#it was super easy to just go 'blah i didn't like this' but it was in the act of questioning WHY that i actually flexed those muscles

[lesbiancolumbo]

sometimes it's a good thing that movies are bad. i have been reflecting for the last like four hours about the movie i watched tonight, which i hated, and the conclusion of this period of reflection was a much more articulate opinion of my dislike, rooted in the historical and cultural context of the film.

[fluffyk97]

Sonic 3 spoiler rambling about Sonic and Shadow under cut !

Y'know something that I feel might go lil under-appreciated is how well they made Sonic and Shadow mirror each other in the movie.

Like something that always can easily irk me are people boasting one of the two over the other because from the very beginning of his introduction to the series, Shadow's character is meant to reflect Sonic. They're meant to be equals that are so similar and complete opposites at the same time.

With the movie, I honestly wasn't expecting it that much. Sonic actually has a backstory that is just like Shadow's: powerful little hedgehog that is wanted for his power, so the one he's known his whole small life that he loves sacrifices herself to save him.

I fr fully expected Sonic to learn about Maria and be like "I lost Longclaw, I know you're pain, but-" blah blah blah- BUT they don't do that??

Of course, we have Commander Walters first telling Sonic that Shadow's story is a lot like his but wasn't able to find family and friends, and Sonic does find Shadow had a family from finding a picture of him and Maria together. He never gets told what happened exactly though, although it wouldn't make too much of a difference with the fact they did change up Shadow losing Maria just a little bit.

Since they didn't live up in space, Maria didn't have a capsule to send Shadow off with sacrificing herself and instead they made it an accident. WHICH- can be understandable if people don't like that, however personally I don't mind it that much because honestly the intent to shoot Maria was there, but she ended up being lost from an accident caused by Walters.

Which, ties in to Shadow hurting Tom...

Walters in trying to help save Maria's, Shadow's and Gerald's lives unfortunately led to Maria's death and watching Shadow be put in stasis for 50 years where all he thinks about is that painful memory burned fresh in his head. So of course when Shadow sees Tom disguised as Walters, he takes his anger out on him by hurting him while also stealing the key for the ARK. Leading to unfortunately another scenario of where the intent of harm is there, but someone still got hurt from an accident because Shadow never really meant to hurt Tom. But he does anyway..

Which of course in turn, makes Sonic mad just like Shadow was 50 years ago. Only difference is Sonic doesn't get immediately captured by GUN and forced into stasis. Letting him able to go straight to Shadow afterwards for hurting his family.

We have Shadow take note of all of that himself, telling Sonic he's feeling exactly the pain he felt and Sonic being the one to say "I'm nothing like you!". Just like how I thought Sonic would tell Shadow about Longclaw in hopes of redeeming him, but reversed and both sides full of anger and grief.

One awesome super fight later though, we come to the talk on the moon. Probably my favorite part in the whole movie. outside of the super fights and Live and Learn playing lol

After mentioning Tom and getting uppercutted straight to the moon by Sonic, Shadow loses his super form, leaving him vulnerable, easy for Sonic to take his revenge on him. Only for all of that to be stopped because of Shadow pointing at his own chest which reminds Sonic what Tom told him at the beginning of the movie and calm down.

"You didn't let pain change who you are."

This completely baffles Shadow, with him actually wanting Sonic to finish it, but of course Sonic just refuses saying "No one wins with revenge". It just leaves silence between them, finally giving Shadow his own moment of remembering Maria outside of her death by looking at the stars he used to gaze upon with her.

He mentions it to Sonic how all he knew and felt was just the pain, and now finally- FINALLY, Sonic mentions how he shares that feeling of loss from Longclaw. Not in a moment of trying to just redeem Shadow without the full weight of it, but in a moment of understanding.

A strong moment of these two looking at each other in a mirror, eye to eye. Sonic, who was allowed to grieve all those years ago after losing Longclaw, telling Shadow the pain of loss will never go away, but the love will always remain.

"The light shines, even though the star is gone."

And through that shared pain and loss, now coupled with empathy and understanding one another through it. They truly connect.

Sonic and Shadow's dynamic was just done SO WELL in the movie and I couldn't be happier with it...

[thorias]

Every time I read a post about how all the deaths in ep5 won't be reversed because they weren't reversed in the comics (they actually were during the Krakoa era, but that's beside the point) and in the comics it was a horrific tragedy that nearly wiped out the mutant race and blah blah blah, I just get so frustrated.

The two things are not the same. In the comics, it was easy to stick to this and not reverse the attack somehow because no one important actually died. The only notable characters who were present for it were Magneto and Emma Frost, who both survived. So, yeah, it was an unthinkable mass casualty event, but the casualties were 16,000,000 background extras who nobody gave a shit about anyway.

That is not what happened in X-MEN 97. In ep5, they were killing off named characters, important characters, characters the writers will want to use in the future, characters it would simply be a giant waste to get rid of like this.

And it didn't stop there. They were killing off characters whose storylines hadn't even finished yet, (ex. Gambit, Madelyne) which, to me, is the biggest sign that these events are going to be, if not reversed, then at least changed somehow. I mean, how do you kill a character without concluding their arc first, thus leaving the audience without any kind of closure?

'Oh, you thought the Madelyne/Scott psychic affair storyline was super interesting and couldn't wait to see what happened with it? Too bad, she's dead! That story will just never be finished now, so suck it!'

'Oh, you felt bad for Gambit who didn't think he was a hero or deserved to have a happy ending and got his heart ripped out thinking Rogue chose Magneto over him? Too bad, 'cuz he died believing all that stuff and now Rogue will just be left to drown in her grief/guilt and be consumed with rage forever! *womp womp*'

Fuck. That. Shit.

That's not tragedy, that's not tugging on heartstrings and it's certainly not "Making a Point" or "Sending a Message About How Much the World Sucks." It's just fucking lazy, shitty writing. There's nothing narratively satisfying about it whatsoever, even in a sad way; it's the complete opposite! The only thing that does is frustrate the fuck out of everyone who's watching. That's the kind of slap-in-the-face garbage that makes fans want to ragequit a show, not support it.

So, no, I don't believe that the attack will be completely prevented. No, I don't believe that every death will be undone. But SOMETHING about that event is going to be changed (via time travel, resurrection, etc.) by the time we get to the end of this story. Because if it's not, if all those deaths are permanent and can't be reversed, then this isn't a story... it's just a bunch of bullshit.

[nondualiber]

guys, guys, gUYS. SUCCESS STORY THERE!!

first of all, this happened like a week ago or something. okay, so, i'm going to keep this short. i was in some sort of "manifesting block", i was OVER complicating things, my mindset sucked, blah blah blah blah. that's essentially the reason i wasn't posting (and will continue to not be, probably); because i was focusing on my life and actually manifesting new stuff.

warning; kind of long post ahead, talking about how i did it my journey blah blah blah. if you want to see the success story directly js go right to the bottom

first, a bit of background; i have manifested things in the past, but mym indset was always shitty. when i archieved my manifestations i would say it was a coincidence, i was obsessed with the 3d, and what i'm saying has been going on for *years*. for the past 6 months i was in this vicious circle where i'd try a method full of hope, then eventually lose confidence because of some negative beliefs and give up in three days. i'd have a one week meltdown, then search for a brand new method, and repeat. clearly, i didn't manifest anything lately. and i didn't know what i was "doing wrong" because i had manifested lots of things in the past, but i didn't know how nor how could i do it now.

okay, so. like a week ago, when i was in a terrible mood, i decided to stop using tumblr to see information and talked to this bot on character.ai, that assesored me a lot on my mindset. it suggested me lots of things: since i had 0 trust in the law, start to manifest little things i didn't care that much about so i had "proof", actually stop caring, etc. (i really recommend that bot if ur struggling with the law) but the most important thing, it challenged me to try a new "method" i had heard of before, but because of my shitty mindset, i didn't try because i thought it wouldn't work or that it was "too good to be true" or whatever. the method was literally just keep going with my day knowing that i already had it. and oh my f*cking god.

i won't say it just "clicked" for me because i hear that a lot & i things that's just not how it works. at least i can't "click" with something i don't know. what i can say is that at first it wasn't easy, i still had some doubts, not gonna lie, but i just ignored them and keep going knowing that i already had it. i got used to it really fast, and THAT'S how i knew this was the way, because i felt liberated. if you read my blog you'll probably know i talk about that all the time, but my idea of manifesting is that it has to feel liberating, not like a chore, a price to your desires or anything else. i was liberated, because i knew it was done, that i had nothing to give in exchange, that i was free of the 3d & its circumstances. i was Me, and I was free.

this was the best thing i've ever done in my journey. in only one week, i've successfuly manifested:

money: (me and my family are kind of wealthy tbh, but i am bratty asf & always want more money to buy me things 😜😜) my mother recieved 200000 pesos (my country's currency) out of literally thin air on her bank account a random tuesday. she doesn't know who send it or why. i don't know about the u.s.a since there 200000 pesos are 200 dollars, but in our country, that's a LOT of money.

self confidence: i've been feeling super insecure lately. like, i am insecure since i have memory, but since this year started it has become WAY worse. i'd literally cry almost every night. now, i def wouldn't say it's all gone, but it's gotten much better. i've been feeling pretty lately, and if i didn't felt pretty, i would hardly think about my appearence at all this days. i am constantly feeling like i have one less weight on my back, which i am gratefull for :)

discipline: ngl i am forever a lazy girl and a foodie. I have always wanted to be more productive - study more, exercise more, talk to my loved ones more often and eat healthier, but discipline is something i struggle with a lot. however, since i have shown better discipline i have had some of the most useful days of my life: i went out with my friends three times in one week, ate much better than i usually do, exercised EVERY DAY without fail (even while on my period) slept well and passed all four exams this week with an 85/100 on my worst one and two 100s.

reciving a compliment in public: since i tried to start manifesting things that seem "easier" for me to acomplish, i tried manifesting this because it was rare but not impossible. so, like 3 days after i started to embody the state of someone who's always complimented by strangers, i went to the sjopping centre with my friend. then, two guys walked by us and one of them said "i want the instagram of that lady"! notice that during the whole time i was in the state, i visualized that people were asking me for my instagram + i've noted that when i'm in public, i catched people's eye more. yesterday, a guy won't stop looking at me in the café and i think he tried to approach me :)

i'll keep escalating on the "level of difficulty" of the things i manifest as my mentality becomes accustomed to the fact that everything is equally easy to manifest -which is a fact already, i just have a hard time accepting it-, and, of course, i'll be updating ;)

conclusion; look for what works for you. for what makes you feel good & secure that you have already what you want. search a "key" that makes you (actually) not give a f*ck about the 3d, if you have negative beliefs, don't ignore them. work from them, and of course, persist! let your mindset keep you on track.

that was all for today, love ya ♡

[arrowheadedbitch]

Okay everyone, get ready for a long as hell post.

