear them cackle and see all the lines in their round face deepen with happiness.

Right. Phil watched a horror movie with PJ instead of unpacking this fluttering start of a crush last night, and now he’s just got to deal with it for the rest of the day.

As if it’s a compulsion, Dan clears the empty mugs from their table before heading up to the counter. Phil focuses on the EMF readings so he doesn’t get caught up on Dan holding four mugs by the handles with total ease.

PJ has got headphones on and his eyes closed, so he might not even have noticed that Dan is there. He’s been going through Sophie’s footage and his own audio recordings to try and find some anomalies while Chris looks for the weird visual stuff - they’re a great team at that, and it makes Phil feel like he’s not doing enough. Sure, he could find those things on his own, but not as quickly as they can when it’s a team effort, and they’re on a bit of a tight schedule here. Well, his housemates are. They’ve got actual jobs to get back to once the weekend is over.

Allegedly, Sophie is doing research on sigils, but it looks to Phil like she’s just doodling. Not that he really blames her if she is. He’s barely been paying attention to the chart he’s making of spikes in electromagnetism because he’s been so busy watching the door for Dan.

And Dan looks… good. They’re wearing chunky boots and a shirt that falls to their thighs - a dress, maybe, but it looks like a regular black t-shirt that got extended at the hem - with tight white jeans. The only colour on them is the plaid shirt around their waist and the shiny red product on their lips to match it. Phil watches them lean against the counter and grin at the older barista, and he’s so distracted by looking at their profile that he startles when a foot connects with his under the table.

“Stop staring,” Sophie says, quiet and smiling. “He’s going to notice.”

Phil considers correcting her, but then he remembers that he probably doesn’t have to. Dan had said any pronouns, that they didn’t care how they were referred to, so it would definitely be weirder to act like he knows better than Sophie.

He knows he won’t be able to use masculine terms for Dan. Not because they aren’t true, because he’s pretty sure they’re no less accurate than neutral or feminine would be, but because thinking of Dan as a maculine person is only going to allow Phil’s brain to fall into the familiar traps of gender in ways he doesn’t want to allow.

Gay monkey brain doesn’t need any more leeway in finding Dan attractive, that’s for damn sure.

“So, what are we doing?” Dan asks, interrupting Phil’s thoughts, and, wow, four mugs is a lot more impressive when they’re full of hot liquid. Phil marvels at Dan’s ability not to trip and spill it all as they dole out the coffee and teas.

“I’m doing the boring part,” says Phil. He turns his screen so Dan can see the Excel spreadsheet and laughs at the face they make. “Yeah. It's not glamorous, but it's the easiest way to find patterns in the EMF readings. Honestly, most of my job is just staring at things and finding patterns in them. Like, uh, what's that guy? With the butterfly splotches?"

"Worcestershire," Chris suggests.

"Rorschach," Dan corrects him, lips twitching like they aren't sure if they're allowed to laugh in Chris' face or not.

“That’s exactly what I said,” says Chris.

“You know EMF meters don’t have anything to do with ghosts, right?” Dan asks, ignoring Chris completely and leaning a bit closer to Phil to get a better look at his laptop. “I mean, none of this has anything to do with ghosts, really, but you’re more or less just measuring electricity.”

Phil is aware of that. He wonders if Dan thinks he just stumbles into haunted houses with equipment he hasn’t researched and waits to be spooked. He’s too distracted by how close Dan is and how good they smell to work up to proper offense, though. “Yeah,” he says simply. “But don’t you think it’s weird that the place still has electricity to begin with? Who’s paying for that?”

“A Wilkins, I’d imagine.”

“But why? If they’ve forgotten about the property or abandoned it on purpose, surely they wouldn’t still pay the bills.”

“Maybe they don’t handle their own finances,” Dan suggests. “How rich were these assholes?”

“I honestly don’t know,” says Phil. He taps his fingers in an erratic pattern on the edge of his laptop, trying to spark something in his mind.

It’s almost disappointing when Dan pulls away to dig out their own sleek Macbook out of their messenger bag, but Phil is also glad for it. He can think a lot easier when the warm scent of spice and mint isn’t clogging his brain.

Dan slots into the work as easily as if a space was left for them. They’ve got dozens of tabs open already and they start to go through them, cross-referencing magic things with Sophie in quiet tones and digging deeper into the Wilkins family than Phil ever would have thought to. Every so often they tap Phil on the arm and drag him into whatever rabbithole they’ve fallen down, chatting animatedly.

Phil knows, objectively, that Dan is a fan of his and that Dan is weird about research. It’s another thing entirely to watch it happen in real time, to see Dan pull up local census PDFs from the eighties and explain why chaos magic is bullshit in the same breath.

An hour or so goes by like that, all of them working on their own things with minimal words exchanged by everybody but Dan, and then Chris shouts loud enough to make the barista jump. Nobody else is in the coffee shop right now, which is lucky, because Dan’s got a hand over their chest and Sophie has slopped tea down her front. PJ, with his headphones on, simply cracks an eye open.

“What the fuck was that about?” Phil asks, putting his own palm against his chest to feel his heart race. Dan raises their eyebrows and looks at Phil, seemingly distracted from the startling, wordless exclamation.

They don’t get a chance to say whatever they’re thinking, though, because Chris is turning his laptop to the rest of the table and grinning wide like the Cheshire Cat. “I found something.”

Everybody gathers round, PJ getting up to lean over the back of Phil’s chair and Sophie getting so far into Dan’s personal space that Phil is certain they’re uncomfortable with it, and then Chris presses play upside down. It’s part of Sophie’s footage, Phil standing in the dim foyer and looking frustrated. Even without sound, Phil can tell that this is when he was arguing with Sophie about going upstairs. He squints, but he can’t see whatever it is that’s got Chris being so loud.

“What am I looking at?” PJ asks when the short clip ends, and Dan hums an agreement. Chris makes a frustrated noise like they’re being obtuse on purpose and rewinds to the beginning.

"There," Chris says, excited like he hasn't been since they got to Manchester. He taps his finger against the laptop screen. "D'you see it? D'you see the shadow?"

Now that Chris has pointed it out, Phil does see something. He moves his own laptop and notebook out of the way to pull Chris’ closer with a frown. Chris lets him do that, bouncing in his seat a little bit.

“That’s straight up a person,” Phil says slowly, tracing the outline of the shadow with the mouse. It’s behind him, in the entry to the kitchen, and it looks tall. Quite a bit taller than Phil, anyway, if he’s remembering that doorframe correctly. He decides to measure it next time they go so he isn’t going off memory. “I knew we weren’t alone in there. Like. I’m not crazy, that’s a human being.”

“That’s what I thought,” says Chris. “But press play.”

So Phil presses play. He watches the shadow stay perfectly still in the kitchen doorway until, suddenly, it’s not there anymore. He blinks, rewinds, and watches it disappear again.

Phil’s caffeinated brain is firing on all cylinders now. He grins and shoves his sleeves up to his elbows before he starts fiddling with the clip. The lighting gets played with until the shadow is more obvious and then he slows it down to 0.25 times speed to see if the shadow really just vanishes.

He presses play again. This time, with a very slow-motion Phil talking in the foreground, he sees the shadow move. It runs sideways, further into the house.

“What the fuck?” Dan breathes.

“We are not going back there without some serious protection,” PJ says, even firmer on the topic now.

“What, like sigils?” Dan asks, their pretty eyes wide even as they scoff. “You’d be better off with a fucking, like, baseball bat, mate. That doesn’t look like something that wants to be your friend.”

“I’ve got a crowbar in PJ’s trunk,” Phil says, absent-minded as he plays with the clip some more.

“Excuse me? When did you put that in my car?”

“Couple months ago.”

“Huh. How have I not noticed?”

“You’re not the most observant person I’ve ever met,” says Phil. He looks up at Chris, who’s got the same exhilarated look that Phil is sure he’s mirroring. They don’t get evidence like this very often, something so clearly there that it’s even got a skeptic’s mind racing. Phil exports the edited clip and then the original, putting them both into the Cloud and emailing them to himself. “Was this the only time you saw it?”

Chris nods, accepting his laptop back when Phil is done with it. “I’ll look through everything again, now that I know what I’m looking for and all, but I think that’s it.”

“Okay, cool.” Phil looks around at his friends and Dan, beaming. “Something weird is happening. I love it when something weird is happening.”

“I hate it when something weird is happening,” PJ says, which is a blatant lie.

“Well, we can’t go snooping around until it’s darker out, anyhow,” Sophie reminds them.

“Wait, we’re snooping?” Dan asks, their voice going up an entire octave in disbelief. “Like… you just saw that someone is there and probably not happy about people sneaking around, right? Don’t you have enough for a video already?”

“We’re spending the night,” says Phil. “It’s what we do.”

“It’s what you do,” PJ corrects him.

“Okay, yeah, you guys don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’m coming,” says PJ.

As if she can’t hear them bickering, Sophie turns to Dan with a sweet smile, her eyes twinkling with the same excitement in Chris’. They love this, just like Phil does. “What about you, Dan?” she asks. “Are you going to have a ghost sleepover with us?”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Dan says, their eyes still glued to the back of Chris’ laptop like they can see the shadow through it.

“Guess you don’t have anything to be afraid of, then,” says Chris.

“Uh, axe murderers, maybe?”

“We know what we’re doing, Dan,” Phil reassures them. He reaches a hand out to pat at their arm, feeling a bit awkward about it. “But you don’t have to come with us if you’re scared.”

That makes Dan’s gaze shift. Suddenly, those brown eyes are staring right into Phil’s soul, defiant and beautiful and impossible to look away from.

“Who said I was fucking scared?”

