#its gonna be the Tech guy. every little tech aspect i love will be part of their design! or at least as many as i can cram in and still mak

[dexaroth]

drawing mechs? fun. very fun

DESIGNING mechs though. good fuckin lord my brainwrinkles are turning into knots

[thevillainswhore]

Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

Pairing: Stalker!IT/tech!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

(snippets/mentions of Carter Bazien x F!Reader and Ending, Beginnings!Frank x F!Reader)

Summary: Bucky, the IT and technology expert of your office, has been secretly obsessed since the moment he set his sights on sensitive, naive, little you. But, your only fault is your repetitive ability to get your heartbroken by fuck boys. So, naturally, he has to do whatever it takes to make you see he’s perfect for you… right?

Word Count: 3K

Warnings: Stalking, mentions of smut (p in v, male masturbation) violence, grievous bodily harm, dark elements, possessive behaviour, hacking, reader is very naive, Bucky is a hell of a warning here (will add more with the upcoming chapters) PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS - THIS IS A DARK FIC!!!

A/N: We are finally here!! 😭 incase anyone doesn’t remember, I teased this fic a longgg time ago and it makes me so happy to announce its now live 🥹 as mentioned before this is a multi part story - I’m aiming for 3 parts but it could be more with me who knows 🤣 I also changed the my moodboard bc my last one did not include inclusivity and that is the goal here 💗

So now onto my appreciations ❤️ first of all I need to thank @mickeyhenrys for helping with the fic title - she’s a genius and I’m so thankful! Next, I need to thank @sgt-seabass for the help with the IT/cyber security aspect of things - she was absolutely amazing with providing all the information I needed and I’m super grateful for it. And last and certainly not least… my beautiful @rookthorne. my god I can’t even begin to thank you for all the help you’ve given me on this. To beta’ing this fic, helping me a lot with my moodboard even when I was a pain the ass 🤣 and just supporting me in general with my crazy ideas - this fic sprouted from our brainstorming and looking back from then to where this has flourished now is amazing 💗 thank you for being the beautiful person you are and inspiring me to grow as a writer. I love you so much 🥹

Now onto the fic, please enjoy the start of this crazy, wild ride and good luck - you’re gonna need it… 👀

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

Bucky glances over at you through the window that seperates the two of you, gushing about your new date already. It took you a week, maybe two, to get over the last guy. And here you were, yet again, in the same conversation with the same co-worker, debating about which dress you were gonna wear tonight. 

Did it matter anyway? 

The same shit happens every time. You go out with a new prize idiot, get laid, wait for them to text you back (spoiler: they never do), and you sit there, crying and wondering where you went wrong. 

It was frustrating. 

You only ever go out with the conventional ‘fuck boy’. The same three-piece suits and quiffed hair that looks like it’s been cemented to their skull with product and arrogance, both in equal measure. 

When were you going to get it? You choose the wrong type of guy, every single time. And yet, you wonder why they never stick around long enough to make things official, or to settle down. 

You were gullible; so naive.

The perfect girl that Bucky has kept his sights set on from that very first day that you begun working in the same office.

That’s when you walked into my life, Angel. 

It wasn’t all that new for it to rain in New York. Heels clicked and splashed through the deep puddles of the pavement, and leather briefcases bumped against each other in the chaos of the crowds as Bucky made his way to work.

He found he didn’t so much mind the repetitive routine – his life had never been exciting. It gave him peace of mind to hear all the usual sounds and to witness the usual frenzied rush from his run down apartment all the way to his office.

 

He liked his job, truly. It’s what he’s always excelled best in and it’s what has kept him in his comfort zone. There was never no real need to talk to people as all communication or pleas for help were addressed in an email. Those who didn’t email always dragged themselves to his office and slammed their technology down on his desk, grunt or curse at him, before primly walking back out again. 

That would anger most people – the blatant disregard for his existence and the treatment similar to that of a scolded dog, but Bucky’s been there for ten years now, and over those many, many days, he had gotten used to it. 

It was a bonus, however, that nobody questioned him once on how he managed to fix every problem with their device with so little information as a curse and a demand to get it working.  

Pushing the door open, Bucky expects to be walking into a normal day at the office. Paying no notice to the hustle and bustle of his colleagues at work.

That is until he’s stopped in his tracks. 

The surprise of seeing the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on; a woman that was sunshine and everything he dreamed of personified standing in the lobby. He watched you speak to anyone that paused to say hello. 

The errant thought of such an innocent bunny smiling for all that gave her attention made his cock twitch in his pants. He wanted to give you that attention that you craved.

Never had he been so entranced by and enamoured in anyone. He thinks he could stay like this forever, almost blown over by his new found obsession that made his hands shake and the whole volume of blood in his body to rush to his rapidly swelling cock.

That obsession called and rooted for him to take the few steps and cover the distance to reach you, when he was abruptly shunted forward by another body slamming into his back. 

He spun around, ready to curse the person for being so oblivious, when he saw Brock. “Hey man, why the fuck were you just stand- Oh, I take it you’ve seen the new hire, hot isn’t she?” 

The predatory smile on Brock’s mouth physically made him recoil.  Looking Brock up and down, clear disgust in the sneer and glare of his expression, Bucky turned and stalked away towards the stairs in a bid to head to his office. 

His closest safety net, the office where he spent his days, came into view and he slammed open the door, only to fall back onto it, his breath coming in sharp pants. Wildly, he glances around him and then out of the blinds that shroud his office from onlookers. Nobody was paying attention to his moment of crisis and doubt, except, he finds you glancing over your cubicle wall. 

You send a small wave, one of which Bucky can’t believe is directed at him, and you smile broadly – a kind gesture. He can’t remember the last time someone smiled at him like that. 

Bucky hastily looks away and strides over to his desk, adjusting the sudden tent of his slacks before he turns to sit in his desk chair to start his day. 

Who the fuck is she? 

The day starts slow, each task as mundane as the last, when you finally get a chance to talk to Sasha, your favourite co-worker. “I really think he’s going to be the one this time.” You can’t stop grinning, wiggling in your seat from excitement to be going out with Frank this weekend – the party that you met him at still fresh in your mind. 

“Girl, you said that last time! With... What was his name again?” Sasha groans, her chair swivelling so she could face you fully. You stare at her with a furrow in your brow while she stumbles to remember the name. “Chad? No, I don’t think that was it… Chris?” 

“His name was Carter.” There's heartbreak evident in the way your voice turns to a solemn whisper when speaking of him, and your eyes start to water as you begin to think about how your previous date left you high and dry after your night together – only to ghost you the next morning. Your lips start to tremble at the memory. “And I thought we said we weren’t going to speak about him anymore.” 

Sasha notices your dejected expression. “Shit honey, l’m sorry. I just want you to be happy.” You nod once, wiping your cheek with your palm. “Car-” She hesitates, and then frowns. “He-who-shall-not-be-named was a rich asshole, he doesn’t deserve you and he can choke on a dick.”

The crass statement shocks you. “Sasha!” you admonish, glancing around the office for anyone milling about that may have overheard. Although you were never one to bad mouth, you couldn’t help the small giggles spilling out at her vulgar words. 

Sasha’s abrupt and scandalous nature has always been the exact opposite to your docile character, but she was the first true friend you had made in the office – always looking out for you, taking care of you, and with your doe-eyed persona, the men can’t help but desire to have a piece of you. 

It is a blessing that she always knew how to pick you back up when you were down, no matter how many times you would come to her in tears over the same problem. 

“Anyway, I promise this one is different,” you promise. The sadness that gripped you a second before fades with the humorous nature of your friend. Sasha shoots you a look. “I didn’t even match with him on Tinder! We met at that party–the one I told you about, Daphne’s?”

“I remember,” Sasha murmurs, nodding. 

The memory flashes across your mind, and you shake your head slightly. “He looked so silly with the little tiara on his head. He came up to me and we talked a little–said I looked really pretty and that we should meet up sometime,” you explain, almost imploringly – you desperately want her to understand that it was a good thing. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it–for me to get myself out there?”

Pride makes your voice strong, unwavering in it’s conviction. Stepping out of your your social circle is a huge step, and by the softening in Sasha’s gaze, she thinks so, too. 

The night you met Frank swirls in your mind, clouding it as you stare dreamily at the wall beside Sasha’s head.

The party was in full swing – loud cheers and clinking bottles and glasses filled the night air, while the pounding bass music rattled your chest. Your friend, Daphne, had left to go smoke in the corner, abandoning you to your own devices by the pool. 

Fairy lights had been strung up from pole to pole above you and you were admiring them, when Frank caught you by surprise.

“Hey doll,” he greeted, and you glanced at the six foot Prince Charming in a wool coat and tiny tiara. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before. What’s a pretty little thing like you doing all alone in the corner?” 

Frank had thrown you a dashing smile and you found you couldn’t maintain eye contact with his intense gaze – you swore you fell in love on the spot.

To say you were flustered would be an understatement. “M-Me?” 

Frank almost looked amused. “Well, just between me and you dollface… I don’t see anyone else nearly as pretty as you here.”  

As the night went on, Frank continued to sweep you off your feet. You genuinely had no clue how desperate you made him over your sweet little dress riding up your thighs when you fiddled with the the hem. Or when you started to feel shy and you crossed your arms to try and hide yourself – only to squeeze your tits together. It gave him the perfect image of how they would look bouncing up and down on his cock. 

The way he stared at you so sweetly, acting as the perfect gentleman made the butterflies in your stomach swoop and flutter up a storm. You had planned a date with him at the end of the night and you were beyond excited. 

Snapping out of your daydream, you focus back into the present, aware enough of your surroundings to see Sasha clicking her fingers sharply in front of your face making you blink. “Hello? There she is!” She sits back and rolls her eyes. “Jesus girl, I was calling your name for ages. Where did that cute head of yours wander off to this time?” 

“Sorry! I just got caught up in Frank again,” you sigh, dreamily. 

Sasha scoffs. “C’mon, he can’t be that cute. Show me a photo of him.”

You clap your hands and squeal, rushing to search through your bag for your phone to show her just how lucky you are to have someone as wonderful as Frank interested in you. Scrolling through the photos you’d taken that night, you finally find the one you couldn’t stop admiring; him with that silly tiara sitting atop his soft, fluffy hair that you could imagine running your hands through all day, wrapped in a snug jacket with a cigarette between his fingers and blowing out smoke the side of his perfect lips. 

His eyes fixed intently on one thing. You. 

The image sends a shiver down your spine, and before you get too carried away, you turn your screen to face Sasha. 

After a whole minute of considertory silence, she finally speaks up, her voice aweful. “Holy fucking shit, babe. I wanna lick his face.” 

Your jaw drops. “Sasha, oh my god, you can’t just say that!” Laughter threatens to bubble over and your cheeks heat in response.

“Watch me,” Sasha teases, and you both dissolve into laughing fits.

Bucky is seething. He doesn’t think his teeth could be grating together any harder; grinding to dust until his jaw clicks. While your laugh is melodic to his ears, and his heart leaps and bounds at the sound of your voice, even muted from his vantage point of his office, he saw how upset you looked when your co-worker mentioned him. 

Carter. 

Even thinking his name gets his blood boiling. But, he wills himself to calm down. To just breathe. There was no point in getting worked up over that spoiled prick anymore, he’s dealt with after what he did to you –  the very lengths Bucky had to go to get that video Carter took on his phone deleted. 

You, the not so innocent whore on your knees for someone who wasn’t him, begging for Carter’s dick down your throat until you were suffocating; saliva drooling from your chin and dripping down onto your heaving tits.

Bucky can feel his cock twitching in his trousers at the thought of you being so submissive. Pity floods him – you didn’t even realise how Carter had not only ignored your texts that morning, but he had also planned to send that precious gift you had so willingly given to him, to all of his friends and ultimately ruin your life.  Leaving it in shambles for you to pick up the debris of your professional career and sociality with so little care.

Bucky wasn’t the most pleased with you after seeing that video in the first place. It was such a foolish decision to trust and allow that sleazebag to film you. 

He took it upon himself to remove every trace of the video. After all, he was a good person, what a man should be.  

Such a good man that he paid a visit to Carter, leaving him with a few of his own gifts. A black eye, fractured skull, and a break in his right femur that may, or may not have, resulted in him taking residence in the local intensive care unit fighting for his life.

“All I want is for you to be happy. And who better to make you happy than me?” Bucky wonders quietly at his desk, the door to his office wide open so he can hear you chatting to your friend. “I would treat you so good–dote on you every hour of every day, never let you out of my sight, either.”

The next train of thought is one he will not voice aloud, but the vision of him fucking you hard and rough, just as you deserve, until you cried for more – for all of what he could give. 

“You’re better off with me,” Bucky grumbles. His lips turn down into a grimace and he glares at the cubicle wall that separated you from him. “You just don’t know it yet, bunny.”

Nevertheless, here you are, flaunting your latest boy toy off to your friend. 

The pencil he’s been tapping absentmindedly on his desk stops suddenly and small pieces of wood splinters by the second until it snaps in half,  almost capturing your attention – head whipping side to side in search of the noise until you give up and go back to your conversation. 

Pain laces through his hand when the wood scratches his palm, reddening lines etching themselves in retaliation for his daydreaming.

He’s got to be more careful with his frustrations. 

You have hardly ever looked in his direction, let alone spoken a single word to him. Why would you? Not many people did, if he is honest with himself. His shoulder-length dark hair that is always covered by the same black cap in combination with his piercing and brooding stare didn’t give off the best impression, or invite conversation. 

Bucky was not a popular man, even thinking back to his early school years. He was always considered the loner, the nerd, the creep. No sisters or brothers to grow up with; distant parents who paid no mind to him or bothered to foster and nuture his affinities. 

The lonliness of his childhood paved the way to the depths of his desperation. Intelligence was something he had an abundance of, and weaponising the skills of his cyber skills was an underutilised talent of every one of his past employs. 

It never assuades or lessens the burden of need for affection. A craving that naws like a festering wound in his barren heart, for something that could make up for the miserable nights of self reflection and doubt; wondering why he was never enough for his parents, or popular at school where the girls would fawn over him.

Something for his own; to be just his and unable to be taken from him, not by anybody. 

I’m right here, