#i've always disliked the idea that all the games are connected to each other

[doomed-era]

look my main takeaway from totk that isn't massively spoilerrific is that zelda games tie into each other only when the devs say they do and even then they can discard details whenever.

if you want to find connections you can and no one's stopping you

but the devs are not interested in creating a consistent timeline they are interested in making a fun game

so basically do whatever you want

[atzoutlw]

summary ; gn!reader x ateez , how ateez would treat you as your boyfriend ! all fluff, no nsfw in this hc list !

wc : 1,287 words you may not agree with the things i say, but i just want you to remember, these are my head canons and i don't expect everyone to feel the same way as i do about this. also, i know this isn't the best quality, it is the first time i've ever posted on tumblr, so i'm a little nervous and i'm trying to find something that works for me.

kim hongjoong would love nothing more than to share his passion for music with his significant other. He'd invite you to late-night songwriting sessions, where the two of you would bounce ideas off each other. he is incredibly thoughtful and attentive to his partner's needs. whether it's leaving little love notes hidden around your room or surprising you with your favorite snacks when you're feeling down, he always goes the extra mile to make you feel special. joong is your biggest cheerleader, supporting you in everything you do. whether you're pursuing your own dreams or facing challenges, he'll be there every step of the way. he loves cuddling up with you on the couch while watching movies or stealing sweet kisses when no one's looking. he loves to wake up before you just so he can make the two of you cups of coffee and/or breakfast. he loves to make playlists for you, and probably has a hidden collection of playlists he hasn't shown to you yet!

park seonghwa is the epitome of a gentleman, he will always hold doors open for you, pull out chairs, make you feel like true royalty to show how much he cherishes you. seonghwa's touch is always gentle and reassuring, whether it's holding your hand or brushing a stray hair from your face. he enjoys taking romantic walks with you, especially during sunset, enjoying the beauty of nature and each other's company. he sets up relaxing spa nights at home, complete with face masks, candles, and soothing music, to help both of you unwind and de-stress after work. seonghwa is incredibly affectionate, often soothing you with soft kisses and warm hugs whenever you need comfort.

jeong yunho loves to tease you playfully, always keeping the mood light and fun. he knows just how to make you laugh, even on your worst days. yunho gives the best bear hugs. his hugs are warm, comforting, and make you feel safe and loved. he is incredibly supportive and always knows what to say to lift your spirits. he encourages you to chase your dreams and reassures you whenever you doubt yourself. yunho is a great listener. he pays attention to everything you say, no matter how big or small, and offers thoughtful advice and comfort. he loves having movie marathons with you, complete with snacks, cozy blankets, and commentary throughout the films. yunho loves holding your hand whenever you’re together. It’s a simple gesture, but it makes you feel connected and cherished.

kang yeosang cherishes quiet moments with you. whether you're reading together or simply enjoying each other's presence without speaking, he finds comfort in the silence. he loves taking candid photos of you, capturing your genuine expressions and moments. his camera roll is filled with pictures of you in various moods and settings. yeosang is subtle in his displays of affection. he often brushes his fingers against yours, gives soft kisses on your forehead, and wraps his arm around your shoulders when you're sitting together. his gifts are always thoughtful and meaningful. he remembers small details about your likes and dislikes and surprises you with things that hold special significance. yeosang leaves little handwritten notes for you to find, whether it's in your bag, on your desk, or next to your pillow. these notes often contain sweet messages or inside jokes. yeosang is perfectly happy spending a cozy day at home with you, binge-watching your favorite shows, playing video games, or just cuddling on the couch. ( these days are, by far, his favorites ). yeosang also loves sharing his favorite music with you. he'll create playlists that remind him of you or that he thinks you'll enjoy.

choi san is full of playful energy. he loves to joke around and tease you in a light-hearted way, making every moment together fun and lively. he loves surprising you with unexpected visits, whether it's showing up at your work with lunch or arriving at your doorstep with your favorite treat. san is very affectionate and isn’t shy about showing it. he’s always holding your hand, giving you hugs, and sneaking kisses, making you feel loved and adored. he enjoys working out with you, motivating you to push your limits while making the experience fun and rewarding. san loves having deep, meaningful conversations late into the night, sharing dreams, fears, and everything in between. he’s your number one cheerleader, supporting you in everything you do and always encouraging you to follow your dreams. if you’re not together, he never fails to send you sweet goodnight texts, reminding you how much he cares.

song mingi gives the best hugs—warm, tight, and full of affection. his hugs can instantly make you feel safe and loved. he loves making you laugh with his goofy antics and playful personality. whether it's funny faces, silly dances, or witty jokes, mingi always knows how to bring a smile to your face. he is very protective of you. he always looks out for your well-being and ensures you're safe, whether you're out in public or just feeling down. mingi loves to tease you in a lighthearted, fun way. his teasing is always affectionate and never crosses the line, making you laugh and feel closer to him. mingi sends you sweet and sometimes silly texts throughout the day to let you know he's thinking of you, making you feel cherished even when you're apart. ( stuff like "work is boring, i wanna be with you :(" ). he often engages in playful wrestling matches with you, enjoying the physical closeness and the laughter that comes with it. he gives genuine and thoughtful compliments, always noticing the little things about you and making you feel appreciated.

jung wooyoung is incredibly affectionate, always finding ways to touch you—holding hands, hugging, and giving you sweet kisses throughout the day. wooyoung enjoys cooking with you and often tries new recipes. he’s a great cook and loves impressing you with his culinary skills. wooyoung has a keen sense of fashion and loves giving you style advice. he often suggests outfits and enjoys shopping with you. he’s a master of planning surprise dates, taking you to new and exciting places or setting up romantic evenings at home. he’s a big fan of cuddling and loves snuggling up with you on the couch or in bed. he makes you feel warm and secure. he enjoys having fun fashion shows at home, trying on different outfits and giving you a mini runway performance. wooyoung loves taking photos of you and with you, capturing beautiful moments and creating lasting memories. wooyoung has a variety of sweet and funny nicknames for you, always calling you something that makes you smile.

choi jongho is naturally protective. he always makes sure you're safe and comfortable, whether you’re out together or apart. despite his strong exterior, jongho has a gentle and caring demeanor. his hugs are warm and comforting, and he always knows how to make you feel secure. he values quality time and loves spending it with you, whether it's watching movies, going for walks, or simply talking for hours. jongho loves surprising you with thoughtful gestures, like bringing you coffee in the morning or leaving sweet treats for you to find. jongho likes working out and would love having you as his workout partner, encouraging and motivating you while keeping it fun. he loves holding your hand, whether you’re walking down the street or sitting together, finding simple ways to stay connected. he loves learning about your interests and hobbies, making an effort to engage with the things you’re passionate about. jongho is fiercely loyal and committed, making sure you know that he’s always there for you, and won't ever leave, no matter what.

─ perm tag list ; @nikoshiftscom @platinumsarcasm @otter-pebbles @discordchic

this tag list is open so feel free to request to be added!

[saintsenara]

Severus and James have a weird connection with each other.

Lily: Mulciber and Avery are bad people that terrorize the school with their bigotry.

Severus: yes, but Potter is Shit!

Lily ; Mulciber used dark magic on Mary

Severus: yes, but potter is shit

Lily: Potter helped you out on that night !

Severus: yes, BUT HE’S STILL SHIT !

Lily: potter is shit, but I don’t like your friends Severus. They worry me.

Severus : you think he’s shit too 🥺

———————-

James: *finally the love of my life likes me back*

James: where is Snivellus ?

James: *Lily doesn’t want me to be a bully to others anymore*

James : that does not include Snivellus

James: *becomes quidditch captain and headboy*

James: I still need to bully Snivellus

—————-

I think they’re water and oil. Severus receives high grades and works hard to excel academically. But his social standing stands in the way of being respected. He sees the marauders, a tight knit group of friends that are having the time of their lives at Hogwarts. Two out of four rich and considered attractive. Doing so much shit and they don’t get reprimanded. They’re still liked by their peers and professors.

For James, he’s spoilt and probably seldomly hears no (if so, he has his way of getting a yes ). then comes this guy, a slytherin, unattractive, not popular, not from a big family, that actually has the gal to fight back. He tells Lily that he bully’s Severus for “the fact that he exists”.

The interaction between Severus and the other Marauders is incredibly interesting. He fears Lupin, which Remus knows and acts indifferently (tho I highly suspects that he likes poking Severus). Peter, Severus doesn’t even give him the time of day. As for Sirius, they’re always one step away from a full blown battle.

I have a feeling that James and Severus searched each other up. Rotating in a weird sadistic game of hurting each other. Man I really want to see a scene with adult James and Severus. If watching Sirius and Severus interact feels like the fire sizzling under the firework, James and Severus are the firework. Oh the joy of reading that 😍.