[tlbodine]

Three 1970s Horrors Worth Watching (that are not part of this film series)

The Horror by the Decade series started innocuously enough, with someone requesting some recent film recommendations. That got me to thinking about trends, and recommendations from previous decades, and how many movies that were true classics I was familiar with but had never seen, and thus the idea “hey, let’s watch movies from every decade!” came into being. 

But obviously you can’t watch every horror movie from every year, so there had to be a selection process in place. Here’s roughly how I’ve been choosing movies: 

Search Google for “horror movies {year}” for each year of the decade 

Research them a bit and pick out everything that is familiar, historically significant, or seems especially interesting, and put them on a list

Pare the list down to 1-2 of the most interesting titles per year 

Look for themes and pair movies up according to theme (since we watch two movies a week)

In order to save time, any movie that both I and @comicreliefmorlock have seen recently/a lot gets knocked off the list. In the 1970s, that means removing three extremely good, extremely important movies, so I wanted to talk about them a bit here. 

Follow below the cut for thoughts on Jaws, The Exorcist, and Alien

Jaws, made in 1975 by Steven Spielberg, is based on a novel of the same name written by  Peter Benchley. Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider team up to kill an unusually large and aggressive great white shark that is terrorizing the beach in a quiet New England town. 

Fun fact: Until Star Wars was released two years later, Jaws was the highest-grossing movie of all time! This is probably due in part to how much money Universal decided to sink into its distribution and marketing, but the film’s quality has to play a big part too. It really is a magnificent movie and is probably a big part of why people are still scared of sharks. 

Some things that are notable about Jaws: 

It has one of the most iconic and effective film scores in cinema. Everyone knows the Jaws theme, and it’s been used to basically mean “impending danger!” in a jokey way for...I mean, at least 30 years, because I know that was a meme when I was a kid. I imagine it has been since 1975. That’s just a really impressive feat, and John Williams (yes, the Star Wars guy) deserves acclaim for it. 

Music aside, Jaws is an excellent study in suspense and restraint. Technological limitations meant they couldn’t show the shark as much as they’d wanted, so scenes had to be filmed suggestively to ramp up the tension. (You do still get to see a lot of wonderful big scary shark, though, and honestly the effects still hold up pretty well to this day) 

The performances are really good, too. The leads have a great chemistry and play off of each other really well. The script was a joint effort, getting passes from several people (including the book’s author), but a comedian  Carl Gottlieb got a pass at it, and that humor really helps to elevate the film. 

The most powerful thing about Jaws, though, is that it taps into a mythic seed that renders it utterly timeless. There is an echo of Moby Dick in Quint’s character and motives, with a similarly tragic arc. But it draws on something older and deeper, too. The premise of “man-eating wild animal terrorizes a community, a bounty is put on its head, only a hero can kill it” has been a staple of mythology for thousands of years. 

Man-eaters are real, and they become the stuff of legend -- dating at least as far back to the monstrous Nemean Lion that could be slain only by Heracles. Historically, there are accounts of man-eating wolves, lions, tigers, etc. terrorizing locals, sometimes inspiring local werewolf legends - you can read about just a few of them here: https://listverse.com/2010/10/16/top-10-worst-man-eaters-in-history/ 

I think I watched Jaws for the first time when I was 8 (I saw all the sequels too, there was a cable marathon) and I was utterly captivated. I feel pretty confident if I showed it to an 8-year-old today, they would be too. It’s just that kind of movie. 

The Exorcist, released in 1973 and directed by  William Friedkin, was based on a novel by  William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the screenplay. 

The story is about a 12-year-old girl, Regan, who begins acting strangely after playing with a ouija board. Once medical causes are ruled out, her mother turns to two priests for assistance; they come to perform the exorcism and have a harder time than expected with casting out the demon, to say the least. 

The film is still considered one of the most frightening horror movies of all time by some, and at the time of its release it was a sensation. Movie-goers were said to have all sorts of reactions, from fainting and vomiting to having miscarriages and heart attacks. Contemporary psychologists even wrote about “cinematic neurosis” in people who had watched the film: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1151359

The story crossed a lot of boundaries (even for the 1970s) and you have to bear in mind that this was a major cinematic release, not a grindhouse exploitation film. Most film-goers in 1973 were absolutely not prepared to see an innocent child spouting off vulgarity, urinating on the floor, and masturbating with a crucifix. And some of the practical effects, like the famous head-twisting scene, are still really creepy. 

This is one of those movies that’s hard to watch with fresh eyes because it was so influential on all of cinema to follow. If you like demonic possession movies, this is the film that started it all. I know religious people who are deeply afraid of this movie and won’t allow it in their home for fear of inviting real demons, so, that’s the kind of staying power the story has. 

** As an atheist, I am not particularly frightened of demon movies, and I suspect I will never fully grasp the real terror of watching something like this for people who believe that these types of things happen in real life. The Exorcist is definitely not the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, but I can respect that it definitely is for many other people. 

Fun trivia: The Exorcist is considered by some to be cursed because the cast and crew had an unusually tough time with filming: the set caught fire (but Regan’s room was undamaged), several actors were injured during practical stunts/effects, several people died during filming or in post-production (not on set), and the demon’s voice actor experienced an awful tragedy years later when her son killed wife, kids, and himself: http://www.the13thfloor.tv/2015/12/02/is-the-exorcist-movie-cursed/

The events are all most likely coincidental (and on a long enough timeline, everyone involved with a project will be dead!) but it lends power to the suspicion that this was A Very Cursed Movie That God Doesn’t Want You To Watch, which makes it all the more frightening. 

Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, came out in 1979 and is so powerful that it’s still a popular franchise today, spawning books, movies, video games, merchandise, and more. 

The story is essentially a haunted house film set in space. A commercial space crew is woken from stasis by the ship's on-board computer to answer a distress signal, discovering a derelict alien ship and founding a chamber of eggs belonging to an aggressive, parasitic alien creature that infests a crew member with its egg, which later hatches violently from his body, grows up, and proceeds to terrorize the ship. 

It's a tense cat-and-mouse game of searching for the alien as it picks off crew members one by one, and the music, atmosphere, and visuals are all compelling, with effects that still hold up pretty well for modern audiences. But what makes Alien especially significant is the performance of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. 

We’d had scream queens before -- female horror protagonists who survive as “final girls” against the mayhem and slaughter -- but Ripley is something different. She is badass, heroic in a way that girls rarely got to see themselves, and laying down a template for strong female characters in future cinema (for better or worse). 

The script was reportedly written to be gender neutral, with no assumptions about casting, which allowed Ripley to defy gender norms and expectations. But despite this supposed gender neutrality, there is a definite flavor of female horror in Alien -- which is, after all, a movie about forced impregnation and death at the hands of a decidedly phallic monster. 

And that is, I think, probably right at the heart of the film’s sticking power. Science fiction can swiftly become dated as our knowledge of the universe expands, but the horror of Alien isn’t really the aliens so much as what they represent -- and sad to say, sexual violence is something we humans may never understand. Here’s a fun essay on the topic: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2019/03/forty-years-what-can-ridley-scott-s-alien-teach-metoo-generation

So, there you have it. Three movies we will not be watching in our film series, but which you absolutely should check out if you somehow haven’t seen them. 

[nandalorian]

OCD Marvel Costume Series: Black Widow

Ever since I did that post about Captain America’s theoretical onesie and the evolution of his costume, I’ve gotten a lot of requests to do a similar OCD breakdown analysis about Black Widow’s.

After Cap and Bucky, Widow’s easily my favourite MCU character, so I am all too happy to break it down. But just know this required me to wade through so many disgusting male comments about her costume and body that I wanted to flip my desk and set it on fire. Repeatedly. You’re welcome.

Here are the six costumes I’ll be looking at from 2010-2018.

From L to R: Iron Man 2, Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War.

Putting the rest under a read more because shit’s gonna get long.

Let’s begin: Iron Man 2.

This is the first time we meet Natasha in the MCU franchise, and I don’t know about you guys, but I remember there being a LOT of hype surrounding Scarlett being cast in a totally non-objectifying way. <_<

Just kidding. Here’s actual footage of every straight man watching/starring in Iron Man 2 when Nat’s on screen:

This, I think, is a good place to add a caveat that it’s difficult to address Natasha’s looks and clothing without sounding like I’m criticizing her appearance and sexuality, including her ability to weaponize those things or the fact that she is entitled to enjoy them in any way she likes. As a character, certainly she is, and to me that’s one of the really interesting aspects of her personality and an incredible skill. As a woman, those are things not worthy of criticizing, IMO. But the films present a grey area because they are all directed by men, and to a large extent for men. So it’s hard to find the line between what is meant to entice audiences and what is meant to tell us something important about who Nat is, and to what extent the latter is the original intent of the costume choices. How do you extricate the character from the male gaze when the male gaze permeates so much of comic book culture, and by extension the MCU? Let’s not forget how many gratuitous ass shots there are of Natasha in a given movie, although the Russos generally do a good job of evening the playing field by liberally sprinkling in plenty of Cap ass shots too. The Russos are like the salt baes of equal-opportunity and gender-neutral ass shots.

But back to Natasha. In Iron Man 2, she spends most of the movie in sexy wiggle dresses or low-cut blouses, presenting herself as an object of desire for all the men in the film (possibly some of the women) and a thorn in Pepper Potts’s side until they join forces against Tony. (Obviously her intention, since Natasha weaponizes everything about herself, but it was also pretty clearly for audience titillation as much as the character never does anything by accident.)

But then, surprise! It’s revealed she’s the Black Widow and capable of kicking more ass than just about anyone else in the film/on the planet, and can even do it in a skintight catsuit and crazy hair flying in her face at all times!

Natasha’s suit is probably the least functional in this movie because it’s designed to look like a sexy female comic book hero costume, not something a real agent would wear in a believable conflict situation. Or maybe they would, I don’t know. I’m not a spy. But objectively speaking, she has a totally useless belt with the Black Widow symbol around her middle, then the tactical belt, holsters, etc. The fabric looks shiny and stretchy but isn’t leather. That being said, you can’t get much more spot on in terms of the visual interpretation, if you look at how she’s drawn by J Scott Campbell. I am not positive whether IM2 Widow is an interpretation of this artist’s illustration or vice versa, but either way, she translates from film to comic and back again pretty flawlessly.

Just don’t even get me started on the hair because w h a t. Tell me you can’t hear it crackling when you look at this gif. Go on, I dare you.

No wonder ScarJo switched to wigs after this movie.

Ironically, even though this costume is pretty ridiculous in terms of offering any kind of practicality or protection from bullets/knives/explosions, I have to point out that Iron Man 2 is the only movie where Black Widow actually wears practical footwear.

Look at those things. Those are flat, FUNCTIONAL boots. You could do all the running, jumping, and punching things you wanted and not feel like your goddamn feet were going to fall off, or worse, plant you on your fucking face because you’re wearing heels into combat. RIP flat Widow boots.

Moving on. Avengers 1.

Much like the other costumes in this film, Natasha’s outfit is still pretty comic book-y, although to a less cartoonish extent than Captain America some. That is pretty much Joss Whedon’s trademark as a director, although shockingly, I felt Widow looked more serious and ready for battle. Alexandra Byrne did the costume design on Avengers and Ultron, as well as Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy (hence the trademark styles in A1 and A2, plus similarities between Natasha and Gamora’s costumes), and she has a distinct touch. Here the nods to practicality include less extravagant hair (though Natasha also has short hair plenty of times in the comics) and the fact that her suit looks like it could deflect a knife (possibly). Even her civilian clothing looks less hyperfeminine than that of Iron Man 2, and it’s here we begin to see that Nat’s outfit of choice is usually some combination of jeans, a jacket, and knee-high boots with a small heel. It always strikes me that this is probably what she’s most comfortable in when she’s not dressed as Black Widow. Even her stance here looks like that of a soldier, less of a stereotypically female pose.

I couldn’t help but feel a lot of this was intentional on Whedon’s part in order to avoid anyone accusing him of sexualizing Natasha and to look like a Real Director Who Takes Female Characters Seriously (TM). So he dresses women more realistically but then just assassinates their character in other ways, as you do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As far as her suit is concerned, don’t get me wrong: it’s still textured plastic meant to stretch and allow movement and comfort and cling to certain... assets... and they still haven’t gotten rid of her totally useless Widow belt. But at least she looks a bit more like she means business and less like she’s just there to look hot.

However, in this film they also introduced the infamous heels to her costume. 

In the immortal words of Shuri:

Like Cap’s ab window, this is one of those design choices I begrudgingly understand from a movie perspective--it looks ~sexier and ~more feminine and also reduces the height difference between ScarJo and her male costars (plus other female characters like Agent Hill wear heels too, and so does Wonder Woman in the DC franchise. They appear in the Black Widow comics too), but the reality of someone willingly wearing heels in this type of environment makes me want to facepalm real bad. Sure, you can argue fighting in heels is just one of Nat’s special abilities that makes her better than the rest of us, but--that’s probably not why.

And they don’t go away, even when the movie and writing quality drastically improves. Anyone who read my post on Cap’s suits will probably be able to guess that The Winter Soldier is my #1 Marvel film and had some of my favourite costumes in the MCU, and Nat is no exception there. 

The way the Russos interpret her, through their writing and their vision for the overall look of the film and the way the costumes are designed (Judianna Makovsky did all the costumes for Winter Soldier, Civil War, and Infinity War, which makes total sense in ways I’ll explain in a moment), also reminds me a bit of Phil Noto and Nathan Edmonson’s Black Widow. Plenty of people might be inclined to disagree with me there, I’m sure, but Noto and Edmonson’s series, tonally and visually, is very similar to TWS in the sense that they feel like political thrillers, and the character styling in the film continues that theme. The story and the way the characters are written and styled crosses genres and blurs the line between comic book, thriller, and real life.  

In TWS, Nat looks like a fucking badass, but also somehow more relatable and human despite her perfect hair and flawless skin. TWS was the film where she, for me (along with the rest of the cast, especially Steve), went from being a character to being a person with all the shades of greys, uncertainties, and ambiguities that entails. That’s where the Russos excel, making fictional characters come alive with nuance and layers. Kind of like how you know if they had done a Hawkeye movie, they’d have probably adapted Hawkeye #19. 

Their unique way of finding the humanity in comic book characters and situating them in the real world translates interestingly through the costumes. Even her hair is the most natural-looking shade of copper red than any of the other films, where it tends to looks more dyed. Trust me, as someone who spent 9 years trying to achieve the perfect and most natural shade of copper red possible, I know how difficult it is to get right, even if this is obviously a wig.

If you look reeeeal close at the above pic, you can tell she’s graduated from stretchy plastic to something that resembles kevlar or some kind of protective utility material. You can just make out the lines and texture in the fabric. Still stretches and lets her move, obviously still skintight, but upgrades her to a higher degree of real-world believability in the same way the stealth suit did for Cap. 

I find the back of her suit interesting too. There’s a panel sewn over her butt that looks identical to the full-seat equestrian breeches I wear riding, which are meant to offer reinforcement and grip. I’m not entirely sure why Nat needs either of those things in combat, but there you have it. (In all seriousness, it could be because the fabric they used is less stretchy or doesn’t hold its shape the same way, so they had to piece it together differently to allow for movement and shape retention through all the stunts.)

Actually, scratch that. Why wouldn’t you need reinforcement and grip when doing this?

Weird butt panel notwithstanding, Nat’s TWS suit also introduces more protective details like leather and sewn-in kneepads, and her Widow belt actually serves to cinch in the costume instead of just sit there pointlessly, leaving her with just the tac belt. Still the dumb heels too, but I promise I’ll get over it. Maybe.

Next: Age of Ultron. People are going to side-eye the shit out of me for saying this, but... Widow’s costume continues to be less ridiculous than, say, Cap’s. Cartoonish, yes, with a lot of frankly baffling design choices, and visually I liked it the least. But weirdly enough, the construction of the suit and the fabric is less ridiculous than it seems at first glance; it looks like it’d actually offer a pretty high degree of protection in the field. Check it out.

There’s a matte leather and a similar kevlar/utility fabric as her suit in TWS, and the Widow belt and the tac belt have been combined into one so there are fewer pointless buckles. 

I mean, too bad they ruin it by adding glowing blue parts that make her look like she’s about to go cosplay as Tron as soon as she finishes saving the world, and I will never understand why her gauntlets are suddenly red, but a detail that caught my eye is right on the bodice. See those seams under her bust? 

It looks like it could be there just to draw attention to her boobs, but as a former fencer, I can tell you those are almost certainly for a chest plate or removable protective cups. (From a movie costuming perspective, they’re probably to give the bust more definition, as that’s literally an underwire construction. Yes, okay, I realize this. But if we consider the character, a chest plate makes far more sense.) And if you are a woman in a combat situation where you’re getting whacked in the tits a bunch of times, you need a fucking chest plate. She doesn’t appear to be wearing one in the other films, which is as absurd as Cap going into battle without wearing a cup. Have you ever been clocked in the tits before? With a weapon, no less? Because I have, and it’s not fun. It happens to you once, and you’re on Amazon buying a chest plate or protective cups literally the next day. Or, you know, from the toilet immediately after as you sit there crying and cradling your poor bruised boobs.

Another really practical detail is that she has proper kneepads in this costume, which is ideal if you’re sliding around on the ground a lot, or taking hard landings.

BUT WHY DO THEY GLOW IN THE DARK? /despair

Oddly enough, Nat’s suit in Captain America: Civil War was one of my least favourites--initially. But I was wrong to feel that way, and I’ll tell you why. Why didn’t I like it at first? Well, they pick up some of the same details as in TWS and add other more practical things like no-nonsense kneepads, but they also seem to add boning to the bodice of the suit, and lots of piping everywhere on the arms and torso that would probably rub unpleasantly if you were moving around that much. Unnecessary seams=friction. That’s a lesson any equestrian will tell you too.

I also was not a fan of the Farah Fawcett vibe I got from her hair, but that could just be me. Her suit here is functional, overall, but it doesn’t reinvent the wheel or make her look sleek and dangerous in the same way as TWS. It has less... style than her other suits and civilian outfits (which were my fave in this film), and after this many movies, I think we’ve come to associate the Black Widow suit with style and making certain death at her hands/thighs look good. 

But there is a point to her suit looking more tactical, which you can better see here. From this angle, she looks almost military, certainly the most military of any of the other films, and that is intentional and significant later on.

Because much like Cap’s uniform carries over to Infinity War, so does Nat’s. That was a clever segue, in case you were wondering.

This is such a departure from anything else Nat wears in the other films that you kind of have to tip your hat at the designer and the Russos and Judianna Makovsky for having such a sharp eye for detail and a knack for letting costume tell a story. Not only does Natasha change her hair and eyebrow colour, but she changes the colour of her suit too, adding in some green and almost entirely eliminating the sex appeal of the other Widow costumes. But the continuity is most impressive of all.

It’s hard to tell, but just like Steve is wearing the same uniform as in Civil War, minus the star he clawed off with his bare hands, Nat is wearing the exact same Widow costume with a tactical vest on top and some new body armour (shoulder and elbow pads). Remember that piping on the arms, legs, and bodice I bitched about a second ago? If you look closely, it’s all clearly visible in the same spots, and it’s obvious the vest just goes over top. Her kneepads and boots are the exact same too. This girl did a complete 180 on her look with nothing more than a tac vest and an emergency appointment with Guy Tang for some blonde balayage. 

It’s amazing that Steve and Sam think going incognito involves DIY distressing on their uniforms and growing some playoff beards, but Natasha can become an entirely different person just by changing a few key details. Especially the eyebrows. I once wrote a line in a fic about how her lighter eyebrows in Infinity War totally change the shape of her face. I think that’s a detail everyone noticed in the trailers, how strange she looked with those ultrablonde brows. But that’s perfect for this character and something Nat would intuitively pick up on, because it leaves her almost unrecognizable. Just like makeup can subtly change someone’s face shape, so can eyebrows, but she ditches makeup in Infinity War to the same effect. It’s the makeover equivalent of “walk, don’t run.” Kind of amazing to think she is so many steps ahead of everyone else that she can go down Dick’s Sporting Goods and CVS for nothing more than a tac vest and a box of hair dye, respectively, and literally emerge looking like a different person. When she says she’s figuring out a new cover, this is the stuff she means.

So there you have it. I hope this costume breakdown as as fun for you to read as it was to put together, and I continue to be impressed and occasionally stumped by the design choices made by the MCU costuming departments. They really do know their stuff and how important clothing is to the understanding of a character, and Nat, who is a master of tailoring her look for maximum effect, proves this rule more than almost anyone else.

Thanks for reading! I might tackle Bucky next, so stay tuned.

[tommykaine]

Till Death Do Us Part ramblings

Now that I’ve been tinkering with the game for a bit (two days I have no shame) I feel that I can ramble a bit about it

Warnings for assorted spoilers under the cut and also mentions of things of distasteful nature due to the game in question

First things first I’m gonna get this out of the way because I know it’s just unescapable: whether this is “another BTD”, and just the general comparison that is bound to happen between the two BTD games and TDDUP.

My answer to that is no, it’s very much not “BTD 3 but with a different name”.

Yes, the “genre” is of the same nature, and the way the game functions is similar (but it’s a visual novel pretty much, all visual novels have multiple choices and different story outcomes at the end depending on previous choices). However, there are significant differences, enough to make me come to the conclusion that this is only superficially related to the first games.

Firstly, TDDUP is a lot more story-driven. You still have several choices, but there is a lot more reading involved than in the BTD games. Besides the amount of text, however, the main difference is with the MC:

In BTD, the MC was more or less a blank state. Yes, there was a hint of pre existing characterization (in BTD 1 we know they are a drinker and have trouble socializing) and some that would come up depending on the choices (in one route it comes up that the BTD 2 MC likes to paint, for example), but for the most part, you could imagine whatever backstory and it would fit.

In TDDUP, you still have room for your own headcanons and some degree of customization (name and gender - note that the gender option influences more than just pronouns/titles. If you want to headcanon the MC as a pre-op trans character you might want to pick the “they” option), but there is a whole pre-existing set-up that is different in each story.

So basically in BTD it was more like the MC was a self-insert/your own OC in a story, whereas in TDDUP it’s more like you are playing a pre-existing character.

Same with the relationships - in BTD, you’re just getting to know the guys, and even with the more “romantic” outcomes there is no pre-set relationship. In TDDUP, each pairing has a more specific setting. Either you’ve recently escaped a relationship with an obsessive partner who just can’t let you go, or you’re the main asshole in what ends up being a mutually destructive relationship, or you’re in a loving marriage that is suddenly shattered by a dangerous secret. The same is true in the scenarios with Aria and Ellen, albeit a bit less so in Ellen case as she knows about you but you barely do.

Another major difference is that in BTD, your “goal” was to survive (even if that was not the real goal for most of the players let’s be real ;) ). Most of the endings involved the MC being killed for failing, with a few harder to get ones where you get to survive (albeit how “good” of an ending you’d get was quite arguable). In TDDUP however, there isn’t really a “goal” towards getting any specific ending. In one of the routes it’s not possible to be killed in the first place so all endings are survival endings, in another there are a few death endings but they’re not necessarily the most likely endings you’re gonna get. So the “goal” is not really to survive, but to advance the story (or for a “final goal”, to unlock all the endings and get the bonus content, if you’re a completionist).

Finally, there is as far as I can tell no connection between the BTD characters and the TDDUP characters. Whereas in BTD 2, you had some characters being connected to and/or mentioning BTD 1 characters, so there was an explicit connection between the stories. In fact, TDDUP might not even take place in the same universe as the BTD games, as evidenced by the fact that there are no supernatural elements in it (even Strade, who was the closest to a “regular human” you’d get in the BTD universe aside from the MCs, had a supernatural creature as a pet).

There are some other differences (the obvious one being that this is @electricpuke’s fully own creation of course) but I think that these are the main ones that bring me to consider TDDUP as a completely different creation than the two BTD titles, rather than a spin off or a sequel in all but name.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m gonna talk about some of my first impressions. Please note that this is all very subjective and mostly based on personal taste!

I’m also using pronouns based on which ones I picked in each route, as those are kind of my own “headcanon” for the situations, so it’s not gonna be gender neutral in all of them for that reason.

Also, this is where the most spoilery part starts, so be warned for that!

My first reaction was that I really loved the first endings I got for both Chris and Jack. They are also my two favourites out of the four characters, followed by Aria and Marcus. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t get into Ellen (no pun intended). Her storyline just didn’t click with me for some reason.

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I think my absolute favourite storyline and pair out of the three might be the one with Jack (unfortunately he hates the memes - btw the first time I arrived at the “stab me daddy” option I was unable to continue for like 5 mins cause I was just stuck there laughing at it). I’m a sucker for fictional serial killers, and as unrealistic as that’d be IRL I love the “one exception” type of dynamic with a serial killer and another character. I really liked how Jack was genuinely in love with the MC, the fact that it wasn’t just an act for him to act like the caring husband. In my first playthrough with him my character was trying to reach out to his caring side, to still accept him to some degree, but in the end Jack couldn’t kill him nor keep him - therefore, the only thing he could do was leave. It was really sad, but I liked that ending the most. I was expecting to prefer the one where MC snaps and comes to love the twisted side of Jack (for example the survival ending in BTD 1 where MC snaps and joins Sano as a fellow killer is still my favorite one out of all the endings in that game) but I actually didn’t. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t love it either.

I just really like that the ending where he leaves was the closest Jack could get to a genuine love for his partner, as he realizes he cannot have him like he’d want to, and that MC will never see him in the same way he did before, but he doesn’t want to kill him to save himself from the consequences, so the only thing he can do is leave.

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The first ending I got with Chris (by the way I hadn’t understood from the warnings that the temperament referred to how MC acted, so I went in thinking “I kind of want my character to be a dick to him” and it turned out that was exactly the case, lol) was the one where he gets his revenge, then he just leaves. It felt like the best culmination of their dynamic, honestly. It just was doomed to not end well, and in the end it doesn’t - not because Chris kills MC or tells him off and says they both need help, but he just has had enough, and that’s it. There’s no closure, no lesson to learn, no attempt to salvage what’s left. MC destroyed what they had built together and was left with nothing, and no one to blame for that but himself - if he even could have the self-awareness to do that.

I also really like the ending where he decides to leave but explains you why, and you repent for your actions but too late, which is probably the closest thing to an actual good ending you can get in the entire game with any character. Arguably the one where you stay together and agree to work on your issues is the “actual good ending” but I’m honestly too jaded to believe it. In my opinion it’s just not going to work out, either MC is going to slip back into his old habits and Chris will either tolerate it or break it off, or if things go a bit better then they’re just gonna end up breaking up because they each bring out the worst in the other. It’s also why it’s not one of my favourites, even if I do like it. My third favourite is the one where Chris turns himself in, which is also the saddest in my opinion. MC doesn’t have the self awareness nor the care to realize their wrong-doings in years (unless someone else forces them to), yet Chris cannot cope with what he has done in maybe a couple days, he’d rather face the consequences of that and be done with it. You could argue there is a big disproportion between what Chris and MC did, but also consider that especially in Aria’s route it comes up that MC sexually assaults Chris, and we do not know whether MC has ever been physically abusive as well, plus MC has been abusing Chris for years whereas Chris snaps after years of mistreatment from pretty much everyone (not saying he’s right to be violent, in an IRL situation no one would be innocent, but in the contest of the story it’s hard to argue that Chris is the one to blame).

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I don’t love any of Aria’s endings to the same extent, but I do like her route nonetheless. I think my favourite ending is the one where you are trapped in her basement until you die and she wants both herself and Chris to forget about you. It’s just so tragic and twisted, plus it low-key references Poe so that’s a plus (I loved the Poe reference in BTD 2 too - sorry for comparing the games again but I’m just a sucker for this kind of thing, plus The Pit and The Pendulum is my favorite of Poe’s tales). I like how her confrontation of the MC comes both from a loving place but also from a selfish one - that’s why you don’t get any “good” endings in her route, not even a sad one. She never actually wants MC to do things right, she just wants her gone so that she can no longer hurt her brother, and she wants her to pay for what she has done.

I kind of would have liked to have a survival ending in which she keeps MC for herself but I definitely understand why that’s not an option. Probably wouldn’t have suited the storyline if there was.

Still, if there is ever a TDDUP 2 or another game involving murder husbandos/waifus, I’d love it if we got a femdom route with that option, JS ;P

.

I liked Marcus’s route, but just not as much as the other ones. It’s the first one I tried, so if I didn’t like it at all I might not have been so inclined to play the others, but I think it just was overshadowed by how much I liked Jack’s and Chris’s routes. So it’s not like I can find any specific fault to it, I just loved the other ones too much, lol. I definitely liked John’s character too (he’s the one true Cinnamon Roll) and his relationship to the MC. Which works very well to make all of the outcomes for MC all the more tragic.