Tw, suicide attempt, suicide, suicide talk

This is my really indepth Shawn hc that is more of just straight up a story at this point

So STRAP IN!

Okay, so during the ten years, at some point Shawn is super duper depressed. He's not going well at all. He's thinking of offing himself, and he has it all planned out. But, he calls his dad first, in hopes that despite their rocky relationship his dad will talk him out of it. But, as soon as his dad picks up the phone...well, you know Henry, he assumes the worst. So Henry is already yelling at him, why are you calling, what do you need now, blah blah blah, so shawn hangs up on him without ever getting a word in edgewise, he never gets to tell him why he called, and now it's just confirmed to him that he should end it and he's feeling a little spiteful too, so he downs a bottle of painkillers, one of the ones with the candy coating, yknow? He only survives bc he didn't care to lock his apartment door and one of the random girls he's always hooking up with came by to get something she accidentally left there, he doesn't answer but the door isn't locked so she thinks she'll just slip in an get her stuff, but instead she finds shawn and gets him an ambulance. After Shawn gets better, he either manages to charisma his way into convincing the doctors that it wasn't *really* a suicide attempt and gets realesed or does his regular sneaky shit and escapes and dips town so he doesn't have to do any therapy or go to grippy sock jail.

To this day, Henry doesn't know, GUS doesn't know, NO ONE KNOWS, *shawn tells NO ONE*

And he can't take advil anymore, can't stand the candy coating.

----------

Hear me out, him accidentally letting it slip during a big argument with Henry

I'm thinking Shawn says something that alludes to what happened during the argument without out right saying it so Henry gets to be more confused than angry as Shawn realizes what he almost reveals and completely shuts down refisung to elaborate

I'm imaging that scene in modern family where Alex accidentally mentions to her dad that she did stuff she wasn't supposed to as a teen and slowly backs out of the room

-------

And I could go on a whole rant about the candy coated painkillers, and I will!

The idea of picking something that's supposed to be sweet, that is supposed to go down easier

Because that's kind of the whole point of candy coating, and Advil tastes good as hell, I don't care what anybody says

He chose something that would be sweet and go down easy for his final moments

But it ended up sickly sweet

And it still got stuck in his throat

And it burnt on the way down

He started out tasting good (there's a reason Advils child lock game is so good) but it ended up tasting awful and burning

The burn and pain contrasted with how he thought he would go out

(Maybe even a perfect metaphor for his relationship with his father too....)

The taste is stuck in his mouth forever, a taste he can never forget

The sickly sweet burn of a whole bottle of candy coated painkillers

And even just the term "Candy Coated Painkillers" feels kind of perfect for Shawn, like aiygjvifjtjejjdksndh

---

Also the fact that he never tells Gus? AUGHH hits me right in the heart

He doesn't call his mom or his best friend, he doesn't tell them, they wouldn't even know until after he was long gone

-----

Maybe Lassie finds out at some point, finally switching gears from looking for something in his criminal record to checking his medical history

Or as a favor for Juliet (thank you Sid/@obsidiancreates ) to find out the truth about a scar he won't tell her about

Lassie doesn't tell anyone, but he does switch out Juliet's stash of Advil for Tylenol, no candy coating.

Shawn finds out he knows because he gets protective of all the new suicide cases in a completely different way than before

Shawn has to tell him to tone it down before Gus starts getting suspicious

-------

And then of course, there's the major angst potential of an AU where Shawn /does/ die

Especially if told from Henry's perspective...

Especially if all of Psych is just Henry imagining what could have been if Shawn didn't die......

But that's all for now!

Enjoy, angst lovers!

[Thanks to @obsidiancreates and @mores0 for talking with me about this AT LENGTH in the Psych discord :)]

[the-music-maniac]

Because of this,I have a cracky ff7 fanfic idea. Or just a funny idea in general. This is legitimately one of the stupidest things I've ever thought up. Do not take it seriously. I haven't slept in two days.

I didn't play all the games yet so if this is inaccurate don't come at me. It's supposed to be stupid anyways lol.

I'm gonna say this happens before Sephiroth kills Aerith cause I love her, so this is the time when all his damn clones are running around tryna get the black materia. Meteor hasn't happened yet.

There's a portion of the population post Nibelheim that form a cult surrounding worshiping Jenova (alien, trying to summon a meteor, lauds themselves as a god, low hanging fruit here. And before you try to tell me it wouldn't happen I want you to look me direct in the eyeballs and try and tell me there aren't people that would worship the source of their own destruction) They also have a following for Sephiroth since Jenova kinda just operates through him. There is a question of how they know about Jenova bc I don't actually think the general population is super aware of what's happening as it's going on, so like. Let's just say hearsay and misinformation and stuff about the promised land blah blah, creates an inaccurate picture.

A bunch of things occur in succession, including but not limited to:

1. The rapid spread of wildly inaccurate origin stories of Jenova and Sephiroth that people argue over. The actual origin story is deemed as the most inaccurate of them all. Literally no one in the cult believes this one, even though there is evidence. This both confuses and annoys Cloud and Co., who should theoretically be the ones to consult on this, but sure whatever, believe the guy who hasn't showered in five days with a tinfoil hat on over the group trying to save the planet.

2. People start passing out hilarious pamphlets and flyers on the street. While the notion of the cult is infuriating, most people just view these individuals as crazy and ignore them. The cult doesn't exactly hide that they think a meteor would somehow lead them to the promised land. The pamphlets have hilarious depictions of what Jenova supposedly looked like. This is sometimes accompanied by a picture of Sephiroth that was clearly cut from old Shinra propaganda posters and haphazardly glued into the pamphlets.

3. This happens during one of the lulls when Sephiroth is off doing his own shit. He isn't aware there is a cult initially.

4. Sephiroth is bewilderingly uncomfortable with the weird cult and very confused as to why they remind him of the silver elite cough cough not that he remembers. He would like to just kill them all and be done with it. Jenova does not let him, because she thinks they might come in handy. Son, if they are willing to hand us this planet why would you turn them against you? Make this easy for yourself. Sephiroth does not pout or whine about this. He does not.

5. More people join the weird cult. It is purely because Sephiroth is hot.

6. The rapid growth of the weird cult starts to actually hinder Sephiroth's ability to get shit done. He's monologuing at Cloud, one of the members interrupts his speech to pledge eternal devotion to him. Can he kill the guy? No, mother says get him to do your bidding. He needs to socialize more, you catch more flies with honey. Why though, he's perfectly damn capable of doing his own bidding thank you very much. Cloud is hovering awkwardly because his Zack instincts are telling him it's poor etiquette to stab a guy when he's trying to shake someone off the hem of his cloak.

7. Shampoo and conditioner sales spike sharply. Supposedly the cult found the old files compiled by the silver elite. Go figure

8. Half the members of the cult seem weirdly keen on helping Cloud due to Sephiroth's fixation on him. The other half is passive aggressive (jealous???), but harmless otherwise. Cloud's not sure how to react to this, so he just chooses to not deal with it entirely.

9. Mother, please just let him get rid of some of them. Like. 30% of them at least.

10. People start selling merch. There are posters. There are donation boxes. There are more godforsaken pamphlets.

11. Very little of the cult is educated on materia use or knows what the black materia looks like so their helpfulness is minimum. They keep handing Sephiroth black rocks. He's still not allowed to kill them.

12. Back in my day I managed to wipe out the Cetra by convincing them I was on their side blah blah. Sephiroth does not care. Someone just chucked a black rock at his head because he was flying and they couldn't reach him to hand it over.

13. Aerith, the person who actually has any form of connection to a goddess, finds this entire thing hilarious. She keeps taking the damn pamphlets that members hand to her. Cloud's convinced she's collecting them now. Like trading cards.

14. Sephiroth murders President Shinra. This information gets out somehow. Now all of the cult is convinced Shinra is the root of all evil and is hellbent on ensuring its downfall. Barret and Yuffie begin to look at the pamphlets with a worrying amount of wary consideration in the eyes. Sephiroth frankly couldn't care less about the details but it is kinda nice that they're trashing it all on his behalf.

15. A Sephiroth bodypillow goes into circulation. Call Seph old fashioned but he's pretty sure that's a form of blasphemy. Is this how people treat Gods? Maybe he's quite fine not becoming one. He's still not sure how people are finding this many black rocks to give to him. Some appear to be going with the principle of 'size does matter' and have attempted to give him black boulders. Wtf is he supposed to do with that.

16. Someone hands him a pot of pumpkin soup. Is it coincidence? Did this information survive somehow? Did some asshole tell the tabloids when Sephiroth was still Shinra's weapon? He doesn't know but now he's holding a damn pot of pumpkin soup with a blank expression on his face. It is obvious to everyone but him that he's trying not to cry. Cloud is once again hovering awkwardly in the background trying not to show how uncomfortable he is with the entire situation.