Typing this out, I wonder if Severus was incredibly gullible and naive as a teen. Lily is worried about the war and Mulciber/ Avery, but Severus focuses on Potter. Other than his dislike for Muggle, you don’t see his stances on muggleborns. He enables Mulciber and Avery, but I wonder if that is because of his believes or that’s just his personality. He still thinks kindly of Lily, while many would have dropped their friend if they married their childhood bully. He never tells Lily to stop being friends with people that questions her friendship with him, again many would be weirded out by that. This might read as me thinking too kindly of Snape. I probably am, but I do think forming a friendship is key in understanding a character and for that there needs to be a certain softness.

Severus is considered the perfect henchman by both Dumbledore and Voldemort. Lucious Malfoy keeps a very close relationship with him, and his son (Draco) is close to him and admires/respects him. I think Severus needs/wants a very strong male figure in his life. A competent father he never had, or a protective brother.

In the story he is tight to two mothers, Lily and Narcissa. Both defy Voldemort for their sons. Sirius and Remus protect Harry for James, but Severus solely for Lily.

I don’t know how all of this ties together, but Severus is a character in an interesting place when it comes to his relationships with other men and woman in his live.

I also have no idea where James comes into all of this. But they do have a strange obsession with one another.

controversially, anon, i don't entirely back this.

i've never been a massive fan of jeverus/snames/whatever we're calling it because it never strikes me as having any particularly interesting spark.

whereas sirius and snape have an inherent push and pull by virtue of being narrative mirrors, the tension between snape and james depends to such an extent on them competing over lily that changing that dynamic by making the two of them attracted to each other often flops.

[snape's hatred of james' superior social position and the fact that he's never punished for his troublemaking is because of lily - because he thinks she's being misled into thinking james is lovely and this will allow james to lure her away from him - for example, rather than being directed at james himself. snape's hatred of sirius is entirely focused on sirius himself.]

the toxic triad - on the other hand - slaps.

on the other points, the thing which is really interesting about snape's teenage naivety is that it almost manages to be correct. i've said this before, but he's clearly the death eater who comes closest to understanding that voldemort has no interest in upholding the wizarding world's entrenched class system [whereas regulus black - for example - thinks that the dark lord intends to usher in pureblood oligarchy] and that what he primarily cares about - to paraphrase the man himself - is power and those strong enough to seek it.

[and a lot of his dynamic with narcissa is shaped by this - narcissa clearly cottons on, well before draco and lucius, to the fact that voldemort has no intention of elevating the malfoys to quasi-royal heights...]

snape evidently views voldemort not only as his long-awaited male role model, but as his ticket to breaking through the barriers which his name, blood status, and class background set up for him in a world so obsessed with lineage and networking - and he's not wrong to.

he's also - and this is where his naivety comes into play - clearly convinced that voldemort will offer lily the same opportunities. the implication of canon is very much that he's prepared to look the other way about the fact that voldemort's violence specifically targets muggleborns [and, above all, that voldemort doesn't regard lily as an exception to his usual rule about muggleborns] until he literally can't look the other way any longer...

[mdhwrites]

By far the stupidest take I've ever seen on Amphibia was someone saying that it's ending 'sided with the bad guys' by having Earth and Amphibia separated and having the Calamity Trio drift apart.

Their logic? Aldrich's line to Andrias: 'Don't you think it's time you said goodbye to those childhood friends of yours, son?' According to them, the trio accepting their separation from Amphibia and drifting apart was an agreement with Aldrich's beliefs. When I watched the show myself, I was flabbergasted by how badly this viewer had missed the point.

What Aldrich was saying to Andrias was that he should cast aside friendship entirely, because according to him, a king with the Core by his side has no need for friends, and friendship 'doesn't last.' There is no conceivable way The Hardest Thing 'agrees' with any of that. At no point during the finale is separation portrayed as the end of any friendship. Rather, an affirmation that nothing, be it distance or time, can undo the bonds we share with each other. So even if Aldrich is kinda right that friendships can't always stay the same, he's still wrong because friendship does last, whether friends remain by each other's sides or not.

I understand if peeps don't like the ending (everyone's entitled to their own opinion), but to say it 'sides with the bad guys' just because the main characters don't stay physically together comes off as completely ignoring the whole point. How do you think people misinterpret these things so wildly? Is it just out of a refusal to accept a bittersweet ending? Or do you think some viewers hold on too tightly to their ideas of how a certain story 'should' be, rather than looking at it for what it is?

So much like the "Because we saw Aldritch, we HAD to see Sasha and Marcy's parents" take (which I personally would call stupider than this), this is a take someone gets to to justify their feelings. Because your analysis is simply correct. That none of the trio, or their families, reject all connections, let alone friendship, like Aldritch wanted. They keep each other in their minds, likely found new connections and even came back to one another because they never let those bonds go. If the show sided with the villains, Anne would not be a herpetologist. PERIOD. She would not want any reminder of her friends, let alone smile fondly at a small pink frog that reminds her of one.

But let's actually talk about why stuff like this sort of argument has been on the rise. I even am victim to it because my brain will try to logic into why I like or dislike a certain thing. I literally did an entire blog about how I don't like free to play games anymore, have never liked Gacha games, and yet am probably on Honkai Star Rail's wild ride until it does something to genuinely piss me off. That blog was about me trying to explain why I felt but in the end admitting there was no reason. And you know what? That's fine. We don't always need reasons for why we like or dislike something.

But on social media, there HAS to be a reason.

(Real quick interjection for those who don't want to hear me talk about how I think social media has changed analysis: The more purely analytical issue that leads to points like this one and the one about Aldritch is that they are not asking a question. They instead have a desired point to make and work backwards from there. You are more likely to ignore evidence that doesn't support your argument like this though or purposefully misread or misrepresent situations so as to be able to use it as justification for the point you want to make. It is a conclusion that must then find a hypothesis, not a hypothesis that then derives a conclusion. Anyways, if you want the potential why for that sort of conjecture being on the rise, *gestures below*)

I blame Twitter for this MUCH more than Tumblr actually. I know there is moralizing on Tumblr but there's a reason why it's the TWITTER villain of the day that you hear about and why that term was popularized with the platform. There is a need for superiority on that platform that I don't feel like I've seen anywhere else. Not to be popular, that's different, but to be superior. To be objectively correct and the most morally correct. Outrage is not a shame to see on Twitter for many people because it doesn't mean bad news but instead the block party it celebrates every hour on the hour.

And so fandoms are stuck in kind of a hellscape where they can no longer go "This is neat!" Instead, they need to be prepared for assholes like whoever came up with this take originally going "Okay, but I don't think it's neat and I have a reason and you don't so your opinion is invalid!" So they start coming up with reasons why their show is so great! Then they get rebuttals and it quickly becomes an argument until one finds a vector that can't be refuted. This is where bringing in the real world so heavily into fandoms came from I think. It was no longer neat parallels but ways to justify their love towards haters. Ways to make it so continuing to disagree made you a morally bad person so now you have to shut up.

As a note: All of this is why I never mind if someone has blocked me without the two of us interacting. I criticize the thing they love? They don't want to see that? Good for them. PLEASE block me if you're not interested in my words. I am not here to burn entire fandoms to the ground or make you hate the thing you like. It's why I try to make my blogs useful to people from a learning perspective, not just "This thing sucks!" even if I will admit that there are plenty of times that I fail because sometimes I just need to get something off my chest.

It is not healthy for fandoms though to be stuck in this corner. To have to prove why your thing is literally the best thing on the planet. You should just be allowed to celebrate what you love and be happy for it for making you so happy.

HOWEVER, the flip side of this is that if there is a decision you disagree with... The work is no longer perfect. But you loved it so dearly so what cardinal sin did it commit? A lot of Amphibia's fandom were hurt by the bittersweet ending because they had grown so connected the characters and didn't want to let them go, even if that's part of the point of the ending. It couldn't just be something painful though. It wasn't a juicy pain like angst was after all, it was just a bitter pill to swallow. A reminder of what reality can be like sometimes. So it's time to find an answer to prove why this invalidates the ending and they're justified with saying their version, the one that makes them happy, is the correct version.

Same thing happened with Andrias/Aldritch. The fandom wanted to see the parents and grew more and more spiteful about not getting what they wanted and so concocted an argument that moralized and talked about equality so as to make them 'right'. They didn't actually think about what it was asking because it wasn't them starting with a question and ending with a goal. It was them justifying that goal ANY. MEANS. NECESSARY.

And that's just going to lead to bad analysis made in bad faith. At least, that's my theory for how we get into stuff like this.

======+++++======

Quick TOH note because... Me: This whole thing is actually probably why while it's easy to say that TOH feels like a work crafted entirely by what Tumblr thinks makes a story good, I think it's firmly a story that could only have been conceived of during the Twitter era. There's just almost too much blunt moral grandstanding about current social topics, rather than actual morality, and proving itself as better than other works for me to think otherwise.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past.

I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead.

If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

I never liked Leon's face model in ID and DI, I wish they would use his face from Damnation. I don't understand why they changed

capcom has never been consistent when it comes to their character designs. that's also why they don't stray too much from outfit choices/colours and hairstyles. otherwise a character can easily be misinterpreted as another imo. example, red is always ada or claire. blue is leon or jill. rebecca is green etc. orange is ashley.

leon has had red, blond, brown and black hair. blue eyes and i think brown??? green? eyes. ada has had brown, green, grey eyes? even now ashley had her iconic amber eyes be switched to a green :| (im not happy about it, i liked her og eye colour better as it was rarer and more unique looking. now ashley looks like any other blonde girl)

leon has kept his hair style and general colour palettes. the only one significantly different was re6 outfit with the red undershirt, as red is not a colour commonly associated with leon. (i like to this it's connected to ada heehee)

to be fair, i think the changes might actually be a good idea in terms of garnering a larger audience. hear me out here.

we have a general idea of what leon looks like. but let's switch the hair colours, okay. now some people love blond leon. and some love dark haired leon. okay now let's tweak some variations of his face. okay some LOVE infinite darkness leon (daddy) and some LOVE babyface re2r leon. and some LOVE damnation leon (daddy) and some LOVE vendetta leon (emo daddy) BUT i have also seen people disliking ALL of these variants of leon.

now the consistent things i've noticed about his face is that he always is depicted with the sharp brow, and he has a very pronounced nose bridge, and the butt chin has been on every modern interpretation of leon since after 2004 (re4) infinite darkness Leon is actually a decent interpretation of re6 leon and damnation leon

in the og timeline, with re4, leon's cheek is cut and has a scar even in re6. because of re4r no longer recreating this cut, we can assume that he will not have a scar in a potential re6r. the scar is also not in any cgi film.

he and ada both share gsw scars in the opposite shoulders, but it's unlikely we will see these. (please let me see them in a movie or game, i am begging you. i want them to kiss each other scars)

i think with so many variations of leon in different companies mind you, since the cgi films are a different production team than the games. it makes sense on why they might have their own versions of leon. at least with the game remakes, we have a more consistent face model for leon. i'll be honest, i am not a fan of re4r leon's face. i like it, it's not my favourite. and that's okay! but here we go now, we've created fun discourse over it lol

my favourite has always been re6 leon. something about his voice (matt mercer) and his design just won me over so much.

also that being said with your original ask, damnation leon is actually one of the more different ones as well. he has a completely different eye colour, same with ada. and the darker hair colour.

and also (allegedly ada was modelled after their voice actors/mocap actors. (for re6) so i want to assume that they did the same for leon/matt mercer/his mocap actor), and i do wonder if they did this for damnation as well.

at least with the remakes it seems they want to be more consistent, which is good. but with capcom's track record, i wouldn't be too sure that they would continue with this route. we might even get a more infinite darkness style face in re6r. who knows. only time will tell lol

[stars-tonight]

Emoji: 🛸(UFO emoji)

Matchup Kind: Long and romantic please!!

Characters I don't wanna be paired with: Just nobody childish please, okay? Thanks!!

Gender/Pronouns: Girl, she/her! Girl or guy: Either one is fine with me =D

Ideal Partner: In a partner, I look for someone who can balance me out. Someone who's sweet and caring and kind of soft, but also has a bit of a chaotic side like I do. I also love someone who's good at comforting others, someone supportive.

Description of myself: I get easily distracted. I'm a procrastinator and I get distracted a LOT, though when it really comes down to it, I can focus well if I need to. Very creative, always daydreaming. I'm an optimist, though sometimes I can worry about school stuff/get stressed over it, that doesn't happen often. I'm very spontaneous, always looking to try new things. I'm extremely passionate, and curious too(my family calls me a chismosa, though I don't actually spread gossip- I just listen in on it). I'm a bit hyper, very impulsive, and yet somehow a bit lazy at the same time. I'm open, honest, and stubborn too.

Hobbies: I like to play video games, write/read, and draw a bunch!! I also love to collect stickers and put them on every surface possible, including my own face occasionally. I also like watching horror movies at nighttime knowing damn well it's a bad idea. I also watch cartoons too though.

Love Languages: I love giving affection, endless amounts of PDA, and I love to receive the same!! I like giving and receiving compliments too.

Ideal Date: Fast food picnic. Basically me and my partner go to a fast food place, pick up a feast of junk food, then go to a park or a rooftop and sit there, eating and talking about our interests, lives, plans for the future, etc. I just think it would be a really fun thing to do.

Likes: Animals, planning for the future, singing, Literature Class, Computer Science Class, CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Dislikes: BUGS, being bored, studying, math

Other: Let's see... my MBTI is "The Debater" though I can never remember the exact letter combo. My Hogwarts house is Hufflepuff I think, my Divergent Factor is Amity, my PJO Cabin is Apollo, and my spirit animal is a Hummingbird.

Thank you for reading this request, hope you have a fantastic day!! =D

headcanons

🥛 i thought of kuroo first for you because he's very emotionally intelligent

🥛 like he can adjust himself to fit in with people, and that means he's always a good person to be around and is a great mediator and leader

🥛 meaning he'll be able to perfectly balance you out; i think he's an ambivert so he's got a quiet side to him but is also kind of a mess at times

🥛 kuroo also strikes me as a spontaneous guy and this definitely translates into your daily life together, as well as on dates

🥛 your personalities are similar so i feel like you'd instantly connect and mesh well

🥛 he definitely likes playing video games (he does it all the time with kenma) so you'd definitely spend HOURS playing a game together, whether you're on the same team or playing against each other lol

🥛 he doesn't strike me as a horror lover but he'd totally be down to watch something with you

🥛 probably points out all the logical plot holes and berates the characters for being dumb lol

🥛 kuroo would absolutely shower his partner with compliments

🥛 i forget if i've ever commented on his stance on pda but i think he's not the type to shy away from it, although he wouldn't randomly jump on you and have a twenty minute makeout session in public either

🥛 he likes a fancy dinner date every now and then but there's something super intimate about french fries and milkshakes on a rooftop and just talking about your dreams together

🥛 which i never thought of this before but now i need to do

🥛 okay but he would totally be obsessed with various conspiracy theories (wild science ones for sure!) and would spend hours with you finding the weirdest ones on reddit or something

🥛 he'd love playful banter about all these theories too

🥛 he knows you don't like studying but it's important (you can't tell me kuroo isn't valedictorian), so he'd force you to have study dates with him

🥛 but he will for sure help you out with any questions you have

🥛 and he's a REALLY good teacher

runner up for you was sugawara kōshi!

A/N: hi 🛸anon! thank you for your request (it's been about a month since my last matchup i believe!) and i hope you enjoyed your match!

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

How do you do ships with other people’s ocs? Like, developing through roleplay or?

in my case, a lot of it comes from crossover ask games that help develop ideas, sometimes if I make an OC and know one of my friends has ocs in the same fandom I'll just send them an ask to basically say heyyyy here's a new oc any thoughts if any of your ocs would make a good crossover, hey any vibes/headcanons on crossovers between these specific people, hey this crossover thought just hit me like a train what do you think, etc

(i have a crossover ask tag here for some examples of how those conversations look – though those are mostly people sending me the asks not ones I send – and a general crossover tag here for more examples!)

it's also very helpful for me that 90% of the time I only talk to the same small handful of people and they're all people that I've talked about crossovers with before so talking about new ones isn't hard – talking to new people about crossovers is definitely more intimidating haha! always worried that they won't like me or my oc or the vibes etc – and then it's mostly just sporadic conversations when we have ideas

I haven't done a lot of roleplay at all (I do have an rp blog but kind of forgot about it whoops 😭), especially with crossovers, but it's definitely not something that I'm against either

I definitely think the best starting point is just to ask! (i say, being terrible at starting any conversations) if you have a specific crossover that you're interested in with someone you can always start with like "hey, i'm super interested in a crossover between these ocs, this is sort of the vibe i can see, you interested?" or if you just want a crossover (or want to give them options in case they aren't feeling the same specific vibe) you can always go with a "hey, i'd really love to talk about crossovers, do you have any ocs who might work with [your oc]" or "hey, i'd really love to talk about crossovers, do you have any ideas on crossovers between our ocs" – just in that case make sure it's easy to find your ocs lol! I've gotten that ask in the past when people don't really have lists of ocs or any easy to find information (consistent tags help the most imo, masterlists are good, really just anything that helps them actually find your ocs/get an idea of them to think of ideas) and it's really hard because you want to make good suggestions but if you can't find the ocs, you can't really figure out where to start

It's also obviously different starting the crossover conversation with someone you already talk to, whose ocs you know and who knows yours, and where you probably already have a bit of an idea of each other's vibes and likes/dislikes with ocs compared to someone you've never talked to. Both can go very well and be very fun, but if you're nervous you can always start with just sending some asks about their ocs or a "hey are crossovers a thing you're interested in?" and building a bit of a connection first, but that's really a personal preference/level of social anxiety decision imo!

i feel like this was a lot of rambling without a lot of useful info so if anyone else has thoughts, drop them in the replies to help anon out <3!!

[piedoesnotequalpi]

Some thoughts/notes from the depths of my bachelorette au planning document:

An early list of contestants had Spot as one of the contestants for some reason? Anyway, I realized pretty quickly that I needed a character to be in a director/producer type role, so I put Spot in that role and the enemies with benefits plotline was born.

Related to that, I knew early on that the host of the show would be Jack’s ex (it’s one of the first notes in my planning document), but I thought about it for a bit before I decided it would be Race.

I originally had it in my notes that Crutchie/Charlie and Albert would admit their feelings for each other in Mystic but when I got to that chapter I realized that they weren't on that fast of a timeline.

Related to timing, the conversation between Katherine and Race post-Romeo elimination about the need to play a part was supposed to take place later, but as I was writing I realized it was the right time for that conversation.

My first draft of Jack and Davey’s post kiss conversation was a little angrier and also ended with Race showing up with the illegal phones, but then I realized that he’d show up on the security cameras if he did that and rewrote the scene.

The reason Davey is good at BS (the card game) is because Sarah taught it to him when they were kids–she decided he should know how to lie, because his teachers sure as heck weren’t prioritizing that.

Miles is based on a friend of mine, including the messy ponytail, dislike of formal clothing, and unreasonably good Connect Four skills. Miles in real life is also probably a bit funnier than his fictional counterpart.

For that matter, most (but not all) of the named one-off characters that show up are based on people I've met–I'm not always great at producing characters from scratch, and some people in my life have specifically asked to make cameos in my writing.

I didn't quite think this through at first, but Crutchie had a challenging schedule for this whole thing–he won his category at paraclimbing nationals, immediately went home to pack for the show, and then spent the next couple months proceeding to not train for the world cup (which he leaves for right after the men tell all films).

There was a scene from the airplane date that I cut because it kind of interrupted the flow of the story where a bunch of the characters gave each other their canon nicknames (for example, Spencer -> Specs).

The idea for Albert deciding to get his ears pierced came from a mistake I made–I was using a picrew to figure out character appearances, forgot to clear the earrings I'd given the last character I'd done, and then realized it would be a good character growth thing for him.

[this-curiouscat]

💡and/or✨for the ttrpg hype ask game?

💡 A game that inspired my own design or creative practice.

I'll go at this a little sideways and say that I keep being inspired by Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi (a game about a found family of ghosts who live together in a house and need to figure out whether to recover their memories or make new ones instead).

Because that is one extremely well-explained game and I keep coming back to it to figure out just HOW Rae has made it so accessible, so inviting, and in such a gentle tone at that. Without ever feeling patronizing, the game reassures you that you'll be okay however you play (while still providing tips for getting the most out of it), gives you examples (the ongoing example of play is one of the best I've EVER read), suggests social scripts and wordings for those of us who find them helpful, and basically teaches you how to be a good player in a GM-less game (not just this one). It's endlessly encouraging and friendly, and it never veers into the kind of poisonous sweetness that makes me recoil elsewhere. It constantly lets you know that is has thought of your needs, your need for a break, for someone else's ideas, for space to imagine, for permission to interrupt others with enthusiasm without taking their words away from them.

It's always poetic and clear, and it makes you feel safe and brave at the same time (because you need safety to grow bravery - and you can use bravery to create safety). And it still never lets you forget that there's always sadness woven through our joy and always joy to find glimmering within our sadness.

You read Rae's explanations and not only do you understand the facts about his game, you also FEEL things as a person who might play it, you know?

I'm referencing Out Haunt directly as an influence in my German-only-so-far second edition of Fräulein Bernburgs Pensionat für junge Damen (Miss Bernburg's Finishing School for Young Ladies). I couldn't have written the examples in my chapter on setting up the game, nor my own example of play, nor the troubleshooting chapter the way I did without reading Our Haunt before.

I'm not sure if I'll ever manage to be that gentle and patient, but I'll keep trying. And I don't just mean in my game writing. Because really, all of this is never just about games. It's always also about us, the people who may play them with each other and the care we all deserve. And that is what I want to help create, not just with my games: Spaces where people care for each other. Spaces where people feel safe to ask questions, to express needs, and to wade a little deeper into creative vulnerability. 💖

✨ A game I wish more people were talking about.

One of this year's role-playing highlights was Midnight at the Oasis by Catherine Ramen (you can get it in Codex: Glamour on DriveThru).

It's a story game about a bar for crossdressing men in New York in the 1990s. On just 8 pages you get a fantastic, tightly-designed game in two acts and an epilogue. It comes with a handful of pre-made characters (which you'll flesh out with further details), all of whom are crossdressers with various backgrounds and from various age groups. The one exception is an "admirer" called Grant who can also be played (he's a sympathetic character at heart, but the other characters are still free to dislike him). The character questions during set-up are excellent and bring wonderful complications to the identities and relationships of these characters.

The game also gives you a bar map where every space comes with two options for a theme (such as "share a joy" and "confront a fear" for the dance floor) and some come with limitations what you can say there (you can only have a monologue in the bathroom). You can only interact with the characters sharing the same space in the bar (you can invite them to join you and they can either accept or refuse), and you're meant to explore the themes connected to the respective space. Like at an actual bar, you may miss a conversation at the bar while you're busy on the dance floor or vice versa, so no one can participate in everything, you always need to make choices, and you'll always miss out on other experiences.

The glossary on the last page of the game works almost like an oral history of terms and queer history (yes, I'm placing crossdressers, including heterosexual-identified ones, under the queer umbrella here on purpose - and in accordance with the game's author).

The heart of the game is the inevitable topic of transition that is brought into this bar on this particular night through the return of Dallas, a person who left the city a year ago to transition and is now back presenting male. The game clearly states that this detransition is temporary, and leaves it to the player of Dallas to define why it happened (which can remain secret) and the story of how it will be resolved is not part of the game.

It's a game about closets as safe spaces and safe spaces as closets, about choices, gender, desire (potentially), community, and how other people's identity impacts our own identity.

You don't need to be queer, trans, and/or a crossdresser to be able to play this game, but you need to be willing to play a crossdressing male character or someone who is attracted to such crossdressers.

I still haven't quite managed to put into words WHY this game is so great, but I highly recommend it and would love to see more people talk about it!

[theninthdoor]

Hi,

I would like to participate in your game!

This is my initials: MI

Sagittarius Rising (16°)

I would like to ask for a reading for my Future spouse please.

Thank you very much for letting me participate.

I'll do my best to give a proper and timely feedback.

song || NewJeans - Ditto

messages || You have no idea how looong it took me to get a song for you… Your future spouse does not want me to tell you about them, apparently. Oh, and the song I got after all of that was Ditto?? Do you know this person already? Perhaps you met them in school or when you were younger. I can see them having a crush on you for a long, long time, but being too shy to come forward and confess their feelings. Their energy is playful, youthful, easy-going. Their hometown might be quite small or old-timey somehow; or they have a particular interest for old-fashioned stuff and all history in general. Their fashion style is very simple; almost repetitive and a little boring? I kept being pulled towards the uniforms and the hues of the MV. "That's been always there, I've been waiting all this time" - again, you could know each other already. Besides that, though, I feel like your fs really believes in finding their one true love. They dislike dating just for the sake of having company or someone to holds hands with; they want real love & intimacy. They want to connect with their other half's soul. I heard/saw: grandparents, football/soccer, field, cobblestone, dark green.

[tumblingghosts]

no need to apologize for length! i am absolutely eating up all your thoughts and i love reading long posts <3

(also i have many thoughts about tbosas time travellers and always glad to see others' thoughts about them too)

on felix & hilarius - "echo chamber of hopelessness" is such a good way of putting it. both of them are just wallowing in their "bad luck" of tribute assignment, but i do like the notable difference of felix knowing dill won't win but wanting to help her vs hilarius knowing wovey won't win and is angry about it so doesn't want to even bother

on felix & arachne - yeah...if arachne were given a bag of food to give to dill, her straight up tossing it at dill would not endear dill/reaper to felix in the slightest (and would probably also upset brandy quicker because at least dill received the food, rude as it was, rather than being taunted with food and having it pulled away). reaper in particular would likely be upset in that scenario bc felix 1) didn't come himself and 2) didn't send anyone nicer than arachne crane

on time travelling felix - back in time and it's not even suspicious bc he was already beefing with coriolanus beforehand (for different reasons at the time but no one else knows that)

(i've gotten super attached to the idea that felix just Did Not Like coriolanus from childhood and just kept up that dislike over the years since they never had to interact too closely over their years growing up. it's never been a public dislike per se, but more like distantly cordial and avoiding each other otherwise.)

felix accompanying arachne to the zoo!! great opportunity to bring medication for dill (and extra food for reaper) while also preventing clemensia from being bitten by the snakes (since she only wasn't able to write that paper being distraught after arachne's death) so that cascades into several better scenarios :D

that at-the-moment-one-sided-rivalry with coriolanus seems like it's going to turn into a two-sided-rivalry real quick because coriolanus internalizes any perceived slights immediately and will definitely think that felix suggesting all the mentors meet their tributes is an intentional act to prevent him from gaining an advantage meeting lucy gray early (which it is, but still)

on the bright side, the arena being circumvented bc felix is leveraging his great-uncle president to make really really really sure that it's safe and completely bomb-free is a plus

side note: do you think the arena bombing was the rebels? or do you think they were set off by someone else (e.g. gaul trying to create a situation that would draw more attention to the games by having a convenient event to point to and justify why the games need to continue)?

the capitol leaning into mentor-tribute spotlights feels extra dystopic, almost like the start of the entertainment aspect of the games. but also, panem react channels: "DISTRICT tributes react to CAPITOL foods (real) (live) (not clickbait)"

president ravinstill rigging the games for dill to win seems like a perfect example of good intentions but completely missing the point (moral ambiguity abounds - cares about his family but utterly unbothered by the deaths of the children in the games). coriolanus is definitely extra bitter about it and probably seething that if he had cheated so blatantly, then he would be punished, but since felix is connected to the president, everyone just had to deal (and their rivalry starts heating up)

maybe felix can get dill some proper capitol medical treatment before she's sent back to eleven? though i doubt she's feeling good knowing that the games were rigged for her and reaper (who had taken care to protect her) is dead while she stands as the victor...

gaul & president ravinstill being friends when gaul is pro-games and president ravinstill literally sabatoged it for his nephson is kinda funny though

president ravinstill: change the games to something viable president ravinstill: last year was a disaster gaul: they were a disaster because of you president ravinstill: no idea what you're talking about

but at least the 11th hunger games isn't exactly a death game anymore, so that's an improvement (???) (not really) (but not as bad as it could have been)

(also i'm curious now - what were your earlier thoughts about felix coming back thoughts if you don't mind sharing? 👀👀👀)

hello! i have Thoughts About Felix [the felix ravinstill propoganda has grabbed me by the throat] and figured i'd ask the resident felix ravinstill expert about them ^^

going off your headcanon with felix & hilarius being friends, do you think they worked together during the mentorship program? i imagine that both of them might have been "lamenting" about the tributes they had been assigned but still wanting to help them (since they didn't have a chance at winning) to make things easier before the games, but with both of them being very image-conscious, not offering as much support as they might have otherwise been able to had they leveraged their names

felix & arachne being friends and arachne visiting the zoo during the day makes me wonder if felix might have passed food on via her to give to dill so he wouldn't be so publicly seen (but then again, knowing that giving that kind of info to arachne means it would get tossed into the gossip mill might make felix not want to do that...)

also, because i am a sucker for time travel: in a situation where felix goes back in time from his probably-coriolanus-snow-caused-death to before the 10th hunger games, what influences do you think felix could realistically leverage to try and circumvent arachne and dill's fates?

Hearing that my Ravinstill propaganda is working fills me with the both the greatest joy and abject horror. (On one hand, it is working! Yay, join me in having Felix thoughts! On the other, what have I done?)

Anyway, imagine that this will probably end up pretty long, so be warned (no seriously, the last part lowkey became a fic outline):

Felix & Hilarius

Yeah, I think their collaboration is mostly venting to one another. Honestly, I think the echo chamber of hopelessness probably doesn't motivate either out of their defeatist inaction. From the book, it sounds like Hilarius is even more defeatist than Felix. He also talks more insultingly about Wovey than Felix does about Dill, so I do imagine that Hilarius is the one doing more of the ranting.

Hilarius probably asks Felix how he gets Dill to be slightly more receptive to mentoring than Wovey (especially with Reaper probably hanging around). I think Felix's slightly more empathetic personality helps him succeed where Hilarius fails.

Felix & Arachne

Oh, this is actually a pretty good headcanon! It would make a certain amount of sense and add a good bit of angst to Arachne's death for Felix! I do think that there's a chance that he wouldn't trust her to do it in the sense that Arachne's general snark and sass makes especially her abrasive to strangers, so he probably is skeptical on letting her give food to his visibly sick tribute. She'd probably chuck a paperbag with a sandwich at Dill, so she doesn't have to get close and then taunt Brandy. Yeah, maybe Arachne's not the best choice now that I've thought it through completely (although there is a chance!). Felix probably thinks about asking Arachne when she mentions that she's going.

I think if Felix doesn't hand the sandwich himself, then he probably gets like someone his family's hired to do it. Maybe his driver.

Felix & Time Travel

It depends on how far before the 10th Hunger Games he's returning to. If it's not very long before or the day of the Reaping, I'm unsure how focused he is on the Hunger Games. He will probably accompany Arachne to the Zoo though and make sure she doesn't die. At the very least, a probably ~35 year old Felix is not as image conscious (at least about smaller things) than he was as a teen.

If he hasn't been back for that long (under a year), then he's still processing his death, and I don't know how apparent it is to him that it was Snow's doing, but he may suspect it. Either way, he's not too fond of Snow at the time of his death (battling the Ravinstills for political power but also for Old President Ravinstill's attention). He's definitely focusing on sabotaging Coriolanus' chances on gaining any influence, and Dill becomes more of a background concern as he juggles his at-the-moment one-sided rivalry and making sure Arachne doesn't do anything else that gets her killed.

Felix probably beats Coriolanus to the punch with going to greet the Tributes by suggesting that all the mentors do so and making it a class field trip. He also does begin loudly insisting to his Great-Uncle that with Academy students accompanying the Tributes shouldn't security be increased which leads to the Bombing being averted. (He probably flat out mentions the possibility of a bombing which probably puts the president on high alert, because of my hc that a lot of the Ravinstills died in a bombing).

I imagine that Felix is still mostly playing Coriolanus whack-a-mole on all of the other man's efforts, but as time goes on, I imagine that since we've averted a lot of the things that would have derailed the Mentors and Tributes from spending more time together (Arachne's death and Bombing), the Capitol is now leaning really heavy into Mentor and Tribute spotlights with more than just the interviews being aired to the public (maybe they have little clips where the tributes can show off a lesser talent or maybe they force the tributes to react to Capitol things and foods.)

I'm kind of pessimistic on Felix being able to stop the Hunger Games with this little prep time especially since it spends so much time being a lesser concern. As they get closer to the Games, however, and the mentors and tributes have been bonding a bit, reality starts setting in. He has had regrets about the Games in the past before he died, and he did start questioning their purpose privately. It's just a decade or two of suppressing those thoughts makes him slow on the uptake, but he does get hit with the "oh no, they're all just kids." With this sudden realization, I think he starts spiraling and starts trying to rack up as much sympathy to get Dill out of the Games. I don't think this quite works as he's probably starting to get a bit desperate.

He probably has a bit of a breakdown, and I think President Ravinstill rigs the Games so that Dill wins in an attempt to make him feel better, and it's pretty obvious to everyone watching that there was foul play.

This is the death knell for the Games as they are, because everyone's a little pissed at the Ravinstill Nepotism win.

They try and have a Game the next year which isn't as popular (sorry, Mags. You still have to go through the death game), and Pres. Ravinstill demands that Gaul make her Games into something viable or else (even though its definitely his fault that they're failing, but he's not going to think about that). They become a weird and gaudy popularity contest where the winner gets to come to Capitol but these new Victors get treated like weird human trophy pets.

Felix isn't having a great time in the aftermath. To balance out this kind of bleak end, I'll say that Gaul is also not having a great time, because her favorite part of the Games (the violence) is gone.

I actually had some thoughts about Felix coming back earlier, but this is already so long. I can't get into it at this point!

Thanks for the ask!

I'm trying to get out of the habit of apologizing for response length, but I am truly sorry about how long this is. I can't imagine that you could be prepared for it, so thanks again if you made it this far!

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

[cienie-isengardu]

Not only do I not regret asking you to "RELEASE THE RAMBLES!", I'm sending you requests for more. Below is a list of questions that I asked @bihansthot , and enjoyed their answers, but because you are so thorough, and answer in such depth, I'm re-asking them to you.

Brace yourself, it's a list. I didnt have time to sort thru them, I just copied and pasted, so if any are questions you already answered before, please feel free to include the links.

"LET US BEGIN!"

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In the spirit of potential future writing,  I'm trying to find a building that  would make a good substitution for Lin Kuei temple.

I've tried looking up ancient Chinese military barracks/forts, and have found some stuff,  but is all exterior.  Anyone know of any locations (or several I can cobble together) that would make good inspiration fodder?

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So, uhm, religion? What's the Lin Kuei's take on that one? I know they are aware of Gods, they team up with/ encounter Raiden all the time,  and have literally worked for/against Shinook, so I know they recognize higher powers... but I  guess the question is,  do they care?

Do they have a religion,  or spiritual practice that resembles religion? Or do they have a more practical approach "gods exist,  but we just consider them very strong people"?

Which segues into... do they recognize and participate in holidays, or things like birthdays? Or are all their celebrations work related (I.E. successful missions or levels of combat mastery)?

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Food.  What foods do they normally eat? What foods do they like?  What foods don't they like? What foods do they absolutely love so much they'll stop what they're doing to get it?

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If you had to match the Lin Kuei with a dynasty,  what one would it be? (I know the 2021 movie has the opening in the Ming dynasty, so the Lin Kuei is at least that old,  but given that movie Bi Han hasn't aged in 400 years, and was taken is a child,  its probably much older) (and also know the game probably cherry picked random Chinese things it liked).

What do you think the Lin Kuei's view on artistic culture (probably not the right word) is? I know they are heavily militaristic,  but in the game,  Kuai Liang offers Hanzo tea and he properly prepares it the Japanese way, that says they have something of an education other than just related to fighting?

Lastly,  in the movie,  everything Bi Han does is "for the Lin Kuei", but the Lin Kuei is on Earth (assumedly),  and he is working for a guy who wants to enslave Earth, so what do you think the deal is?

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Question about the Cryomancers. I know the game lore says that they are supposed to be rare, but I also know that the Lin Kuei have had at least 5 (grandpa, papa, older, and younger Sub Zero,  and Frost). 4 of which are part of 3 generations that inherited it even with mixed blood (I'm assuming Mama Sub Zero wasn't Cryomancer since they left her alone).

That's a lot of generations in a row for a rare trait... So do you think the Cryomancers as a group have figured out they're being hunted and have chosen to live in hiding?

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Lin Kuei society question? I like writing so I also like world building and I think about these things.

Is Lin Kuei society ever covered? I know there is a Grandmaster, a handful master assassins (Sub Zero's, Sektor, Cyrax, etc) and the  movies always have a bunch canon fodder lesser assassins.

And they live in the very isolated Lin Kuei Palace/Temple in Arktika (or wherever it used to be)

But is Lin Kuei (we'll call it "village") ever covered?   Do they have willing servants, kidnapped slaves, or a mix of both? Are there women (non fighter women,  I know there's Frost) or do they employ strictly male help? If there are women, what's their role, and are there children born there? What about Elderly? What about resources,  is everything (from food, clothes, weapons, and the raw materials to create them) grown or manufactured on sight by skilled laborers or do they import/interact with the outside world? How vicious or civil is this society, could you be killed for looking at Sektor wrong or do they value your services to a degree? What's the degree? This is obviously a combat culture,  but is everyone expected to know martial arts of some variety, is it optional, or do they prohibit it among the servants/slaves? How strict are they on things like clothing, food, alcohol,  drugs, "luxuries", or pleasures? Money? If they interact with the world do they recognize and use $$ currency, commodity currency, or a mixture? Internally are the Lin Kuei payed or just provided for? What about illness or injury,  if you're not a master and it a serious injury/illness are you taken care of or do they just give you a quick death?

Etc. That's all the questions I can think of,  but please feel free to answer questions I didn't ask,  if you think of anything else.

Thank you for this wonderful list to talk about! I’m gonna split the answer into smaller parts, for better focusing on each aspect but also so I don’t feel bad for keeping you waiting for ages, lol. For now let’s focus on asks about the religion!

So good questions! I do think they have some spiritual practice(s) because in martial arts the state of a mind is as important as the physical body and religion is one of many ways to shape someone’s mindset from a young age. I do, however, think that Lin Kuei does not worship the gods. They are aware that the gods exist (with Raiden as the thorn in the side) and may even respect their supernatural powers and battle skills but it never has stopped Lin Kuei from desecrating holy places, murdering people and stealing stuff for the best price. So, it seems to me that whatever religion the members of the clan follow, by nature it is rooted in nontheism.

Of course, there is also a chance that Lin Kuei worships some forgotten deity or deities (as a remnant of their ancient connections with Outworld / realms conquered and destroyed by Shao Kahn?) or may even practice ancestor worship which seems like a good way to uphold a widely understood tradition that plays an important role in the discussed community.

The closest thing to religious practice was seen in Mortal Kombat X, when Sub-Zero and his warriors seemed to pray together before statue of god / deity / ancestor / legendary warrior / personalized thing they value the most (sadly, my knowledge about Asian religious practices or faiths is very limited so I don’t have idea if the statue is supposed to represent any real god/religious symbol).

At the same time, it could be just a bluff since Grandmaster was aware of Cage’s team infiltrating the Lin Kuei territory and used this moment to lure them into a trap. Additionally, Mortal Kombat X comics presented once Kuai Liang sitting before the same statue albeit in a completely different (devoid of reverence?) position.

Of course, if we take into account Mortal Kombat Armageddon, the game states that Lin Kuei Temple placed in Arctika was actually once the Temple of Delia (the great sorceress & wife of god Argus) that at some point get abandoned and re-used by Sub-Zero’s clan.

(In the background, we can see a statue of Delia that Lin Kuei does not worship but did not remove for whatever reason. Mixing both old and new games, we can only wonder if MKX!statue is also the remnant of someone else's faith/religion?)

Beside that, Kuai Liang was pretty vocal about Lin Kuei not worshipping the Elder Gods, what was seen in MK11’s intro dialogue with Cetrion

Sub-Zero: The Lin Kuei do not worship the Elder Gods.

Cetrion: We seek gratitude, not worship.

Sub-Zero: I see no distinction.

and personally did not have any reason to pray to the goddess:

Sub-Zero: Why should I pray to you?

Cetrion: Why does a bird flap its wings?

Sub-Zero: I asked a simple question.

In all fairness, in MK11 Kuai Liang seems the most passive-aggressive toward the Elder God while Frost is focused on her ambitions and Noob!Bi-Han just wants to be left alone when bothered by Cetrion. Similar thing happens toward Raiden. Despite gratitude for saving him, Kuai Liang does not spare the god criticism (can’t serve both Elder Gods and Earthrealm, isn’t fit for his role of protector) and in MKX outright says he does not fear divine beings:

Raiden: Sub-Zero...

Sub-Zero: I fear no gods, Raiden.

Raiden': That's why you shall lose.

Surprisingly, Kuai Liang’s interaction with MK11!Fujin sounds less accusing than with Raiden and Cetrion and it is connected closely to their ties with Bi-Han. And maybe Kuai Liang did seek in the past Fujin and other elements to make a peace with them, like he planned to do so in Mortal Kombat 4 Limited comics?

"I came here to make peace with the gods of the elements that you fought [...]"

Anyway, the accusingly behaviour toward Raiden and Cetrion could be just Kuai Liang’s personal dislike for gods and serious authority issues, which makes sense considering how much he suffered because of their meddling and conflicts.

But honestly?

The available examples of Lin Kuei attitude toward gods, demigods and supernatural beings suggest how little the warriors - especially cryomancers - care for them.

Like, we have Bi-Han in Mythologies, who asked Quan Chi about details of mission:

Sub-Zero: If it's so precious, why don't you get it yourself?

Quan Chi: I cannot enter the temple until the four elements within its walls have been defeated. And I am not on the best of terms with the gods of your realm... especially your god of thunder.

Sub-Zero: Tell me about these elements.

Quan Chi outright said he and earthrealm gods weren’t friends and Bi-Han, reading between the lines, could get the idea that he may end on bad terms with Thunder God. Yet he was interested only in elements (lesser gods than protector of realm?) guarding the temple.

Then Bi-Han beat down four demigods and met a displeased Raiden after Quan Chi got the Shinnok Amulet. His reaction? No fear, like meeting an angry god was a normal occurrence.

Rayden: Do you realize what you've done??

Sub-Zero: I was just earning my living.

Rayden: Your clan's ignorance and greed will cost this entire realm. You must now set things straight.

Sub-Zero: Quan Chi could simply be a lunatic sorcerer. I've never heard of an elder god named Shinnok or of a place called the Netherrealm.

Rayden: Well, you'd better start believing in both, because you're going to the Netherrealm and you're going to bring the amulet back. We must act quickly. I have no dominion in the Netherrealm... You are reality's only hope.

Sub-Zero: I'll do it, Thunder God... but only because I have no choice.

And once he came back from Netherrealm, where he was fixing what he messed up in the first place on Raiden’s order, his abrasive attitude did not change much:

Sub-Zero: Here... the amulet.

Rayden: Impressive, Sub-Zero. Perhaps you will reconcile your reckless past after all.

Sub-Zero: That's it? Not even a thank you?

Of course, to some degree Raiden’s words did have an impact on Bi-Han but even the god’s warning about his soul tainted with evil did not stop him from coming back to Lin Kuei. Bi-Han’s attitude and/or approach to gods seems to change somehow once he was reborn as Noob, but that is a different matter for different times.

Anyway, Mythologies!Bi-Han and MK11!Noob act less aggressive toward gods than Kuai Liang. But then we have Sub-Zero from from the MK novel by Jeff Rovin, who not only is not afraid of gods but outright insult them:

“Wait! Be warned, Shang Tsung. He is cursed!”

“Cursed? By whom?”

Ruthay wailed, “By the immortal Yu.”

Shang Tsung felt cold spiders crawl up his spine. “The demigod Yu?”

“Yes… he who is said to dwell in the underground caverns of Horse Ear Mountain… which is sacred to the goddess Kuan Lin. He who protects the canals… and the tunnels… and looks after all who use them, human and animal.”

“What did our brash friend do to Yu?”

“He… killed a man,” said Ruthay.

“What man?”

“A toll-taker… one who had given up a life of crime… one who had been a partner of the man… you… seek.”

“And how did that crime come to the attention of the spirit of Yu?” Shang Tsung asked.

“The man was killed… slowly disemboweled with a sword… while accomplices forced his wife and his son to look on! After his murder… the man’s remains… were dumped into a canal!”

Shang Tsung raised an eyebrow. “Is that all? I was expecting something truly terrible!”

“It was!” Ruthay shrieked. “When he disposed of the body… in that way … he profaned one of the sacred waterways… of Yu!”

Shang Tsung smiled now. “Then he is definitely the man I want,” he said. “Anyone who is impudent enough to insult a demigod won’t be afraid to attack a member of the White Lotus Society, or the gods who watch after them. I will send Hamachi, Ruthay. When he nears his goal, see through his eyes and guide him!”

Book!Sub-Zero was impudent enough to insult a demigod which is why he was one of Shang Tsung’s favorites. And to be clear - book!Sub-Zero did not regret insulting the demigod at all. Even more! He found humor in it!:

He dwelt in a cave two hundred feet up the face of a cliff by the sea. The mouth of his home was barely wide enough to accommodate a slender adult, and was accessible only by climbing the sheer wall of rock, a feat that was impossible for most adults and daunting even to the few arachnids and marsupials that tried it.

Maybe some of them were even sent by Yu, he thought with a smirk, little assassins who would chastise me for having spilled blood in his precious canal.

The less abrasive attitude toward gods was shown by Cyrax, who talked a bit with Raiden over Bi-Han’s remains. He wasn’t outright antagonistic but wasn’t overall respectful either. He talked with Thunder God like he would talk with any other human being that wasn’t actually Scorpion. Frankly, from the named Lin Kuei only MK9!Smoke actually addressed Raiden in respectful manner, with proper bow and the name of lord

albeit did he do so because he respects the divine beings or just out of gratitude for saving him, hard to tell for sure.

So yeah, it seems like no matter what kind of timeline or age or medium of the story, Lin Kuei does not fear gods nor pray to them. And the clan has a long history of dealing with Raiden, so the Lin Kuei had first-hand experiences with supernatural beings. Somehow, cryomancers are the most impudent warriors when it comes to dealing with or criticizing the gods.

Interestingly, as much as Lin Kuei warriors don’t care for gods, most of the known to us named characters believe to have - and to care - for their own souls. Sektor and MK11!Frost embraced the Cyber Lin Kuei idea but Kuai Liang, Cyrax and Smoke were opposed to C.I. project out for concern for their souls among other things. Even Bi-Han, to some degree became concerned about his soul after trip to Netherrealm.

Believing in souls is usually a sign of belief in the afterlife, albeit after all of them went through (the change into cyborgs, death and change into Revenants) this is less a matter of faith (religion) and more first-hand experiences. And let's not forget that regularly dealing over the centuries with Shang Tsung who steals people's souls on a daily basis makes it really hard to not believe spirits are real.

Also, an interesting matter of Lin Kuei practices that could have a religious/spiritual ground and/or be an example of ancestor worship is the clan’s funeral rites. I don’t think we actually saw any Lin Kuei to bury their own (especially after warrior’s failure?) and for sure MK9!Cyrax and Sektor did not bother to take care of Bi-Han’s remains. However the sources provide examples of Lin Kuei keeping corpses, most likely of their own leaders or warriors.

And so, we could see human remains:

put in two coffins on each side of statue

hidden / kept in a block of ice(?) in chamber of Fallen Lin Kuei in which Frost’s frozen body was also laid, but on the altar

Cyrax’s cyber body was kept and guarded by Sub-Zero (and this is like the only thing that Kuai Liang and Cyber Sektor so far agreed on)

and even Cyber Sektor’s remains, even if just for pragmatic reasons, are kept in what seems to be respectful manner:

It could be just Kuai Liang’s good nature to honor fallen of his clan (I’m still not sure if Lin Kuei Palace is the new place for Sub-Zero’s clan or the ancient hideout) but even in MK Conquest TV series, after Grandmaster was killed by then-currently-Sub-Zero, there was the farewell ceremony with clothes on display (cause there was not much left of body after freezing and shattering) while new leader gave the speech promising to punish the guilty.

Which makes me think that Lin Kuei did honor their fallen warriors (especially those exceptional, deserving). Such custom and apparently common belief in soul could also support the ancestor worship - both as some ancient, mythical ancestor(s) connecting warriors into one clan (family) and tradition to follow in the footsteps of forefathers (Bi-Han taking place of his father [old timeline] or grandfather [current timeline] or Kuai Liang taking Bi-Han’s place as Sub-Zero).

My general conclusion about Lin Kuei is that its members believe in souls, have respect and use of spiritual matters (meditation?) and maybe ancestor worship. Whatever the religious / spiritual practices they have over the centuries, it is not something they will share, as the Lin Kuei by nature are secretive people who keep personal things mostly for themselves. The people that joined the clan (Cyrax and Smoke) maybe kept their old, eventual religious beliefs but overall, Lin Kuei warriors did not fear, care for nor pray to gods. They may respect god (Raiden, Fujin) as a person but not because of their divine nature. And even that would not stop them from criticizing said god. Which is pretty much how Kuai Liang and Raiden’s relationship looks like. Grandmaster is grateful to Thunder God for saving him but he won’t blindly follow his authority.

(Kuai Liang has serious authority issues, hasn't he?)

As for holidays, I can’t really see Lin Kuei to follow any specific religious (theistic) special day cause they don’t care much for gods in the first place. Unless they worked undercover and needed to act as normal human beings, religious holidays would mean nothing to them. The warriors may however celebrate their mission success, combat mastery or promotion between themselves or in secret, I think. Like, Lin Kuei did forbid friendship because it was considered warrior’s flaw yet we know some members either were blood-related (Kuai Liang, Bi-Han, previous Sub-Zero - father or grandfather, depending on which timeline is correct) or considered each other a family (Kuai Liang and Tomas Vrbada) and most named characters worked in duos so they have both opportunity and knowledge about each other to celebrate important matters. If they managed to remember anything from previous life, that is. Because from ancient to at least Great Kung Lao’s times most(?) adepts were kidnapped from biological families at a really young age (something around 6 years old). And Mythologies: Sub-Zero takes that even further:

Its warriors are chosen at birth to be raised apart from the workings of day to day civilization and are stripped of their former lives. Only the clan knows their existence. Each of them posses certain skills and abilities that set them apart from normal men. These abilities are passed on from generation to generation and honed throughout the experiences of life.

So, celebrating birthdays doesn’t sound like happening much, unless those with family around could allow themselves such luxury. The clan may however celebrate the day of becoming a fully trained and sworn warrior? Or the fallen warriors? Who knows.

Also, something worth thinking about: in Mortal Kombat Conquest TV series, when the Grandmaster presented newly appointed Sub-Zero to the rest of the clan, he “celebrated” the cryomancer's first official performance as the execution of two men who failed their mission. So, yeah, celebration of something special in (old) Lin Kuei does not necessarily mean anything nice.

(The next part of answer most likely will be focused either on food or architecture / origin of Lin Kuei. Let's hope I will get it written sooner than later)

<><> EDIT <><>

RELIGION <> ORIGINS / ARCHITECTURE <> FOOD <> FOR THE LIN KUEI <> ART <> CRYOMANCERS <> LIN KUEI SOCIETY <> MONEY & MATERIAL GOODS

[imaginationlandtrilogy]

2,3 and 9 for the Ask game 🤍

thank you!! <3

2) What character was your first favorite? How do you feel about them now?

Kyle was my first favorite! I still love Kyle a lot, but now he's my second favorite character. With favorite characters for me, it's mostly characters that I feel drawn to, or they make me laugh, or something like that. However, with Kyle, he's still... my favorite in spirit? I say this because logically, Kyle should be everyone's favorite. I genuinely believe he's the best character in South Park. He has a very appealing personality and visible strengths and weaknesses. He's just a good character and although I know this isn't the case, I think... everyone should like him? I kind of do assume that everyone likes him just because I can't understand how people wouldn't. I feel such a strong connection to Kyle's character, either that I see myself in him or I appreciate his existence from a writing standpoint, but nevertheless, the connection is there. But... yeah, he's still my favorite in spirit - it feels cruel not to have him in that spot in some way. Like, I really appreciate his existence as a fictional character. I still love him.

3) What character did you think you would love, but actually didn’t?

There are only a small handful of South Park characters I'm not that fond of (Pip, Leslie, PC Principal), and all of those I would expect to dislike just because they're common archetypes of characters I have been known to dislike. So, without the word "hate" involved, I'm going to have to say Kenny. I like Kenny, I do - I think he's a very interesting character and I've always loved diving into immortality in fiction and the consequences of that... but despite all of that, Kenny isn't even in my top fifteen, let alone my top ten. I never choose my favorite characters, they just appeal to me more. I can never describe why they're my favorite, just that they're my favorite. So, I have no idea why Kenny didn't appeal to me enough to be considered a "favorite". If I see a fanwork of him, I won't get an overwhelming feeling of love and appreciation like I do with other characters. It's really weird, and I'm not sure why that is. He just doesn't appeal to me as much as I would've thought. (It's okay, though, because he's an incredibly popular character in the fandom and gets all the love I don't give him.)

9) What was the first fic/art piece you remember seeing?

I have an old Discord server that kind of evolved from the initial media it was for into whatever the members got into. So, it's pretty much this amalgamation of fandoms now. I believe it was two years ago in late 2020 that someone posted this amazing South Park fanart in there and that was the first piece of South Park fanart/or any fanworks that I've ever seen! It's really funny because it didn't occur to me that there was a fandom, so I was so fascinated that these designs were created out of... what South Park is. I still do think it's creative, and it's really interesting that those fanon outward appearances have stuck. Like, you'll see such a variety of characterizations and headcanons for what they look like, but at the core of each one, you can still tell it's a South Park character. It's really cool!

[creonininkwell]

Creon, strangest thing you’ve seen in either your interdimensional travels or in Inkwell Isles, go-

Strangest? To be honest, lots of dimensions were pretty strange. Are you talking "Alice in Wonderland" strange? Or just strange to me? Cuz there were quite a few. Disturbing ones? Well you didn't specify about that so moving on.

I think one of the strangest one was a literal cartoon dimension, almost like here. I literally fell into a dimension where cartoon characters were breaking the 4th wall. No joke, they looked at some random space and talked to no one in particular. That dimension had a school that taught teenage "toons" how to be funny for future show biz. Oh but "Wacky land" was such an acid trip. Never want to go back there again.

I was stuck in that dimension for almost half a year. It was chaotic as hell, but fun. Still super weird to look at a live cartoon universe, including yourself drawn out like a cartoon. I thought I was tripping on acid or got a concussion from the initial fall. I've kinda gotten used to seeing toons chucking dynamite at each other or falling to pieces, then coming back like nothing happened. I swear that dimension was trippy. Still not getting over how people's eyeballs can pop out & then be shoved back in.

Another trippy place Moo-ee? Meow-nay? No, Mewni! I hate that place! This is probably where the my dislike for magic started. It was already bad that the local monsters were discriminated and living like second-class citizens in their OWN dimension. And whose idea was it to give a magic wand with cosmic powers to a teenager? Do you know how unhinged and chaotic teenagers can be? And it's so weird to see about 3 moons in the sky. I know other planets have more moons, but it's surreal to see in person.

Most of the "monsters" were actually chill. But the flora and fauna and some of the actual feral creatures were really deadly. Don't get me started with the warnicorns. The place is some sort of twisted version of my world. How there are certain kingdoms have "monster" people yet all the other "monsters" are harassed and dunked on. There's a literal kingdom of pigeons. Oh and there's some sort of "High Magic Commission" or something convoluted. How these guys are cool with the $h!t that goes on while they're blatantly "monster-ish" is plain f****d up. Well looks like no dimension is ever safe from same exact bull$h!t from home. Oh yeah! I accidentally got cursed there too! But only temporarily.

The Dungeon & Dragons dimension was strange, like it kind of nerfed my strength a bit. Like the universe or the laws of reality seemed to actively dunk one me. But thankfully, it didn't hinder me too much and I could always rely on other skills. On the bright side, I picked up even more weapons to add to my arsenal. Plus, it was much more easier with a party. I called this dimension Dungeons & Dragons cuz it's one of the few things I'm familiar with. It could've been some random fantasy world, but everything seemed so similar to the game.

Weirdest part was that sometimes my Time Brace worked, and sometimes there were areas that interfered with communication back home. I regrettably had to do some heinous stuff in order to find an area where I could get a clear reading and activate a portal. Also, f*** the pantheon! The gods there can suck a huge d*ck for all I care.

Another strange one was a literal world where you hunted and killed monsters for your food. Imagine if you were to compete in a cooking competition, except you had to get your own ingredients, survive in the harsh wilderness, and kill the beasts and other competitors to stay alive and get to the next round. Felt like I was living in some f***ed up video game.

The only reason I competed was for any hopes of finding possible resources or connections to someone who could help me. Seriously, it's ridiculous how the judges there have huge political power. The judges are actual representatives from major empires and regions so they have access to places or people I wouldn't be able to reach. I'm just glad I found a reliable partner to tag team with. We were barely able to make it as final contestants. Oh yeah, my sous-chef was a goblin who was missing his legs from foot to kneecap. He was a stabby little b@$tard, but really helped me out in that world. I have been spoiled too much by modern conveniences.

But nothing will EVER top the literal endless white void where eldritch entities roamed. I'd categorize THIS place as disturbing, but it was by far the most strangest place yet. By the way, that was the most recent one I hopped from. I had no sense of time and there was no telling if anything was truly from afar or nearby. Sometimes I ended up running in a loop or running into a wall. The only reason I survived from being eaten or having my brain melted was because I took the stupidest gamble of all times. Saving a huge looking parasitic worm. I couldn't even contact home because those eldritch monsters would follow the signal. So it was always a risk to even ask for help on possibly dealing with those things.

I don't know why, but with the last few experiences, I should've killed that thing and eaten it. But some reason I took pity on it. I just felt sorry for it, laying there alone and defenseless. I really didn't know that was a baby eldritch god at that time. I only knew that once I started carrying "Rue" in my bag, things got less confusing, and "Rue" was able to communicate by tapping its tentacles on my shoulders or giving these weird mental nudges. Also it helped to have an actual living being to help keep my sanity in tact. Probably a good call since "Rue" is the only reason why I'm still alive in one piece.

*sigh*...I just want to go home.

[obaewankenope]

1, 43, 53!

Thank you lovely!

New ask game for writers (post) + my askbox!

1. Favorite place to write.

I've had many places over the years that I loved writing at. Time and situations obviously have changed that over the years. The pandemic definitely has.

Back in my first year or two of uni I used to go to this specific little cafe in St James' Station where I'd be able to get a table, a nice cup of tea, a really nice toasted sandwhich, and be able to write whatever it was I was writing for several hours.

Unfortunately, that cafe closed, but it's where I wrote a lot of One More Troubled Soul, What A Fortunate Dream, several Les Mis fics and ficlets, and some of The Maverick too.

I used my uni library which was amazing and I loved being in it, and also the main library by the Walker Gallery in the city centre for writing too.

They were my favourite places to write. They were removed from other things like where I lived, worked, and interacted with family and friends. I could put headphones in, open a doc, and just go for hours at a time.

Yeah. Those were my favourite places, for sure.

43. Are you an avid reader?

I am, yes. I've always loved reading since I was a kid. It used to be books, any books really, but then I discovered a world of fanfic and definitely read less published material nowadays. Usually, because I enjoy the way ficwriters work and create amazing concepts and worlds with what they have initially from shows and movies etc.

That and I'm weak for the There Was Only One Bed trope.

53. What does writing mean to you?

What does it mean to me? Writing... writing means a lot to me. It has been a lot of different things to me over the years. An exercise in creativity; something to explore things I didn't understand; a way to cope with trauma; something I could use to escape the stress and pressure of my life...

For each point in my life, writing has meant something to me simply because it was—and is—something I enjoy. Even when it's been exhausting or felt unrewarding, I've enjoyed some part of it.

I relied a lot on writing when I was a teenager dealing with a lot of things teenagers shouldn't deal with. That no one should deal with. I used it to figure out emotions. I used it to understand how to behave in situations where I struggled. I used it to express myself and my fears. I used it to connect with others who related to me. I discovered that it gave me connections and led me to forming friendships that have lasted over a decade now.

So what does writing mean to me?

It means a voice that I can use to link to amazing people like @maawi1253, @sanerontheinside @eclipsemidnight, @stonefreeak, @meabhair, @lilyrose225writes, @kyberpunk, @punsbulletsandpointythings, @kedreeva, @northeasternwind, @nencheese, @mad-madam-m, and just so many others that I can't tag here (because tumblr dislikes me evidently).

Writing means so much to me because it kept me sane in my life when I really was alone and had little else. It means so much to me because its given me connections and relationships I never would have had.

Writing brought me to tumblr. It brought me to discord. To youtube. It literally brought me to all of this in my life.

Without it, I have no idea where I'd be.

Writing means life to me. That's what it means.