I like that there are ONLY survival endings to his route. MC doesn’t get to escape their fate, not even by dying. They *are* going to stay with Marcus whether they like it or not. The closest they can get to a “good” ending is by getting mindbroken and accepting the situation, which is arguably the “worst” ending you can possibly get as in all of the other ones MC does at least retain their determination.

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As I’ve mentione before, I’m not a great fan of Hellen. I think the ending I liked the most is the one where she lets MC go because she is now obsessed with both Jack and his wife. I don’t foresee a good future for MC there XDOverall, I just wasn’t as invested. I wonder if maybe if I had played her route before Jack I would have liked it more, as by that point I was so enamoured by the Jack/MC dynamic, and maybe I just saw her as getting in the way of that? No idea. I ended up using guides to get most of her endings to see if my opinion of her changed, but it didn’t make much of a difference, aside from the aforementioned survival ending.

That’s just me though, I’ve seen other posts from people who really liked her! I’m glad she’s there for those who do, I’m just not going to be one of her fans XD sorry.

.

Overall, I really liked the game, might play around with it more (especially if I draw or write something with the characters), it definitely was an experience that I’d like to repeat and a great early Christmas surprise as I only found out about it the other day XD

I’ll definitely be looking forward to other games from EP, whether to continue from where this left off, or to see something new entirely. 

[remnants-of-rwby]

RWBY Research and Analysis: That Freezerburn Hug.

Hello - i’m here to overly look into a moment that has some mixed signals! As with anything rwby that just doesn't have a straight answer, let’s look  into something to figure out what pops up! So with this topic, the Weiss/Yang hug; Is it just a hug or is it something more? Only a few things to do to really get to the bottom of this.

Here is what’ll be discussed in this:

* Yang Hugs, Pre and then Post Fall.

* Hug research - types of ways people naturally want to express affection, whether it be platonic or otherwise.

* The Way the Hug is done; the emotional and physical stand points; How it could be Platonic, How it could be Romantic, and how people are getting these mixed signals.

* Brief Conclusion.

Yang hugs differently in comparison to Pre-fall and POST-fall and so does Weiss, in the sense that Weiss wants to willingly hug; but this could be voiced for the fact that Weiss has become a more caring, empathetic person. Let’s backtrack more and study how Yang physically expresses herself in terms of care/affection with, you know, hugging.

PRE-FALL

      Yang used to hugged in a way that it was like she was giving her whole heart. she closes her arms entirely around the person, forcing them to only accept and not reciprocate in any way, which I think says a lot about her character then; she doesn't want or expect it back, she only has the one goal in mind; 'know that I care; I'm here, I got you.' Yang, ironically from the pre-fall, does the "Bear Hug". In 1876 was when “bear hug” was fully used. this name is possibly inspired by how a mother bear completely covers her baby with her front legs when protecting them with her body. Odd, doesn’t that characteristic sound...familiar… a person who uses their own body as a shield/attack mechanism to protect something the love and care about? Oh wait - that’s what yang does.

Short version: Goldilocks is a mother bear. Oh the irony.

POST-FALL

Yang now? She almost needs that affection in return, instead of being this never-ending fire, she seems to need that... extra kick, that support in turn.  She lets people in, she hugs them in a different manner, supporting their head and cradling them closer to herself, which sends different emotional levels of an emotional state. a supportive, protective, emotional state.

Now the fun important part: THE HUG.

first and foremost, there is a vast difference of hugging a person; depending on gender, height, emotional intentions, length of a hug, the position of where the arms are and how the hug starts, etc..  The first person we see yang actually hug first post-fall is technically ruby- but this isn't post-trauma yang. the out-in-the-world, yang. the first person we see her hug once she's getting back on her feet is Weiss.

Now, when you hug someone, you normally give some form of a signal that you're about to hug them. Like a 'hi', or a happy excited sound when you see them, moving slow/steadily towards them, making eye contact or some other way that would indicate a hug or a need to physically embrace that person.  Hugging is all about touch and how you approach the person. the focus of this: why are they hugging - the emotional standpoint!

For Weiss to give a surprise embrace directly after a conflict shows how much Weiss trusts still Yang, even after ALL that happened, and how much pain Weiss must have felt being alone and dealing with all she has dealt with, you can see and, thanks to amazingly improved V..A.ing, hear it- the sorrow, the pain. What i noticed, is how much Weiss only knows Yang in her previous mindset. She just trusts yang to accept a hug, no need to send any sort of approachability or slow measure or anything - just immediate need to tightly embrace a person she missed and probably worried over. this is .. a friend who misses another friend, deeply. Pure, unfiltered friendship. this is full on "I was traumatized when I saw you last and grew used to The Team and i’ve been alone seeing all ‘ve seen and i really need to freaking hug you-" she missed Yang. her positivity, her strength - how could she not, with the life she was enduring back in Atlas? not the mention the freakin' crash and the deaths she heard and - this warmth is deeply lacked, certainly.

Now, notice how yang accepts it: surprise. not mainly surprise because- holy cow Weiss hugging?- but it also in general, a surprise - she wasn't expecting a hug in any way, at least not yet given these circumstances; she is also concerned. you see it in her eyebrows, her eyes, her mouth lowered in expression; it's confused, concerned, surprised, and questioning: she doesn't know whether or not to hug back, or how to respond to this due to :

A. The circumstances of being in a hostile moment and just briefly less stress.

B. they had barely talked moments before this, and the conversation yang was just re-engaging in was battle-mode.

Studying yang still; we see her gradually accept the hug after Weiss very emotionally explains the sudden need for this “I missed you so much”. We see yang comprehend this, smile and sink into the hug, fully agreeing on missing her teammate. “I missed you too.”

Now with hugging someone, it is all about intention - what physical signal are we trying to send? this tells our body how to act, so we send a platonic/familial/or romantic signal in our embrace. now, what is the hug we see? this is a Tight hug, protective hug. the hug you give someone when you don't want to lose them or if it felt like you did and you just got them back - it is an emotional hug. There is nothing cold, cut off, or … emotionally distant about it.

what is the difference between platonic hugging and romantic? well, duh. placement! such as arms around the neck, or shoulder, or upper back - this is neutral zones, people; the ones Weiss did.IMPORTANT FACTS, FREEZERBURN SHIPPERS.  weiss is giving a deep, wholeheartedly PLATONIC hug! she is sending zero mixed signals. at least, it seems she isn't meaning to. Aside from how incredibly close she is hugging yang in the fact that there is zero space between---i’ll get back to this...

Right, so as for the rwby fandom? I can see people are getting ALL KINDS OF MIXED SIGNALS. Myself included! Where are we getting these mixed signals, you ask? it is all in the visuals, ladies, and jets.

yang hugs in a far more close, intimate way, post-fall, and trauma. she lets her arms and hands drop to the mid back with Weiss slowly, and the hug lasts in long duration. The duration is important to note. In fact, let me note the important fact, in simple terms: Platonic hugs should -supposedly- last about 3 seconds. ( on a personal note this is BRAND NEW INFORMATION for me - i freaking love long arse hugs. Those are the best t.b.h. Like 5/10 seconds, T.Y.V.M. xP) Hold your those, though - there is a reason for this! Like all things, duh . “ A hug lasts about as much time as many other human actions and neurological processes, which supports a hypothesis that we go through life perceiving the present in a series of 3-second windows.”

Friends who are close and endured what they endured is a important factor in the time-length of this hug. The closeness of the hug. this can easily be seen as 2 very close people who endured a lot, whom were not able to see one another, and miss each other. This could easily be friends who went through, perdition and back with no communication at all. I would certainly be this blunt in hugging a friend like this on either POV of yang or weiss - and it be platonic as heck, but because I like to look at things from all angles; we should also look at this in the mixed romantic signals; i’ll be using the basic way of studying physical closeness common in romantic POV.

the simplest way to give the example of this being in a romantic lighting is with old-school male/female roles. (forgive me if this seems judgmental - it’s the only way of relationships in which i’m proficient in understanding and is in no way to say heteronormativity or that lgbt+ follow a male/female type relationship trope; as in “so who’s the guy/girl in the relationship?”. Right, onward; )

So, Here is the way it could also be painted: the basic setup of romantic hugging between a male/female is "a woman will tightly hug and close her arms over the neck, while the male is supporting/lifting the female. Due to the traditional role of the man to support and protect the woman, he holds and supports her while she's clinging on him." in romantic lighting for this... you can see where, if you look at it, it could have this mixed signal. Not only that, but yang is indeed lifting Weiss in the hug in a very supportive manner - though it doesn't help weiss is so short, even In heels.

Let's look at how else mixed signals could be indicated: not only the position in which they hug, but it could be seen in a really personal, intimate way with the hug with other parts of the body placement, such as....the hip placement. normally when you hug friends, extended family, strangers; our hips are NOT placed together, tightly, to one another. That time of closeness in a hug is reserve for those we love/are close too. So this could be a platonic expression that shows us how close as friends and teammates these two are….but then there's the knight summon floating off during the received hug, like a heart melting from a harshness of what she's endured. this gives all kinds of - this is really romantic and loving- kind of vibes. In a platonic scope, this is like the two friends no longer -bearing- the pain and burden of all of what happened and they aren't so… jaded or harsh like they've had to be; they have a friend that cares about the another.

The most neutral way i can put this is these two missed each other, in quotes to be exact - they care about one another, and clearly worried about the other. This is automatically a platonic expression of a very trusting, close friendship. Is it more than that? Right now - no. that isn't canon. It could be hinting, absolutely - but again, this action *confirms* nothing. What we got was a very loving *friendship* reunion that melted my god dang heart. Freezerburn platonic moment or not  - this was a much needed moment in the steps to seeing team RWBY back together and it was beautifully done.

I’ll be doing a frame-by-frame analysis for anyone who might  want a even more in-depth look at this close moment, if anyone would be interested. If not - i’ll eventually get around to it when i hit the volume 5 episodes.

[therealkn]

David’s Resolution - Day 4

Day 4 (January 4, 2019)

Pitch Black (2000)

“All you people are so scared of me. Most days, I take that as a compliment. But it ain’t me you got to worry about now.”

This one is admittedly a bit of a cheat, as I have actually seen this movie before. But it was a while since I last saw it, and I hadn’t seen all the Riddick movies in their entirety, so might as well put it here. And besides, it’s always interesting to see the humble beginnings of something that became much larger than people initially saw. In fact, in 2004, when the sequel The Chronicles of Riddick came out, this movie was re-released on home video as The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black to remind audiences that this wasn’t the debut of one Richard B. Riddick.

The film itself is a fairly straightforward sci-fi/horror movie with a tried-and-true premise: a spaceship lands on an alien planet, where a dangerous predatory lifeform is out to kill everyone until only a handful of survivors make it out alive. It’s something we’ve seen quite a few times, especially in one of my favorite horror movies, Alien, and even Alien wasn’t unique in that approach: this setup stretches as far back as the 1950s with It! The Terror from Beyond Space (a movie that quite a few feel Alien was a remake of) and Forbidden Planet. So what makes Pitch Black unique, aside from Riddick?

The story isn’t one, although that’s not a bad thing. It’s a stock premise, like I said. A spaceship lands (crash-lands, actually) on a planet, this one barren and with three suns that keep it in constant daylight. It gives us some interesting visuals to look at and that help give the movie a distinct look. A lot of the first part of the movie uses either yellow or blue lighting, which helps create an unfamiliar atmosphere for the viewer. (Funny enough, this isn’t the only film USA Films released in 2000 that featured distinctive color grading; the other one I will get to later.) But it isn’t long before the survivors realize that the planet they’re on is about to have a long eclipse, and after that the film spends the rest of the time in chiaroscuro, which adds to the creepy atmosphere by making us feel like the aliens are out there, stalking them at every step, waiting for the moment to turn one of them into a meal.

And then there’s the characters. We’ll get to Riddick soon, promise, but there’s other people, you know. The survivors of the crash are a motley crew, including Radha Mitchell as Carolyn Fry, the only surviving crew member of the ship, who has some guilt over the casualties from the landing; a Muslim known as Imam, played by Keith David (known hero of this earth, protector of this realm, long may he reign); a settler played by Claudia Black (who sadly does not get a whole lot to do in this film; that’s okay, we still have Farscape and Stargate and Dragon Age), a kid named Jack, who looks up to Riddick and even shaves their head like his and wears goggles like him; an antiques dealer who also has a lot of booze; and Johns, the man who wants to bring Riddick in and who has an unsavory thing or two about him. (Also, for Power Rangers fans, one of Imam’s kids - the first one to die, in a fairly gruesome fashion - would later play the Red Ranger in Power Rangers Mystic Force. I don’t have anything to add to that, I just like pointing this stuff out.)

The character interactions aren’t bad and they do a decent job of setting them up so we feel some sympathy when they die in gruesome fashion. This is a horror movie with alien monsters, so people are gonna die. It isn’t a spoiler to say that only three people survive - Riddick, Imam, and Jack, whose gender is a twist in this movie but not anymore in the sequel - because those are established in The Chronicles of Riddick. My personal rule is that if a sequel follows on what was a twist in its predecessor, it’s not a twist anymore and can’t be treated like a twist anymore. So yeah, Jack’s a girl and everyone but those three die. That and the direct-to-video animated movie Dark Fury follows up directly after this movie. So if anyone starts getting angry that this has been spoiled, yeah.

On the note of characters, let’s talk about the “unrated director’s cut” home video release. I will say that the term is a bit misleading. Calling it an “unrated cut” suggests that this version of the film contains stuff that was cut to satisfy the MPAA and get the film whatever rating it got for its theatrical release (R-rated, in this case), and that said content will contain some combination of violence, gore, sex, and bad language that had to be removed so the MPAA would be happy. It is also called a “director’s cut”, a version of a film that better represents the director’s intended vision of the film. But “unrated”? ...Why? Why does it have to be unrated? The “unrated director’s cut” is about six and a half minutes longer than the theatrical cut, and all of the additional stuff is just character interactions that were cut not for MPAA rating reasons, but for pacing reasons since they slow the pace a little. The most interesting addition involves the character Johns, as it expands a bit on his character and makes him slightly more sympathetic. I say “slightly” cause he’s still an asshole.

And there’s the creatures as well. The creatures are pretty cool-looking. It’s like a mad scientist created a new being by splicing together elements of a hammerhead shark and a bat and a velociraptor, and then decided it needed claws like Baraka from Mortal Kombat. The creatures only go into dark areas as the light literally burns them, so an eclipse happening means that it’s madness out there unless one has light to keep themselves alive, something that gets harder and harder for our survivors as the film progresses. They’re blind so they use echolocation to see, which gives another unique visual by portraying their sight as a weird black-and-white mesh. It’s kinda weird in that “early 2000s special effects” sense, and yet it works.

And then, we have Richard B. Riddick. After all, this movie spawned a franchise centered around the beautiful bald SOB, so let’s talk about him. For myself and I think for many, this is the role that defines Vin Diesel’s career. He’d already had some success with a supporting role in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (fun fact: Spielberg wrote that role specifically for Diesel after seeing Diesel’s performance in his first feature film, Strays, which he also wrote and directed), and then the year before he voiced the titular Iron Giant in Brad Bird’s 1999 animated film, which of course has gone on to become a modern animated classic. (And I will watch that film for the resolution since I’ve only seen part of it.) And a year after this, Vin would star in The Fast and the Furious, which was a big box-office success and spawned a successful franchise that’s still going strong to this day.

Okay, now let’s talk about Riddick. Riddick is honestly the most fleshed-out and interesting character in the film, and it makes sense why Vin, writer/director David Twohy, and the higher-ups at Universal saw potential in telling more stories about the character. He’s described as evil on several occasions, not only by characters like Johns in this film or Aereon in The Chronicles of Riddick, but even the poster for the film has the tagline “Fight evil with evil”. Yet throughout the whole franchise, it’s hard to say that Riddick’s actually evil. He’s more Chaotic Neutral, really. He's more like an animal who does whatever he can to survive, but that doesn’t mean he’s a backstabbing shitheel who’ll betray you in a heartbeat. (True Neutrals, on the other hand...) He seems more amoral if anything; near the end of the movie, he seems intrigued by Fry’s willingness to die for the sake of saving everyone while he was willing to let them die so he could escape, which may begin something like a redemption in that he seems to better understand the value of protecting lives, or at least can understand the motivation of selflessness.

But throughout the franchise, he basically only kills in self-defense, never for pleasure or for the hell of it. Hell, most who say he’s evil are actually worse than him, like Johns, so who knows; he may just be someone with a bad rep. My view of him could be summarized in a modified quote from Deadpool: he’s a bad guy who just happens to fuck up worse guys. But even then, he’s not really that bad. Yes, he’s an escaped convict who’s managed to escape even the most secure triple-max security prisons, and he’s an admitted murderer, but bad? The worst thing he does in the franchise is near the end of this film, where, like I said, he basically abandons everyone so he can save himself. But even then, you could argue that it’s not so much being an asshole as it is that it’s unlikely they’ll all survive. But hey, he does come back to save them, so yaaaaaay.

Also, he has the ability to see in the dark because he got a guy in prison to do an operation on his eyes that give him enhanced night vision, but at the cost of being more sensitive to bright lights, which is why he wears welding goggles all the time. The sensitivity thing gets toned down a bit as the franchise goes on, and they later retcon his acquisition as a supernatural ability.

I do recommend this movie. As it is, it’s a solid sci-fi/horror movie that, even with its kinda wonky early-2000s CGI, has good atmosphere and a very compelling character in Riddick. Plus, hey, Vin Diesel is always a win.

...Actually, anyone else think CinemaWins should do the Riddick movies?

Next time: The closest we’ll probably ever get to a Warhammer 40,000 movie.

[jessicakehoe]

What Is the Female Gaze, and Can It Reshape Pop Culture?

There’s a scene in Wonder Woman where Gal Gadot charges across a battlefield toward enemy fire, whipping off a heavy cloak to reveal her iconic gold and red breastplate and blue leather skirt. As the camera pans her body, lithe and bronzed, women in theatres around the world—including me—found themselves wiping away tears instead of rolling their eyes. Oh, the things this body can do: defy death, deflect bullets, withstand blows, save a village. Yes, it’s exalted—but for its strength, agility and grace, not its shape. Was this the female gaze at work?

So much has been written about the male gaze that it has become a kind of catch-all phrase we use to talk about the depiction of women in pop culture and how that depiction strips them of agency, personality and, well, clothing. If that’s what the male gaze does, is the female gaze simply the opposite?

That isn’t as easy a question to answer as you might think. The term “male gaze” was coined in 1975 by British film theorist Laura Mulvey, who, in a landmark essay titled “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” wrote, “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.” Over the course of the essay, Mulvey expertly points out how in cinema, female characters have historically served as “the bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning,” existing, essentially, to advance the male protagonist’s story, to serve as the mirror in which the man’s morality, motives and emotions can be easily reflected. Like, we know Rocky’s a good guy because of how gentle and caring he is with Adrian and we know Liam Neeson’s Bryan is a wonderful human being because of the lengths he’ll go to protect his daughter (and her virginity).

“The argument [of feminist film theories like Mulvey’s] was, more or less, that the editing process of the film would bind the spectator to the male protagonist’s view of things—hence the notion of the male gaze.”

“The argument [of feminist film theories like Mulvey’s] was, more or less, that the editing process of the film would bind the spectator to the male protagonist’s view of things—hence the notion of the male gaze,” explains Kay Armatage, professor emerita at the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Institute and Women & Gender Studies Institute. Film directors achieved this through the classic “shot reverse shot,” which involves a shot of the person looking (typically male, as most film protagonists tend to be) and then a shot of the person being looked at (typically female) from the point of view of the previous shot.

The landscape of cinema may have changed drastically since the ’70s, but it’s still dominated by men. According to a 2017 report commissioned by USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, only 4 per cent of the top 1,100 films made in the last decade have been directed by women, so it’s no surprise that we’ve been conditioned to view the world—and women—through the lens of men. This male hegemony is by no means limited to cinema; as more women enter the fields of art and entertainment, it’s inevitable that we begin to question how their world view might come to define the “female gaze.” At the same time, it’s fair to question whether contrasting gazes exist at all or if they’re just a social construct.

“In many ways, it’s almost a moot point whether or not the male gaze is a real thing that can be felt or tracked. Because of the way it impacts our lives, it’s something that is constantly manifested, constantly felt.”

“In many ways, it’s almost a moot point whether or not the male gaze is a real thing that can be felt or tracked,” says Carmen Hermo, associate curator at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. “Because of the way it impacts our lives, it’s something that is constantly manifested, constantly felt. [It can be] oppressive, in many ways, to have what is an assumed universality of this white, cis male viewpoint. But even if these dichotomies of male and female gazes aren’t helpful for everybody, it’s one of those things that once you see it, you can’t un-see it. Once you know about the Bechdel test, or you’ve seen a photograph by Cindy Sherman or Renee Cox—artists who trace the history of the male gaze on women’s bodies, on black women’s bodies in particular—you can’t un-see what the feminists have shown you.”

So what can the female gaze teach us? Do women, who have historically never taken on the role of oppressor, depict human interaction differently? Do men, in their primordial desire for dominance, find comfort in establishing an object-subject relationship? Is a power imbalance inherent within the male gaze?

“The work that Mulvey did was known as ground zero for [positing] that a scopophilic relationship with a subject onscreen isn’t neutral,” says Kiva Reardon, founder of cléo, a digital magazine that explores film from a feminist perspective. (Scopophilia, by the way, is a Freudian term that means “pleasure in looking.”) “For me, thinking about the male/female gaze in 2019 is more about bringing it back to the questions of who’s doing the looking, how they’re doing the looking, why they’re doing the looking and what impact that kind of looking has on the viewer.”

“When it comes to the nuts and bolts of what the ‘female gaze’ is, when you see art that is directed by or created by women or queer, non-binary people in an environment where they can be free, the treatment of things is so different.”

Sonia Saraiya, a television critic for Vanity Fair who has written extensively about how female directors and creators have shaped cult hits like Transparent, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Deuce (a show that, she writes, is “at least in part about the commodification and production of the male gaze in pornography”), believes that the female gaze, rather than being a simple reversal of the cinematic trope in which women are viewed as objects (whether as sexual pin-ups or as plot-propelling devices), seeks to avoid objectification completely.

“When it comes to the nuts and bolts of what the ‘female gaze’ is, when you see art that is directed by or created by women or queer, non-binary people in an environment where they can be free, the treatment of things is so different,” says Saraiya. “Instead of seeing bodies as something to be consumed, maybe everybody finds a way to act with agency.”

But it’s important to note that it’s not just women or queer people who are capable of shaping art with this view. A perfect example of this is 2018’s critical darling The Favourite. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the film stars Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone as three female protagonists driving a complex emotional plot forward while the men flit in and out of scenes in increasingly outlandish costumes and wigs—not objectified but pretty irrelevant. “We tried to portray them as human beings, because most of the time, obviously—because of the prevalence of the male gaze in cinema—women are portrayed as housewives or girlfriends or objects of desire,” Lanthimos said at a panel during the Venice Film Festival, where the film premiered.

Clearly, the male gaze does not lurk within everything orchestrated or shaped by men. It stems not from male genitalia but from a patri­archal view that can be (and often is) shared by both men and women. For Reardon, interrogating the gaze—any gaze—is more important than determining whether it’s male or female, a heteronormative binary that seems particularly reductive as our gender vocabularies continue to expand to include non-binary and gender-fluid identities.

“When you have an idea of fluidity, then that expands what all of these questions and aesthetics can be,” says Reardon. “And so we can still have this discussion of the politics of looking, but it doesn’t need to fall one way or the other. I don’t think there’s no such thing as a patriarchal way of looking, but the female gaze doesn’t have to be the exact antithesis of that. It can exist on a continuum.”

“I don’t think there’s no such thing as a patriarchal way of looking, but the female gaze doesn’t have to be the exact antithesis of that. It can exist on a continuum.”

It doesn’t provide much clarity, but to conclude that the female gaze exists on a continuum, or that there’s no one way to define it, may be the most honest way forward. While the male gaze has monopolized the visual arts for over a century, making it easier to pinpoint and define, the female gaze—whether as a cinematic or an abstract concept—is still in its nascent stages. So how constructive is it, really, to try to make sense of it?

“To me, it does add value,” says Saraiya. “For example, Killing Eve is about women looking at one another, and I think that’s real; I think women do assess one another in sexual and non-sexual ways, which are both present in the show. Most of the time when we’re talking about the male gaze, we’re talking about stories that don’t really feature that many cisgender female characters, let alone trans characters or gay characters or non-binary characters. I think there’s value to considering how a female perspective can change things.”

To me, the clearest distinction one can safely make between the male and female gazes is that the former establishes a clear object-subject relationship that places female characters at an emotional, narrative and sexual disadvantage while the latter steers away from it. But knowing what it isn’t doesn’t help us understand what it is.

“For all its hashtag-friendliness, the female gaze is, perhaps, not a very useful phrase. Lacking a theoretical foundation, it must either be defined in terms so broad that they are basically useless or so narrow that they are as restrictive as the male gaze they purport to critique.”

“For all its hashtag-friendliness, the female gaze is, perhaps, not a very useful phrase,” writes Kinfolk magazine editor Harriet Fitch Little in the Financial Times. “Lacking a theoretical foundation, it must either be defined in terms so broad that they are basically useless or so narrow that they are as restrictive as the male gaze they purport to critique.”

While it’s hard to deny that women bring different experiences and ways of looking at the world to their art—as does anyone with an experience different from the status quo—it’s also hard to categorize their vision as “different” or to quantify that difference in any meaningful way when the number of women spearheading projects is still so limited. “We just don’t have the evidence,” says Armatage.

Without that evidence, we’re left to rely on something more visceral, something that tells us that what we’re seeing is subversive in some way, that it’s challenging the patriarchal world view in which we’ve grown accustomed to living. Whether that’s Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, whose cinematographer, Rachel Morrison, is the first female cinematographer to be nominated for an Academy Award (for 2017’s Mudbound), or Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman, it’s impossible to deny that there’s something at work that just feels different—something with the power to leave us in tears even though we may not know exactly why.

The post What Is the Female Gaze, and Can It Reshape Pop Culture? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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All Women are Bilingual, and Should Be Running the World

Since I was a child, I have fluently spoken both Boy and Girl, and as a grown woman I’ve actually had an easier time speaking the language of Men than the language of Women. This isn’t because of anything special or interesting about me. It is, in fact, a competency shared by all women in our culture, whether they know it or not.

As children, we read and watch stories about little boys (and sometimes girls) having adventures and learning lessons, which is where we first learn the male-as-default mentality that will follow us for the rest of our lives.

According to an article from the Washington Post,

“No more than 33 percent of children’s books in any given year featured an adult woman or female animal, but adult men and male animals appeared in 100 percent of the books.”

Interestingly, when there is a gender-unidentified character, like an animal or a car, the parents reading tend to naturally give that character a gender using pronouns. Instinctively, because the male-as-default mentality affects us all, they will assign him the male gender. (If you have any doubt about this, go ahead and try using she/her pronouns for random animals you see in the park, or read about with your child. It feels super awkward, like… well, how do I know she’s a “she”? But ask yourself: how do you know he’s a he? It feels uncomfortable to think you might be accidentally misgendering a male, but typically it doesn’t seem like an issue to misgender a female.)

Representation Matters

Humans are a social creature, and feeling like we’re included and belong is crucial for a strong sense of self. We need to connect and feel like we belong, so we’re highly influenced by our perceptions of social rules and norms (especially as children!) and often internalize what we see without even realizing it.

That’s why representation matters—

The lack of female character representation in children’s books teaches children of all genders an important truth: that girls and women are less important, and hold a less important role in society, than boys or men.

This unequal representation continues as we grow up. In a recent study posted on the data visualization website Polygraph showed that in 78% of the Hollywood films analyzed, the lead character was male. Not even a third of speaking roles go to women, on average. Considering that women make up 51% of the population, this is pretty wild.

Check out this analysis, showing the dialogue breakdown between male and female characters in Disney movies:

The movies with 60% or more of the dialogue going to male characters is a long list (twenty-free movies) and many of them have men getting pretty damn close to 100% of the dialogue. Can you imagine a Disney movie with 98% of the dialogue going to female characters?? I sure can’t, since nothing like that exists. There are only four movies with more than 60% of the dialogue going to women, and those are all verrrrrry close to the 60% line.

If these facts surprise you, as they did me, that’s probably because we don’t register movies with mostly male characters as weird or out of place in any way. We’ve been conditioned since childhood to view this breakdown of male visibility as normal, and in fact when women make up half of the characters or dialogue, we often get a feeling of imbalance, like it’s gone from a universally relatable story to a “women’s story.”

And that’s exactly the point.

Men are People. Women are Women.

Hollywood has often claimed that they don’t make more female-led films because they just don’t succeed at the box office. Female-led films are considered niche, despite the fact that women make up more than half the population. This is because in general, only women are willing to show up to watch women-led films. Men aren’t expected to relate to female stories, because simply, they’ve never had to. Male-led movies are considered universal, because everyone is expected to relate to male stories.

This is the “male as default” mentality (or “androcentrism”) in which we think of men as gender-neutral, and women as gender-specific. Think about how often we mention someone’s gender in relation to their work. We rarely describe someone as a “male doctor” or “male author” since we all automatically assume it’s a male unless denoted that they’re female.

This male-as-default mode is everywhere in our society, from the way we use male-centric language like “hey guys” to mean a mixed-gender group, to the way most research is done on all-male groups and that is considered “universal” (while research done on all-female groups is considered only relevant to women), to the way we tend to approach sex from a perspective of prioritizing male arousal and pleasure.

In short, men are considered “people,” and their stories, bodies, health, and interests are considered universally relatable. Women are considered “women,” and it’s expected that only other women will relate to them.

Do you think this might have something to do with the fact that even as children, the stories we heard mostly centered the experiences of little boys?

What if our so-called “natural female empathy” isn’t about biology at all, but rather it stems from the fact that girls learn they have to connect with both the female and the male experience, while boys only learn to connect with the male experience?

Little boys never have to stretch their imagination to think about how it might feel to be a girl or woman, while little boys are asked to constantly imagine what it might be like to be a boy or man. Therefore, boys never have to learn to relate to or empathize with girls or women, while girls develop a strong capacity for understanding, relating to, and empathizing with the male experience.

Of course, the message is also loud and clear: based on representation in books and movies, girls are only about 33% as important as boys. So it eventually just starts to feel natural that boys and men can’t (and don’t) spend their time relating to girls and women. Why would a king spend his time learning to relate to the peasants?

Women Can Do Anything Men Do

At this point, feminism has given women the ability to do pretty much anything a man can do. I mean, we’ll be paid less to do it and we’ll probably never make it to a high leadership position, but we’re graduating from colleges, getting jobs in all industries, lifting heavy weights, choosing not to be working parents or not have children, and dressing in button-downs and slacks. Women have taken over the workforce and shown the world that women are good at way more than the traditional gender roles of domestic life that was presumed to be our “natural place” not so long ago.

Yay women! But isn’t it interesting that while women have completely crushed it in the area of “men’s work,” men have made almost zero progress in the area of “women’s work”? Men on the whole have shown very little interest in domestic duties and emotional labor (aka the unpaid work women have traditionally done for them), and in fact many men still consider these kinds of tasks inherently beneath them.

Where are all the men showing the world that they can raise children and do laundry and rock a dress and organize the kids’ schedules and plan vacations and remember to send thank-you cards after a wedding? Pretty scarce, it turns out, because that whole male-as-default thing makes it seem obvious that “men’s stuff” is universal, while women’s stuff is still just women’s stuff.

Women crush it in the world of men, not only because we have been studying and relating to men’s stuff our entire lives, but also because we’ve been convinced of its importance and validity, and therefore highly motivated to figure out how to have it for ourselves. But women’s work? Why would a man take on such unimportant and inferior tasks? Or more importantly, why would a man take on these tasks when he simply doesn’t have to, when he can always find a woman who will?

Men could probably do anything women can do if they were highly motivated, but that’s exactly the point. With the stigma and low status of domestic and childcare duties, there is simply no motivation to do so, especially when his female partner just seems “better at it.”

This lack of ability or interest to relate to women or take on traditional “women’s roles” is a huge problem, because while most men end up with free time to relax and have hobbies, most women end up working double duty— a full shift at the office, followed by a full shift of childcare and household chores. (And in case you’re wondering, when a woman makes more than her male partner, she actually tends to do more housework, rather than less.)

So we’ve got a world in which many women have double the skill sets as men, and are capable of relating to double the population as men.

It’s Bigger Than The Laundry

All of this leads to what we have now: a culture filled with grown men who are deficient in important life skills, like effective communication, maintaining strong relationships, organizing a family’s schedule, hosting a party, nurturing their children, or doing the laundry. But why does this matter? If his female partner is willing to do all those things for the both of them (as many female partners do), then who cares?

We all should.

Let’s take a look at what it means for men to be in charge of making laws about female reproductive rights. Men who can’t relate or empathize with women, who see the majority of women’s skills as unimportant and inferior, are put in charge of deciding what we can do with our bodies.

Not to mention the fact that while all genders know how to please men sexually, most men don’t have the foggiest idea how to be good lovers to their female partners. I mean, men can’t even enjoy a movie with an all female cast, is it any wonder he’s unable or unwilling to imagine sex from the female POV?

At best, many men simply focus on their own sexual feelings and desires, and don’t check in with (or recognize the meaning of) the body language or energy of their partner. This is where accidental sexual coercion and harassment come in, like the story that broke last year about Aziz Ansari, or every client story I’ve heard about a woman who had sex she wasn’t interested in because the guy was so wrapped up in his own moment. It makes sense that a man who has only ever had to relate to himself and people like him might assume that everyone wants what he wants; that everyone is turned on when he is turned on, and nobody is uncomfortable if he’s not uncomfortable.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a man say he would love to be sexually harassed or raped, because it would be hot or he would be flattered, or genuinely wonder why women would dress or act a certain way if they didn’t want to have sex. Without the ability to relate to women’s experiences or stories, a man is very likely to overstep (often without even realizing it), and even more likely to dismiss or shrug off her allegations if she speaks up later.

At worst though, the lack of ability to empathize with women makes them feel less human than men; less deserving of respect or autonomy or kindness. This is where true predators and abusers come in, along with men who think of women as crazy bitches, conquests, or holes to fill.

It’s much easier to hurt, abuse, mistreat, oppress, and violate women when you don’t see women as fully human, and can’t relate to them.

Did you know that in a hostage situation, you’re supposed to share personal facts about yourself, like how old you are and if you have children and which is your favorite ice cream flavor? The goal is to get the person who is threatening your life to see you as an actual person, and relate to you. This tactic works because we naturally don’t want to hurt or kill people we relate to and empathize with.

In our culture, men are never taught how to relate to or empathize with women.

In our culture, men are the greatest known threat to female safety.

This is not a coincidence.

Women spend their lives in fear of being attacked, raped, beaten, or killed by men, with good reason. We’re smaller, weaker, and slower in general, yes, but we’re also aware that many men just don’t relate to us as people, which makes it quite easy for them to hurt or violate us. It also makes it hard for them to believe us when we report, and quick to write us off as crazy, overreacting, mistaken, or lying.

All Women Are Bilingual

Women grow up fluent in male culture, work, adventures, and socialization.

Even when we don’t actually understand men, we understand a basic truth– that men simply don’t think about women’s lives, feelings, or experiences, while women are constantly thinking about them and theirs.

Of course it feels perfectly natural that little girls wear pants to school now, while a little boy wearing a tutu would still be seen as embarrassing and wrong. Boy-stuff is universal, but girl-stuff is for girls. Of course it feels perfectly natural that many women now work, but stay-at-home dads are still extremely rare and stigmatized. Men’s work is universal, while women’s work is… for women.

It is because of this fact that most women are essentially bilingual, skilled at understanding and relating to all people, while most men are only skilled at understanding and relating to each other.

This multilingualism is exaggerated even more when we consider people of color. Since “white” is the default representation in books, movies, and popular culture, black people and other people of color must learn how to relate to, empathize with, and understand white culture, along with their own.

Just like male children who constantly see their own gender experience centered and represented, (therefore never needing to develop the skills of empathy or relating to others), white children sit down and see our own racial experience centered and represented, taking up 88% of children’s book characters and 75% of hollywood movie leads.

Can you see how in this way, people of all races and ethnicities learn that white people occupy a significantly more important role in society than people of color, and eventually it seems perfectly “natural” for people of color to want to do white-people stuff, while white people don’t feel a responsibility to learn about or care about the culture or experiences of people of other races? Given how much easier it is to accept violence against people when we don’t connect to them or empathize with them, can you see how a country with white-as-default would be facing rampant violence against people of color?

Likewise, most LQBTQ folks will spend their whole lives learning, understanding, and relating to heterosexual culture, rarely seeing glimpses of their lived experiences represented anywhere, and certainly not valued or held up as equally valid. Heterosexual and cis-gendered is the default, and considered more valid and important.

Given all this, why on earth would we allow so many straight white men to stay in power?

Let’s Start Rewarding Multilingualism

Why are we impressed with people who speak four or five languages?

In part it’s because we assume they’re especially intelligent and hard-working, and in part because we imagine they can maneuver through the world with a wider and more sophisticated scope than someone who only speaks one.

That’s exactly how we need to think of this.

Who would you rather have in charge of important decisions in the world— a person who speaks only one language, or a person who fluently speaks three? A person who relates only to other people exactly like them, or a person who relates to many different cultures, genders, and races?

Let’s stop promoting and rewarding people who have been singularly focused their entire lives. We need more women, LGBTQ folks, and people of color centered in stories and held up in positions of leadership— especially queer women of color! Not because of Affirmative Action, or even because of “fairness” or “equality,” but rather because these people are better equipped and skilled to handle the process of running the world.

The post All Women are Bilingual, and Should Be Running the World appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

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