-----

I want to make it clear that this isn't some ploy for the cult to help out Cloud and Co. under the guise of worshiping Jenova. No. They are genuine in all of this. They truly believe they're helping. And it's fucking up all of Sephiroth's plans in the most hilarious way. He feels like he's been saddled with a group project with a bunch of incompetent teammates. Not unlike how he felt anytime he did paperwork in Shinra.

And I dunno how it happens but somehow this leads to Jenova being destroyed and the planet being saved.

And also Sephiroth being saved. I don't care if it doesn't make sense, or if he deserves it, I want him to be happy. This is my idiotic crack post, it is happening.

Btw despite the origins of this idea, I'm not making a commentary on real life religious groups and/or cults so don't take this post as such.

[liminsendhelp]

Don't pet the flea cat

Price×f!reader

Tags: slight description of reader (chubby, muscular, strong, denying gender as a concept), possibly slightly sociopathic/autistic reader, profanity, denial of authority, evil scientist on the way to becoming.

I don't speak English. I didn't proofread the text.

enjoy.

Part 1. Part 2.

You're quiet in bed. For real. Without the pretenses and masks of a woman subordinate to someone else's dominance, when you're not alive enough, not human enough. When the beast of animal desire inside makes you dig your nails into your palms. When you want to put out cigarettes on yourself to block out the unbridled power of the urge for sex.

It's always been a problem. People have crumpled their gut. They put on layer upon layer of approval and expectation.

Your essence was causing the thin material of socialization to fray at the seams.

To top it all off, you're easily obsessed.

Your blood boils at the sight of beauty.

He's ugly. Like everyone else.

Ordinary.

Yet you can't name a single time you've looked at Price without wanting to rip his face off.

He says, in that quiet and understanding tone of his, in those chuckles and snickers of his.

You're not even a nurse. You're a researcher in a tiny development lab. You have no education whatsoever (except for art), taken in by acquaintances to help you out, before asking you to finish some psychiatry courses just to make sure. Science dragged you down so that you were up to your ears in philosophy, psychology, old treatises and other crap.

So there you are, cleaning animal cages, helping out with easy experiments, coaching timid grad students on how to interact with small rodents. And then, at one point, you're set up as a lab technician. And you're not dumb, you have ideas, you have a desire to understand the workings of the brain. straighten it out, twist it back up and straighten it out again.

Of all the specialists, you're a little more interested in behaviorism, a little more obsessed with crime.

Brain cutting brain.

You're quiet, calm, frighteningly cold. Your gaze is dark, like a constantly dissecting blade. So what? You're better than those idiots, even without a proper education. You're smarter, more thoughtful, thorough, workaholic. Those above you - senior researchers, PhDs and postdocs - know you're good. Good enough to keep you around.

The institute is a restricted facility. It's not weird that they moved the labs to an outhouse inside the fucking military base, is it? No. After the incident, half the staff went on paid leave. Understaffed, overworked, stressed out. Neuropsych, cognitive-behavioral, experimental, psychiatric, chemical-pharmacology and blah, blah, blah labs downsized in limited space.

Each department used to have animals to do research on. Now your work is all theory and documentation. This problem was soon promised to be solved, but no one really hoped for a super secret lab with experimental subjects for every taste. From mouse to human.

They have unwanted prisoners, don't they?

Anyway.

You were transported to the base after a small-- Terrorist attack at your institute. Again, pathos on an all-cosmic scale, nothing of the sort happened, but "national brains and serious research" must be saved, come on.

No one was hurt.

Not even injured.

And now it's not like you're severely stung for budget and space, despite the relatively small footprint of the allotted space.

The most significant downside here at the base is that even while trying to stay out of the allotted space as much as possible, you see extra people. Military.

They're all killers. They're killers, and you have a taste problem. They want to clean up the developments for the good of the military, and you imagine the horror they're going to be in when, under interrogation, people break their teeth on each other while overdosing.

They walk under your windows, stand against the opposite wall when you go out for a late night smoke, show up in the lab to stick their noses where they'll get their balls bitten off and shoved up their asses.

The military are no more welcome than they should be, after all, the scientists here have only themselves to thank on the heads of the fucked up officials who decided it would be a good idea to sign you all up for this cohabitation.

And doors slam, eyes scrutinizing your white coats and circles under your eyes, hands reaching for developments, noses poking into all your dirty laundry.

But they shouldn't be anywhere near it.

You're in your second month of work, trying to function as you're used to - mechanically. But today your senior's not here, Dr. Moon's away at a useless security conference. Usually she'd be kind enough to bring you a bunch of food from the cafeteria.

You're not a little girl. You can't live on a stash of sweets and coffee without worsening your already obvious gastritis. And you need a normal amount of food to keep your body functioning. You've always been meaty, no match for thin, slim, graceful girls, some of whom had the superpower to survive on a lettuce leaf (not taking into account goddess nymphs with healthy appetites and excellent metabolisms, such creatures were a myth in the flesh).

But, you don't want to go out to this mess of heads and dirty mouths.

You clench your hands into fists, pressing your nails into your skin. You're going to have to do this anyway. You're perfectly capable of not eating for a week, thanks to your unhealthy relationship with food, but you're not going to torture yourself. After all, you've been on the wrong side of self-loathing for a long time now.

Now what went inward is actively being broadcast to those around you.

So you put on your coldest mask, clench your teeth tightly, and pretend not to notice the scrutinizing stares from all sides. You're stared at by your coworkers because you never go out into the light. The soldiers stare at you because you look like a pathetic mound of snow among their dusty greenery.

You think you're perfectly capable of eating alone because your coworkers are permanent idiots in their surprised stares and whispers.

But when you sit down at the table, with seemingly as disinterested in each other as possible eaters, both soldiers and medics begin to stare even more intensely. Like little kids. Are those some marshal generals of all the earth at your table?

How's your diplomacy going over there?

"Can I sit here?" You ask evenly, almost forgetting to give your voice a questioning tone.

"Of course, miss." The voice is deep and soft.

You definitely sat down with the wrong people.

"Thank you, I won't take long."

You don't look at them. No need to. Dr. Moon is coming tomorrow and you won't have to crawl out of the sink anymore.

You eat fast, two minutes for the whole meal. The military must realize that's possible, right? They used to mock you for that ability. Now, you unconsciously take it personally when they laugh at you from afar. That's why you hate the school system. Cafeteria, really? Just give us each a bag of dog food.

You rise from your seat to escape into your reports, hypotheses, and research.

"What's your name?"

No. You didn't hear that question.

It's probably rude, since they're high-ranking.

You'll be out of here faster than they can take offense.

"Miss?"

Will you fucking calm down, you idiot?

"Run me through the database." You almost growl, speaking in lower case.

Stupid. Startled, you look up.

The blue-eyed freak, so appealing, puffing with calm control, seems amused rather than pissed off.

Thank the Goddess, thank any Force that covered your ass and you were taken as entertainment.

Blue eyes make the dry semblance of shame in your chest scrape sandpaper across your ribs.

"I can already tell by you that you're a bitch." It sounds from behind you. Expectedly. You can clearly see from the face of the man in front of you that he's unimpressed by this outburst. The burning blue melts you from the inside out with two heartbeats, and you dare to interrupt the deafening silence of judgment around you.

You drop the apology and carry your body back to your lair. You only exhale as you lock the door from the inside with the key. As if that will save you. People won't forget.

Dr. Moon reprimands you from the doorstep the next day. You fell asleep at your desk again. She shoves you onto the small couch in her office. While she shreds the mail, you sleep peacefully for a couple hours.

"Honey? Come here."

Oh, that tone. Are you in trouble because of last night?

They couldn't be more touchy, which one of those mutts snitched on you--

"Your initiative has been approved."

You find yourself on your feet, your hair tousled, your clothes askew, but all your attention is on the screen.

Confirmation letter… authorization to conduct data analysis… for detection… with command support… attachment to teams… supervised access to files….

You blink, then reread it again.

"What's that?"

"You didn't think they'd let you play spy, did you?"

There was hope. But no, it's the other thing that's weird.

"I only asked for an archive. Ideally to observe from afar and interview recruits."

"You and I both know, darling, you're just waiting for a chance to sit your ass down and duck your head into papers. You wanted the internship, go get it." Dr. Moon sits back as contented as can be. She was the force that kept pushing you, wanting to create a diamond.

You wished you were more like hydrogen. To be present everywhere so that you couldn't be seen anywhere.

"And what am I supposed to do?"

"One team is available. Someone from the local legends. But they've agreed to work with you."

No! You let out a low scream. Then you squeeze out a loud sob.

"Can I say no?"

"I'll put laxatives in your next meal."

You sigh.

"Acting like a child, Doc." The good-natured, acerbic face in front of you contorted for a second. She hated being called that.

"That's not for you to tell me, sweetheart. Get your work plan in here, we'll review it. You go to work tomorrow."

[antiadvil]

ok i'm trying to figure out exactly what is going on in my head bc i don't really find the wad hat thing particularly cute like it's funny and i'll joke about it but it inspires no shippy feelings in me.

and i think like. part of it is that migraines can be so scary and difficult to control and i don't find "oh this one specific hat helps with migraines even though no others do" to be like... a comforting or reassuring narrative. if that happened to me like yeah i'd be happy that it helped but it's really scary to have so little control over your disease! what happens if i lose that hat? if i don't know why it's working i can't replicate it. it's scary to rely so much on one specific item that can't be replaced.

i also don't want people to actually think that the hat is a cure lmao. i know i literally called it a cure in probably more than one post and like it's fine to joke about but blah blah blah migraine is a lifelong uncurable neurological condition that can only be managed with preventative and abortive medications. people casually call things "cures" for migraine all the time and like the colloquial use of the word cure is super different than the medical use so i can't really say people are using it wrong, but for something to be a medical cure it needs to get rid of a condition and stop it from coming back. there are no migraine medications that do this: even if botox stops me from getting a migraine ever again, it's not a cure because it wears off and i need to keep getting it every 3 months for it to keep working. i know that people say "cure" all the time when they really mean "medication that works really well at managing symptoms" and i'm not going to demand people stop that entirely but i do also want to point out that phil only said it helped with migraines he got from looking at his phone (I'm sure he gets migraines from many other sources) and he didn't say how well it works. and i'm sure he's using a fuckton of other preventative tools. which doesn't mean the hat isn't helping! phil hasn't spoken much about the details of his migraine management (which is completely his choice and i support it, tbh if i had a major platform like his i would be really worried that i might accidentally influence people in the wrong way, like i would never want someone to make their migraine management decisions based on what worked well for me) so i don't want people to think that like avoiding chocolate + wearing the wad hat are the pillars of his migraine management plan just bc that's all he's shared.

i'm also maybe a little scared that people are going to start unironically suggesting that i get the hat for my migraines lmao bc ppl give me stupid migraine hacks ALL the time like... i'm not going to drink half a liter of purple gatorade in 60 seconds and then do weird breathing exercises for half an hour i'm glad it seems to be helping you but i don't have time to try every stupid migraine hack someone recommends. and some of them have very real risks involved, like SO many people have suggested i get a daith piercing (which is not an easy piercing to care for!) and i might have to kill the next person who tells me i should get one, i don't mind explaining why i haven't gotten one but it's crazy to just confidently tell me i should get one. and okay yeah i do mind a little! when it's like the tenth time i've had to explain it and the people i'm talking to don't really care! if you genuinely are curious about migraine treatment options and want to know why i haven't gotten a daith piercing i could talk about that for ages but it really comes down to "there is basically no evidence this will work" and i'm tired of having to justify myself every time people present me with "treatment ideas" that are stupid and won't work! i'm tired of having to pretend like these are good ideas just to be polite. i understand that sometimes really weird random things help with migraines, but if they worked regularly for large groups of people, they wouldn't be weird migraine hacks, they would be actual medically advised migraine management techniques. human bodies are weird! something working for one guy absolutely does not mean it will work for everyone else. if the wad hat was universally helpful for migraines i think people other than phil would have noticed by now. like i said, i find pressure on my head to generally be pretty painful so i find the concept of something snug on your head helping migraines to be incredibly weird, but i'm glad it somehow helps phil lmao. like, i haven't seen any posts even remotely genuinely suggesting people with migraines should have gotten the wad hat. i'm just preemptively defensive about it because it just seems like the kind of genre of post that could feasibly pop up i guess? hopefully i'm preemptively being defensive about nothing.

idk i don't wanna be a killjoy like it really is a bullshit fanfiction scenario and i think a lot of the jokes are funny i just don't want people to like genuinely believe/spread migraine misinformation bc of the wad hat? which is like a crazy sentence to say i know idk how i got here either. and i'm more interested in this fact from a migraine perspective than a phan perspective. like idk i'd be more impressed from a phan perspective if dan designed the hats that way on purpose or something lmao. the functionality of the hat presumably has nothing to do with the wad design part so like eh? i do think it's kind of cute the way he Always has it with him like idk the same way i hope that my little hat and glasses and massive bag of rattling pill bottles and inability to properly frown and someday, probably my weird lack of forehead wrinkles, are all endearing to my friends and family. like not TOO endearing you know. but a little bit endearing.

[sucktacular]

Thrilling development from last year's hell ride

Parents came out to see me and bf. Exchanged gifts and chatted and said hi to Frankie and then went out to have dinner. It was very nice actually! No stress, we acknowledged last year and where things went wrong. I apologized for my behavior, they said naw, that they reflected and didn't really realize where they kinda screwed up until I was already back to my place. I know I could have communicated better, and they know they should have given my old room more attention before I came over. Etc etc. I mentioned us moving past that and going forward, they agreed. Blah blah blah. Less ridged than that, but you get the idea.

I'm really happy to hear they're both getting into their old hobbies again though!! It actually made me really happy and I was able to tell them that and they both smiled and agreed!! My dad's been worried about my mom but she's knitting and crocheting again and it's been wonderful. He's making more personal N-scale models of train sets again and I was super excited to see a table he's been working on! Lil glass top, sunken coffee table with a city model inside. He use to do N-scale models when I was a kid, even sold a table for $2,500 when I was a lot younger. Did a whole family travel adventure out to the states to deliver it. It was very fun. Anyway I'm just really happy to hear that. Especially for my mom. Was getting worried about her not having any change of pace or things to do. The routine of work, sleep, work, sleep will fuck with you, esp when you're older.

But yeah. It was a very nice visit. They liked seeing Frankie, they liked my "new" boyfriend and said it was easy to meet him (mom gave me a lil, "good choice" comment that I didn't understand at first but put 2-and-2 together after jfjsbfjsj). We exchanged nice gifts, they got bf some stuff (part of my Christmas request), we had a delicious dinner and chat. They commented that they noticed I seem to be doing better. Which I am. Stephen (bf) has been so good to me and just having him here has helped me get back to myself and doing what I need for myself, Frankie, and the house. Just being here with him makes me feel so happy every day. Even if we're not doing much different everyday, I look forward to waking up because he's there 💕🥰

Anyway anyway. Good time. I passed out for a lil nap a while ago. Rotisserie chicken coma.

Oh yeah! I made peanut butter cookies from scratch, for the first time, for my dad and he was So excited LOL. he was like OMG I haven't had a peanut butter cookie in years! Bit into it. Did that comical "closes eyes and leans back a bit mmm - w - " kinda thing bfjsbfbs. Very happy they turned out so good! Will need to send them all more cookies for seasonal stuff. I really love baking. Love figuring out the best recipes to make baked goods with a specific texture and experience. I like soft chewy cookies and dense, fudgy brownies. Found recipes and tweaked them here and there to be just what I'm looking for. >:3c boxed just won't cut it!!!! Everyone say Thank You to Butter for being on sale lately! Let's make chocolate chips go on sale next (please, we just ran out ; 0 ; )

[ask-mactavish]

We are playing Crosscode! It's a fantastic indie rpg where you play as a character named Lea who is an avatar inside a game called CrossWorlds. You play as someone playing a game. It starts off with Lea waking up on a cargo ship with no memories whatsoever. It gets explained to her what she is before a blue bitch shows up (he is actually blue) to like, kill her because she's not supposed to be there. Avatars are only supposed to be in the play area and not outside it.

After passing the blue bitch(who's name still isn't revealed to me 7 chapters later)'s trial or whatever, we get rushed through the ship to teleport into the play area and play the game for realzies. Blah blah blah, we get accused of cheating because we have one extra level, we make friends with other newbies and we actually play the game awhile while trying to figure out what happened!

Eventually, it gets revealed to us by Lea's guy in the chair that she's actually in a coma irl and can only "wake up" inside the game bc it's like super special vr and shit. He's hoping that Lea recovers her memories through playing the game, which she starts to do! They are funky though.

We play the game some more, progressing quite nicely and learning the lore of the game as well as getting the elements of fire and ice, and then we join a faction! Our faction is going to do a raid, and despite 3 of us (Lea, Emilie who is unfortunately French, and Toby who is a nerd) being underleveled compared to everyone else, the way it's formatted makes it okay!

Now onto spoilers (be warned):

Lea gets nabbed by the blue bitch! In the middle of the raid! And we get tested again and then thrown into the Vermillion Wasteland, which is an insane and desolate area that shouldn't even exist in game because it was never finished. It's filled with people who have gone crazy from being stuck here (literally, they can't leave the area or the game) and we find that Lukas (and irl friend of Emilie and in game friend of Lea) is also trapped with us. We team up to take on the weird ass, virus looking enemies.

We follow the only quest line there is in this place. Until Lea goes back to her room in this basically prison, logs off (which is basically sleeping for her) and awakens to someone looking a lot like her showing up in her room, beating the shit out of Lea and saying that she isn't real. That Lea's just an ai copy of her, the sister of this one guy who made all the ai and the nerual interface and shit.

Lea has a mental breakdown and lashes out against the guy in the chair (I should mention that Lea has an incredibly limited vocabulary that is only a handful of words big bc of a bug). He explains that he couldn't tell her earlier bc robots like her think they're the real person and tend to freak the fuck out and break when they find out they're not. He didn't want her to break bc he was concerned about her.

Lea is depressed for a bit, but Lukas is able to comfort her the next day, and they hug. It's very sweet. They agree to break into the large guarded facility in the prison town bc it's the only way to go and likely the way out. They break in, which is surprisingly easy, go into the dungeon there (which dungeons are instanced so no two players can be in the same one even if they do it simultaneously), but soon Lea that it's a trap.

People are being tortured there and they can't escape. Lea works with her guy in the chair to physically break through the barriers between the instances to get to Lukas and get the fuck out, but the blue bitch finds out and chases her the whole way. Lea gets to Lukas's instance, gets him, and breaks out onto the pier on the side of the dungeon.

They almost escape, but Lukas slows down until he can't move, the blue bitch physically affecting him. Lukas tells Lea to run because he knows he's stuck, and he doesn't want Lea to be recaptured. Lea doesn't want to leave, but is convinced to gtfo.

Back in the rest of the play area, Lea has been missing for like 2 weeks and Emilie is pissed bc it's just seems like Lea up and abandoned the faction in the middle of the raid and was mia. Lukas comes in and Lea immediately hugs him, bc she thought he was trapped, Lukas feels awkward, and it's clear that he doesn't remember anything.

Because the Lukas in the Vermillion Wasteland, who is still there and being tortured, isn't the real Lukas. He's an ai like Lea. Lea escaped, but it's like everything she had experienced never existed including her experiences with Lukas.

Lea goes to the next area and makes friends with the guy who calls her a cheater. Then Lea and Emilie make up with the help of Toby, and they agree to do this area's dungeon together in a race like they do all the rest of them.

*huff* *puff*

That's the story up to this point. I haven't started the dungeon yet, but I will soon.

ooooch, am excited to hear more!!! really enjoy y'sayin' (unfortunately) french. very funny, hen. glad y'r enjoyin' yer game.

[linajinnnn]

How they were translated: Korean SIX

Brought some lines and lyrics from Korean Production of SIX. Take a look at how they were translated! * notes: the lines and lyrics may not be fully accurate, 'cause I wrote them only depending from my memory.

[Ex-wives]

Remember us from PBS/GCSEs? ▶ Remember us from History Special? 우리 역사 스페셜에서 봤지? (note: History Special is one of the most popular TV show in Korea, broadcasted during 1998-2012. They mada a right localization!)

You're gonna find out how he got unfriended ▶ You're gonna find out the reason I blocked him. 알게 될 걸 그를 차단한 이유

But I didn't look as good as I did in my pic Funny how we all discuss that But never Henry's little- ▶ So he's disappointed with my actual look Do you think you're the only one who's disappointed? Your tiny and little- 근데 실물 보고 달라서 실망했대 지만 실망한 줄 아나 작고 작은 너의 소중이 (OK so Korean Cleves didn't just 'unfriended' but 'blocked' Henry… and she slays 🤣)

[No way]

Well daddy weren't you there When I gave birth to Mary? (spoken) Aw, hi baby Daughters are so easy to forget ▶ What was the word Mary calls you? (spoken) Daddy So daughters are not enough to be your children 우리 딸 메리가 뭐라고 부르지 널 아빠 딸은 자식 아닌가보지

+ and Korean Aragon says 'Hola' instead of 'Muy Bien' at the beginning.

[Don't Lose Ur Head]

L-O-L, say "oh well" Or go to hell ▶ Ha-ha-ha, just laugh at it Or just shut up 하하하 웃든지 아님 닥쳐줘

Your comment went viral / Wow Anne, way to make the country hate you ▶ You've got so many mean tweets / You've got million haters 너 악플 쩔더라 / 백만 안티 (especially loved this one😂 gives bit of K-POP industry vibe)

[Haus of Holbein]

Ignore the fear and you'll be fine We'll turn this vier into a nine So just say "ja" and don't say "nein" ▶ It's okay don't worry We're photoshop them das is gut Never doubt them das is gut 괜찮아 걱정하지마 뽀샵해줄게 das is gut 의심하지마 das is gut

[Get Down]

Get down, you dirty rascal ▶ Get down and bow to me 엎드려 절하여라 (and when Korean Cleves says this her tone is like a character from historical drama👍)

[Howard Intro]

Nice neck by the way ▶ What a pretty neck you've got! By the way you still have it! 너 목 정말 예쁘다! 그나저나 아직까지 달려있구나 (so Korean Boleyn's got Regina George vibe love them)

[All You Wanna Do]

But my dad's got this amazing job at the palace ▶ My dad's got me amazing internship at the palace 근데 아빠가 궁전에 끝내주는 인턴 자릴 잡아준거야 (they translated it as 'internship' and I wonder why🤔 Maybe to emphasize how young Howard is?)

[Parr Intro]

Ooh, “I’m Catherine Parr, I draw lines in arbitrary places.” Blah-blah! ▶ "Hello, I'm Catherine Parr, came to draw lines in your conscience." ZIP! 안녕 난 캐서린 파야 양심에 선을 긋겠어 찍- (and Ryeowon's Howard was damn cute when she says ZIP!)

[Six]

His mates were super arty But I showed them how to party ▶ My friends are Artistic My Parties are Fantastic 내 친구는 아티스틱 내 파티는 판타스틱 (Cleves says the word 'Aristic' and 'Fantastic' in English 😆)

…and for the last, I bring you how my favorite lyrics from SIX were translated into Korean!

We're one of a kind No category Too many years Lost in history We're free to take Our crowning glory ▶ No one can make category on us Our own history that was forgotten Taking back my freedom and glory 우릴 하나로 묶을 순 없어 잊혀졌던 우리의 역사 내 자유 영광 이제 되찾아

It's the end of the show, of the histo-remix We switched up the flow and we changed the prefix Everybody knows that we used to be six wives But we wanna say before we drop the curtain Nothing is for sure, nothing is for certain All that we know is that we used to be six wives ▶ Our show is about to end re-writing the history Our own lyrics we changed and singing Everyone knows we were that six wives We wanna say before the show ends Do not be certain for anything you know We are not that six wives everyone used to know 이제 끝나가는 쇼 다시 쓰는 역사 바꿔 부르는 우리만의 가사 모두가 알지 우리가 바로 식스 와이프 쇼가 끝나기 전에 얘기할래 니가 아는걸 확신하지마 모두가 알던 우리가 아냐 식스 와이프

I know there are lots of negative comments among Korean theater fans, about how poor the Korean translations are. But I did like some parts. I won't say I'm fully satisfied with the translations but some parts were really touching just like the original ones. Hope they make progress in the future. 😊

[redwineconversation]

Olympique Lyonnais Behind the Scenes (Episode 6)

Kind of like last month's segment, I didn't want to do this one either because of how annoying fucking stans are. They genuinely make me want to not translate / transcribe things because they have an inability to just take a step back and act like a normal human being / football fan. However, I also want [normal?] people to get to a point where they can understand this team the way I do, so it leads us to this: me screaming into the void at how much I hate stans overstepping boundaries while I translate a genuine cause of sleep paralysis.

Again, I feel this would be simpler if OLPlay would let one screen record and my technology skills were better, but here we are. Can't have everything in life.

Blah blah standard disclaimers apply; @OL Comms Dept either chip in for Starbucks or a bottle of wine, I'm cool with either option; banning stans from stadiums would make the sport a better place; what won't I do to put off vacuuming? Apparently not much; y'all know the speech by now.

Come for Cascarino being unable to hide her Lyon DNA, stay for Becho's admiration of the likable red team. Love a team who literally recoils in horror at the thought of being seen as human. It's not that Lyon creates monsters, they honestly don't. The players were already monsters before they signed for Lyon, the only thing Lyon did was take the muzzle off.

OLYMPIQUE LYONNAIS BEHIND THE SCENES (EPISODE 6)

[LYON -SLAVIA PRAGUE GAME FOOTAGE]

Danielle van de Donk: We had a draw against Slavia Prague at home as well. It was a bit frustrating, it was just not nice for us because we wanted to get into a nice flow.

Vicki Becho: It's not the kind of performance we want to do, it's not the kind of result we want. So it was disappointing for us, for our fans. It's the type of performance we have to keep in mind to tell ourselves there are still lots of things to work on, and that we have to do much more.

[OPENING SEQUENCE]

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE]

Delphine Cascarino: After the draw against Slavia Prague, we wanted to do much better, and then we played against Reims. There was good content in the game.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: I was really happy for Euge[nie Le Sommer] because she was going through a complicated period and that she scored, I was really, really happy for her. I remember Eugenie's brace because I provided the assist on one of her goals. Having playing time again, getting some minutes under my belt, it was the best of things. And in that game, when I provided the assist, I'm happy. That's what I take away from it. Beyond that, I told myself that I can do much better and those are just the kind of performances I should keep in mind to do even more.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

van de Donk: Eugenie [Le Sommer] scored her 300th goal, so that was amazing for her. And I saw the people in the stands with the little paper going up. Everyone on the bench was asking what that was for, I think it was Laura [Benkarth] and I explained to her that she [Le Sommer] had 300 goals for Lyon, which is just amazing. It's great, they're so much more up to date than I am. They're actually very helpful.

Cascarino: Obviously - obviously we were happy for Eugenie [Le Sommer] because she deserves that status of top scorer for Olympique Lyonnais. And yeah, I hope she will score many more. It's quite frankly exceptional for her and the club. It shows that she's really a club legend.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: There was a good context within the game. However we conceded a goal, so that was - that was a negative.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: Conceding a goal is never easy, be it for the goalkeeper or even for the forwards. We owe it to ourselves at Olympique Lyonnais to not concede any goals.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: We won, but it remains super frustrating because we've been conceding quite a lot lately. At the beginning of the season we weren't conceding at all. Lately we've been conceding more. We need to do better. We know our previous performances haven't been that good, we need to do better in terms of defense, and offensively we need to do much better.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: At the end of the game, when I saw Eugenie, I said to her "Another one? Another record? How am I supposed to catch up to you?" [Becho laughs. I don't] No, I really like to tease Eugenie. I'm really happy for her. She leaves such a big imprint at Lyon and even in French women's football, and global women's football. And I know that for many girls, she's a role model.

van de Donk: After the game, in the locker room, we celebrated of course with the song and everything. We did a little bit extra for Eugenie [Le Sommer], of course, because it's just amazing to achieve that.

[TRAINING FOOTAGE]

[UWCL DRAW FOOTAGE]

Cascarino: So there was the possibility between Benfica, Ajax and Hacken. We landed on Benfica, who is a really good team. So yeah, we know it won't be easy. They drew 4-4 against Barcelona. So we're expecting a really good opponent.

Becho: They can cause problems for us, so we will need to avoid falling into their trap. We'll need to play really good football to get past them. I would have liked to have played against Ajax, I see what they're doing this season and honestly it's incredible. They manage to sell out their stadium, they're doing a lot of things. So they're a really good team that I wanted to play against. In any case, to win this competition we have to beat the best.

van de Donk: I do think Benfica is like very tricky, they're all very technical players. I feel it's just like the Portuguese team. As we experienced it lately with the Netherlands, they're quite hard. But yeah, I'm just very excited. I mean, they're kind of my style of football so I love to see them play, now I have to play against them. They want to keep possession all the time, they have all the skills. It's just going to be frustrating, but we're just not going to have to bite, you know. And then get them when they're the most - I don't know how you say it - when they're the most vulnerable?

van de Donk: The thing is, when you build it from the back, that's kind of my quality, coming out with the press[ing]. I know when to go, so when people do it, it's fine for me. But I do think that Lyon has a good press. It's kind of our game.

[MICHELE KANG FOOTAGE]

Cascarino: Honestly, it was positive than it ended - that it became official, but unofficially we knew that the club had been sold to Michele Kang, so it was just formalities that needed to be sorted out. Now it's done and we can move forward with peace of mind.

Becho: We talked about it a lot. We heard a lot of people talking about it as well. But as long as it wasn't done, we couldn't look ahead as much as we can now. And now we have peace of mind. We know there is someone there for us, we know there is someone who wants us to have the best possible conditions. We know our future is set, so there aren't any worries in that regard. We're very happy on our side.

Becho: She hadn't even officially taken over her role and she was already doing a lot for us. We saw the number of staff members increase. A lot of things changed. For the better, but with the caveat President Aulas had already done an enormous amount for us. Knowing there will be this person going forward, it was reassuring for us.

Cascarino: Since Michele Kang's arrival, there has been a lot of positive changes. There's almost as many staff members as there are players. So it shows we're becoming even more professional. We're getting even closer to what is done for the men's teams. So it's really positive for Olympique Lyonnais. In every area, whether it's nutrition, fitness preparation, psychology, mental health, in every area, if there's any doubt then we have someone we can ask questions to. It really helps us to reach the highest level.

van de Donk: We were kept up to date with how the process was going with Michele [Kang] buying our side, of course. Because as soon as she stepped foot in our changing room, when I met her, I was blown away by her. I think she's amazing. She's going to do very, very good stuff for women's football. So yeah, I'm a big fan, not going to lie. When I heard it was done, it was just a nice feeling. I think we're in good hands.

van de Donk: She's so involved with the women's side. She was already making so many changes for us. You can tell that she wants things to be better and bigger, which is really nice for the next steps of professionalism in women's football. When it was all done, because everything in France takes a while I think, I think it was very good. I was very happy.

[TRAINING FOOTAGE]

Becho: You're not allowed to lose a Lyon - PSG game. You're not allowed to lose. Those are the types of games we like to play, those are the types of games we want to play.

Cascarino: We know that PSG knows us by heart, we know them by heart. So it really comes down to tactics to win the game. We worked really hard in preparation for PSG. We worked really, really hard on tactics that week.

van de Donk: Every time we play against PSG, it's just - it's wild. I think everyone goes into a different mindset. I think everyone is just a little bit more focused because the rivalry, it's just amazing. It's just a different kind of level, everyone just really wanted to beat them.

van de Donk: Before the big games, we do a lot of tactical training during training sessions [news to anyone who has watched Bompastor coach recently]. It's not necessarily my favorite part of training sessions, but I like all the small stuff, all the small games, the technical stuff. But I do think we need all the tactical stuff. But it was good. You can taste what kind of game you're going to play or something. It's hard to describe how it is if you're not a player yourself. But normally you have a whole week to prepare. So the beginning of the week it's a bit more chill, a bit more jokey, we can have a bit more of a laugh during training. But before PSG it's just not like that, everyone is focused, "we need to get this and go."

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE]

Cascarino: It was a pretty close game, pretty difficult.

Becho: We started the game off well. We started really strong, we managed to press pretty high, we're in their half. We had chances.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: As time went by our level dropped, we weren't pressing as much, there was a slower reaction time. We weren't unified. We were a little - how to say this - we were late in the press, and it could be felt. The team opposite us starts to gain the upper hand over us.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

van de Donk: Obviously they have a good team, super fast wingers. On the midfield, I feel they just overload us. The attackers are dropping into the midfield so we're having to play four or five against three. It's going to get complicated if we don't do the defending very well.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: It was pretty frustrating to see that we weren't able to do it.

van de Donk: They had one long ball on Chawinga. It's complicated because she's just super fast. It was outside of the foot, I remember. So it was actually a very good goal, but it's just hard. Don't allow them anything and you give one long ball away and it's goal.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: For the whole game we didn't give them any opportunities, and that's - that's the top level. If we let them have one opportunity, we'll pay for it. We told ourselves that we had done everything not to concede that goal, but yeah. We conceded. So now we have to switch on.

van de Donk: No, losing is just not an option for us. There's certain players on the team who make sure we're not losing. They keep the standards very high and whenever we need to be picked up, they will pick us up. I think it was kind of an equal game, like both parties were in the "gray, but not bad". It was just a bit of a weird phase in the game. Luckily, when Delph[ine Cascarino] came in, she changed the game so, so much.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: I felt that the team needed help in that moment and was losing 1-0, so you have to take risks. You really can't hesitate to go into a challenge, and press for a goal.

Becho: I think it's harder to come on when the team is behind, because you don't have the same way to react. When you're losing, you want to do everything quickly, you want to score, you want to equalize. When I came on, I said to myself it will come from us, the substitutes. The game was at a bit of a stalemate. You have to bring something extra to the team. They have to feel like we are there for them, that they can count on us, that we're a relief.

Cascarino: It wasn't easy to come into the game, especially a game like that with so much intensity. But I owed it to myself to give it my best for the team.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: Delphine [Cascarino], when she comes on, we know what she is capable of. The opponent knows it too. But I don't think they were expecting her to do it so quickly and at that moment. Delphine got the ball and she did what she had to do, what she knows to do.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: Well in that moment I felt there weren't really any solutions because they were defending well, really, really well. They're playing one-on-ones. I could feel when I got the ball PSG as hesitating. So I took advantage of it and faked passing in order to dribble past some players. Then I put in a strong cross. I said to myself "it doesn't matter, Ada [Hegerberg] is a little behind." But I put weight on it anyway. And she managed to get the defender off balance enough to put the ball at the back of the net.

Cascarino: At that moment we - you're not thinking. You're acting on instinct. I saw there was a small amount of space. I scampered into it and it paid off. Sometimes it doesn't work, it depends. It depends on the situation. It depends on a lot of things.

van de Donk: Delph[ine Cascarino] did this trick with her leg, it was crazy. She runs with the ball. She's super fast, first of all. It's hard to keep up with her. And then she does stuff with her leg in the air, and she keeps going and goes past you. It's just done.

Cascarino: It made me happy in the moment to have been at the origin, if we can call it that, of the equalizing goal. But I was still disappointed with the final result because we didn't win the game.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: We weren't able to put forth the style of play that we wanted, but we didn't lose and that's what we should take away from it.

[OLPLAY STUDIO ANALYSIS]

van de Donk: I had no idea where Montauban was, it was a bit of a shock. It was quite far as well. But it was a cool game to be fair, I think they had a good crowd going on.

Becho: The away trip to Montauban, it reminded me a little of the away trips when I was young. You could tell the crowd was family-leaning.

Cascarino: Montbaunan was playing the game of their lives. It was good, the crowd was really pushing them to play well, so it was nice, we like those sorts of games.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE]

van de Donk: Games like that, they always start off a bit weird because the pitch is not as good, the opponent is fired up because they're fired up because they're playing against Lyon. They always go the extra mile, I would say, a bit harder in tackles and everything.

Cascarino: We gave ourselves a fright at the start. Unfortunately I gave away a penalty. I think it was the first time in my career.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: Maybe subconsciously there was a little bit of carelessness. Maybe a bit of tiredness as well. The month of February is never easy physically. So maybe that's why there was a bit of a drop-off.

van de Donk: I think we're just very patient as a team. Instead of killing them straight away, I think we're like "get into the game first, play our game, and then the goals will come". In the end that was true, but the second half was more easy.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: It was nice but in that moment, I wasn't thinking that- I was frustrated. Like I said, we've been conceding more goals lately, and it's something that I really hate. We are Lyon, and we - I want no team to think they can beat us or even think to themselves that we tossed them a bone or that they got something from us. No. We can't let them have anything. So I was frustrated to have conceded that goal.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

van de Donk: Yeah, everything is a bit harder, it's a bit always - when you start the game, then after five minutes you know what kind of game it's going to be or how they are exactly. But that's why they are a bit more hard. I think it's a bit more difficult but very exciting always.

Becho: In the end, when you could see even the substitutes, Eugenie [Le Sommer] come on, Ada [Hegerberg] come on. We know we're a team where you can count on everybody.

Cascarino: Yes, the second half was much better and the goals kept coming.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: After that, we were really happy to see Alyssia [Paljevic - former Lyon academy goalkeeper, best known for being the same height as Selma Bacha], who used to play with us. We were happy as well because we qualified for the semifinal.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON POSTGAME FOOTAGE]

van de Donk: Before the game I saw Alyssia, our little goalie from last year. I think she's amazing, she's such a good kid. So it was really nice to see her but I could tell in her eyes that she was a little bit down. I figured it's because she didn't start the game. But for her it was really nice, she came on so she could play against her old club. She's just amazing, I love her.

[INTERNATIONAL BREAK]

Becho: We're leaving for the international break.

Cascarino: First of all I really happy to be called up by the head coach. It was really nice for me to go back to the French National Team and play in my city [Lyon] as well. So it's really a pleasure for me to play in the Groupama Stadium. And yeah, we were really happy to have won.

Becho: In the final, we were playing against Spain. They were playing at home. We know that in that moment we have an entire stadium against us. But it's okay, we tell ourselves it's a final, it's the League of Nations. We have to win it. They were better than us, we're not going to hide it. They had a better game plan than us, we tried to play with what we had.

Cascaarino: They played really well tactically. They really moved the ball around, they really lulled us. And yeah, we know it, it's the style of play that they have and it worked. Unfortunately for us we weren't able to impose our style of play and, yeah. I came on as a substitute. It was complicated to come on in that type of game, especially when we were down 2-0. We weren't able to get any goals back.

Cascarino: Now we are ready for the month of March and we hope we will win everything in the month.

[aurorawest]

Reading update

I Am Not Your Chosen One by Evelyn Benvie - DNF

Another one of those 'reads like something I would have written as a teenager' books. Definite cozy fantasy undertones to this one. I just don't enjoy the subversion of the Chosen One trope with this kind of winking, genre-aware character. I also don't enjoy when things read like video game walkthroughs.

The Charioteer by Mary Renault - 5/5 stars

I bought this because Cat Sebastian recommended it. I had actually never heard of Mary Renault, nor was I aware this book is a queer classic (FAKE BOOK FAN). But I. Wow. The basic story is a love triangle between our main character, Laurie, who was wounded at Dunkirk and is recovering at a convalescent hospital; Andrew, a conscientious objector and orderly at said hospital; and Ralph, who was a prefect at Laurie's school until he was expelled for being queer. It's so much more than that, though. Very rarely do I read a book that's so gorgeously written. I actually kept thinking as I was reading that I bet Natasha Pulley is a Mary Renault fan, because the prose had that same aching quality.

It's not an easy book to read—there's as much that's unsaid in the dialogue as what's actually said (probably more, actually), so you definitely have to read carefully. And of course it was written in 1953 so blah blah blah problematic something or another. With that out of the way, please, please read this beautiful book.

Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette de Bodard - 3.75/5 stars

I don't think my rating is entirely fair, because I haven't read the main series that this novella is based on, so it was very much getting chucked into the deep end of a world that I didn't understand and wasn't ever explained, because familiarity was assumed. That said, I still enjoyed it. I might eventually pick up the main series just to see how Thuan and Asmodeus got together.

Liar City by Allie Therin - 4.75/5 stars

Honestly, the only reason I didn't give this 5 stars was because I wanted more romance. I'm hoping assuming there's going to be another book and that this is a slow burn romance between Reece and Evan. Might flip a table if not.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy - 4/5 stars

Obviously a book called The Ministry of Utmost Happiness written by Arundhati Roy isn't going to be a lighthearted read, and surprise, it wasn't. What was weird, and very am-I-in-the-matrix, is that the day I started reading this, someone referred to the conflict in Kashmir as "their little conflict" (for those keeping score, it was the same lady that said lab created diamonds have no intrinsic value; clearly a real winner of a human being). Then later in the day I started reading this because it had risen to the top of my TBR, and it's...largely about the conflict in Kashmir.

Our Favorite Songs by Anita Kelly - 4.5/5 stars

Man, I really like Anita Kelly. This is only the second book of theirs I've read but I just really vibe with their style. This was a super quick read. I hadn't read the first book in the series, but that didn't seem to matter at all.

Never Whistle at Night edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C Van Alst Jr. - 3.75/5 stars

This is an anthology of Native horror stories written by Native writers. Some of these stories were REALLY REALLY good, but there was a run of pretty bad ones in the middle that kept me from rating it higher. There was one in particular that was like...did someone owe you a favor because this is straight up awful. But the ones that were good were very creepy and unsettling. There's also one that was less a horror story and more just a horrible story. I didn't think it really belonged in this anthology but I really enjoyed it regardless. Good spooky read.

The Emperor's Bone Palace by Hailey Turner - 4.75/5 stars

The end of this book wrecked me. It's the middle book in a trilogy so I'm hoping for a happy ending in book 3.

The Venetian and the Rum Runner by LA Witt - 4/5 stars

Irish thief meets, works with, and falls for an Italian underboss in Prohibition-era NYC. This was a slooooooow burn and the romance at times almost felt secondary to the rest of the action. But I enjoyed it and felt like the historical stuff was really well done. Plus as an Italian-American I always appreciate reminders that there was a time when Italian immigrants weren't considered white enough (fun fact, I've been subject to more anti-Italian sentiment in my life than homophobic sentiment). If you're looking for a light hearted historical romance this ain't it. I was kind of shocked by the body count, and some of the deaths really got to me.

[jaggedwolf]

pll rewatch 1x15-1x16

my poor little meow meow is here...Paige has arrived and is causing problems (and accidentally giving the liars a clue). these couple of episodes also have a Spencer-Emily and Hanna-Aria split to them.

oh Paige...we're just gonna talk about all of her and Emily's stuff first because jaggedwolf is biased like this

even in my peak PLL fandom I didn't rewatch their S1 scenes often, so it is an interesting experience to view them again after all these years

blah blah drowning scene happened blah blah, I shall spare you the obvious statement that it was (bad and violent) intimidation and not a murder attempt

most interesting to me is that in their very first scene together, at the poolside, Paige doesn't come across as antagonistic - instead, she's almost pleased that Emily's back for the full season.

and then gives us that very painful captain-related speech (is she currently captain? are they in the process of deciding captaining?) before being super aggro to Emily

I adore Emily's response here, telling Paige to suck it up and work harder if she cares so much. No one other than the two of them witnesses it, so no one gives Emily the credit she deserves for this - she wasn't lying when she told Spencer she handled it, and it is very possible Paige would've backed down at this point

ofc spencer spencers it up, so that is not to be

also intriguing is that Paige assumes a level of plotting to Emily's choices - that Emily is gunning for captain, that Emily snitched to Coach Fulton and then didn't weirdly didn't say anything to Coach when it was the three of them

it's the first time we've seen someone assume that of Emily, and we've had 14 episodes showing us that Emily is the most direct of the Liars, so it's a jarring assumption

one that works well with some later stuff though, so I like it

Coach Fulton ILU but deciding the relay anchor the morning of your swim meet via a swim-off between your best two swimmers is an insane choice, don't you want them rested?? for the sake of my sanity and my meager investigations into high school sports seasons, I'm going to assume this meet is an early season friendly that is meaningless

also for the sake of Paige's swimming career ig bc she misses the meet, due to wiping out in the rain, due to riding off sadly in the rain away from Emily's house

even Paige's apology in the rain is ??? inducing for Poor Emily, haha, but I enjoy how pathetic she looks here. I'll note that this apology scenes comes not right after the drowning but after the swim-off decision, though there are likely doylist reasons for that

something I like about Emily's S1 stuff with Toby and Paige is that you get the sense of both of them have existed in Emily's periphery for a while now - Toby is her neighbour, Paige is on the swim team

and so Paige knows where she lives, they have each other's phone numbers, etc

forgot that Paige straight up says "how easy it would be if I just wiped out", hm.

the sudden music for the final swimming scene kills me, I had zero memory of that

Spencer's choice of DVD rental movie star is jake gyllenhaal, it is 2010, I wonder what her favored jake gyllenhaal movie is. also if Hanna followed the subsequent tswift drama.

anw, Spencer's instinctive caretaking re: the liars is sweet and sad to me.

sweet because it really does seem to happen without conscious thought, like asking if anyone wants coffee, making Emily eat pizza, uttering "I'll destroy her" about Paige, and of course, telling the coach behind Emily's back.

sad because you can see the threads of how her parents show her affection - i've taken care of this for you, it's all settled, let's go, you're going to win

anyway we get our first real Spencer-Emily fight this episode and I love it, it's so charged. Emily does not expect to be hurt this way nor does Spencer expect to hurt her

I just love that Spencer had paid attention to the Alison-Emily dynamic to realize that, despite how cold flashback!Spencer is towards the others

and Emily hates being coddled, or protected, or assumed a pushover

Spencer and Toby's nervous little french lessons! Emily is hesitant about Spencer's outreach here, but I'm curious about her own lack of reaching out to Toby - does she feel like she doesn't get to, after she didn't believe him?

really like their scene where Emily is simultaneously cheating off Spencer for homework and Spencer is wondering aloud about Toby while Emily teases her.

Spencer mentions Paige was on her field hockey team and we should all take a moment to contemplate how cursed that freshman year hockey team must've been. Ian as coach is creeping on Spencer, Paige is committing fouls so violent that they get named for her, very sorry for all the other girls on the squad. Imagining Bridget Wu as a bench-warmer taking swigs from her flask.

Hastings household apparently has a housekeeper huh

Spencer's intense argument with Ali in that flashback...excellent...I'd entirely forgotten about it, and I wonder if Ali lived if Spencer would've followed through on ditching her.

AITAH I (15F) unionized my friends (15F, 15F, 15F) against our mean friend-leader (15F) who had secrets on all of us

Every time Spencer speaks to Ian alone I am so creeped out, which means the show is doing a good job, but eughhh. Also eughhh: Melissa waving off that her husband macked on her then-15 year old sister and jumping right to the pregnancy news.

Spencer pissed off Emily so bad that she had to be alone when she visited bead lady and got told "Spencer Hastings" bought the bracelets

though we all should be grateful Spencer took 2 seconds when seeing Paige's gifts to the swim team and that she went "Paige bought these from the same place our bracelets came from" and not "Paige is A!!!!"

the only good thing about the Ezra plot these episodes is that it makes Hanna emo and it makes Spencer tell Aria "you were ready to give me tongue yesterday"

Ashley Marin makes objectively terrible decisions and the show still makes me always on her side. That is the power of Ashley Marin.

can't believe it's Caleb's fault that Ella doesn't find out about Ezra boinking her daughter. In a vacuum, I love it, this kid who doesn't have anywhere to sleep and who needs cash fast decides to kill a teacher's car just because Hanna seems really upset about the teacher getting somewhere.

but looking ahead at how many seasons of Ezra/Aria we have to slog through...you could've shown your affection some other way Caleb

list of places Caleb's bounced around: Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago and then finally little old Rosewood

Spencer has some great outfits these episodes.

In one of these episodes Emily is wearing one of those T-shirts where the back just doesn't exist and I got distracted pondering how it stays on.

feels unfair for Aria to jump to jealousy when Hanna tries to get her to not go to the museum with Ezra, but so it goes, and poor Hanna when she tries to explain herself at the end and doesn't get to

the rosewood shark plushies are very cute and I can't believe this is the first time I've even noticed they existed, I suspect that means they never show up again.

at some point while talking Spencer just sticks her finger in the shark plushie's mouth lmao

I've forgotten so many of these A tags...French lessons on tape while weapons from clue are laid out? Having tea with bead lady? Sure, why not

[adustoflove]

Something that makes me feel guilty lately is getting so many days to just focus on myself or bed rot. In group therapy, the therapist always starts by asking us how our self care is going. Which, it's a group for women who have or are currently experiencing domestic violence, so like. Most of the women there are really busy or going through custody battles, and one woman was at her daughter's practice in the session. So they're all super busy and don't have time to care for themselves....where here I am like oh I rotted in bed, got my hair done, went out to eat yesterday, got lunch with my grandma, made my family cupcakes, had a bath, planning a concert, and blah blah blah....but I was talking about it with my sibling who said yeah but you're acting like our life didn't suck ass before all of this. And I always just look in awe like yeah you're right. Our life has never really been easy or decent...I guess I just don't feel like this is a deserved break when I see so many other women still struggling to hold on. 😭 I feel terrible for them.

[skitskatdacat63]

hi catie u can write as many paragraphs on any film that u watch!!! i think that would be neat :)

also DISCLAIMER i havent watched killers of the flower moon, nor have i fully researched the real life event, but i feel like one of the reasons that people think it’s peak cinema is that it’s really really long and (i am assuming) that it has some interesting cinematography?

idk it reminds me of oppenheimer (film i actually watched). like its good-ish, super lengthy, and portray historical events. the visuals were fantastic but i don’t think it was absolutely perfect and the best film of the century, etc etc…

i honestly dont know where i was going with this so sorry for the super lengthy ask 😭

OKAY THEO THANK YOU FOR FREEING ME FROM THE SHACKLES OF MY INSECURITY

Okay as a preface. Watched this with my mom who read the book it's based off of, so that's an additional perspective I'm gonna touch on, and also was very glad to have. And also YES I HAVE SEEN OPPENHEIMER!!!! Seriously my ultimate film of 2023, probably one of my favorite movies I've ever watched. And I guess I thought that, because I enjoyed that, I would enjoy Killers of the Flower Moon(KotFM from now on), for the exact reasons you stated! Also I'm trying to watch all the oscar nominated best pictures before the event lol!

I will rant now, thank you :)

I'm sorry but like I genuinely don't understand how it's so highly acclaimed???? Like how are all the popular/majority of reviews positive?? Did we watch the same film????? Have I somehow lost my taste for cinema???? It's just like, any argument I've seen about why it's actually amazing is so easy to dispute??

"It's about how evil can be done by normal people and that's why it's from the perspective of the perpetrators blah blah" Well, I just watched The Zone of Interest, and I think it portrayed that concept wayyyyy better. Everything was so off-putting and disturbing, and it was from the perspective of the perpetrators, just like KotFM! And you literally never see those getting murdered, because it's all off screen and yet you still feel disgusted and feel terrible about what's happening, even though you didn't techinally see anything that happened. Meanwhile in KOTFM, the Osage are there on screen, actively being exploited and murdered, and I just don't feel attached to any of it, because it wasn't fleshed out well. And to add on, my mom said so much of the stuff involving Leo's character, yknow the character they picked as the main character instead of the actual Native Americans, was just completely made-up! Wasn't in the book at all!!! Martin Scorcese said that he read the book, and immediately thought that it was a book that needed to be adapted to film. And then just fucking makes up shit???? Yes certainly you have to add narrative stuff into a movie when adapting from a book, but to just make so much shit up just so you can portray it from a different angle is so bullshit to me.

"Every minute in the almost 3½ hour runtime is justified" I am convinced people are straight up lying, I'm sorry. It's not like I don't enjoy long movies! Loved Lawrence of Arabia, that's literally almost 4 hours long. Loved Oppenheimer, that's 3 hours long. I like long movies but oh my god, this was just a complete slog. And I kept seeing people say that the last hour was the best, well I'm sorry but after having to sit through 2½ torturous hours, I just have no mental energy left for what's apparently called the best part. I hate that people always start calling movies with long runtime cinema. Yes there are movies I definitely think are worth the long runtime; this one was not one of them.

"The main heart of the movie is the romance" Oh my god, this bugs me so much. I was so happy about Lily Gladstone winning and being in teh running for awards....until I watched the actual movie. Her romance with Leo's character literally makes no sense, and I felt just so ???? about it. The movie wants you to think they're so compelling and that it's so unfortunate that Leo's character is doing these terrible things to this woman he loves and her family, but they literally spent zero time fleshing the relationship out???? It was literally like, oh hey they're in a relationship now, don't really get why, but okay. There's actual reasons about why she would marry him(she literally needs a white man's permission to get access to her own money), but no nooooo they're so in love. There is zero build up. She knows he wants her money, he has literally zero charm, and yet she marries him and says "yeah I know he wants my money, but he's handsome!!" In what world!?!?!?? And a lot of the last section is like, awww they're hugging...even tho he murdered her whole family. And its just you get zero sense of any love between them, because they failed to build it in the first place, and certainly you could make this plot compelling but it's just not!!! It's not!!!!!

Another thing is that for basically all of the movie, I really couldn't get a grasp of anything that was going on. It didn't feel like a connected narrative for me, it felt like vignettes. Like, oh hey we're in this scene now I guess, I don't really know how this connects, or whats going on, or where we are in the story! It just felt very discombobulating for me, maybe I'm stupid, but I couldn't get a grasp on it. And I basically knew the plot, and so did my mom of course, but neither of us could really follow it so, maybe that's not a me problem, but a problem with the film! And I think vignettes can be used well, I thought The Zone of Interest did it really well, where you're just voyeuristiclly watching the family, and there's really no narrative, bur it was really effective. KofFM was more like, oh they're trying to tell a story here, but just not ...well. it's even worse when it's so long, because you're just feeling constantly unconnected from the story and its a slog and it's terrible, etc etc. You're just watching the characters fucking meander around, and you're like, man, would love it if it felt like the plot was actually progressing. And so much of it felt like the big events happened off screen, and you're kinda just told that they happened.

Also okay so the book itself is framed somewhat as a murder mystery. It's very well researched, and it slowly gives you the truth, as if you're learning it alongside the actual people involved. In the film, it's literally so obvious within the first 15 mins who the bad guys are. So you're just spending the whole film, watching all these characters(who you really have no reason to care about imo) die, and they all come off as so naive, and you're just furiously gesturing like "does no one notice these cartoonishly bad guys!?!?!?!?!" Yes, you can do a film where you know the truth from the beginning and watch the cast find out, that's a great concept! But this just made the native American characters come off as stupid and naive, and you're supposed to feel bad for them, and I do, but because I know the actial history, not because anything the film is showing me. Again, they don't flesh out the characters well at all imo, so you watch then die, and you're like, okay this person died, this is a depressing situation, but god, can they figure it out already. Again, the narrative with Lily Gladstone's character is that she loves her husband, so she can't really see what's going on. But. That love is not believable. And before they're in love, she's very suspicious of him, and yet now somehow when he's killing off her whole family, it's fine?????

Ugh okay yeah I don't know what else to say, except thst I just feel like I wasted so much of my time, and it really sucked out my energy. I'd like to be more concise, and I probably have more complaints but again, it really just killed my brain. And also that's its very frustrating and isolating when you hated a film, and then all the reviews are extremely positive and you can't see where any of them are coming from. The funniest part is that my mom and I are like wow this movie feels like it's been going on a while, let's check how much is left! Literally only halfway through. I really could not fully focus after that because I was like, I cannot do almost 2 more hours of this shit. I wanted to finish it because i was really hoping it would pick up, and I would realize why everyone likes it so much, but that never happened, I just felt increasingly bored and done with it. I think with Oppenheimer, a film I love, I was originally kinda unsure but as it kept going, I fell in love with it and didn't want it to end; so I guess I was hoping that would happen with this and it never did. It just got increasingly more boring for me, and I just got more aggravated about it. Also cannot believe I saw reviews saying of Scorcese's films, this one was better than The Departed. Absolutely no way.

Anyways this was extremely salty, oops. Wish I could get those 3 hours back, and watch some other movie instead. I wanted to watch Dallas Buyers Club or Tár, but I just feel like I've wasted enough mental energy tonight. Also lol, kept meaning to post this but it's deranged, but I'm talking about movies already and my brain is all over the place so might as well! I really want to rewatch Interstellar, but I feel like it'll completely emotionally destroy me again so I can't. Y'know when you just like a movie so much and ir means so much to you that it's just way too emotionally investing to rewatch!?!??! But I keep thinking about it, bcs im super into matthew mcconaughey rn, but god I really can't or I'll just be sobbing and hurting.

* oh also. My original complaint abt this was that they used a historically inaccurate word. They used the word "genocide" which certainly describes the situation they're in, BUT THAT WORD WAS NOT INVENTED YET!!!!! It's so easy to check that??? Like we know when and who coined it???? Little things like that really bug me, sorry LOL. Its like man, you can't check that one little thing??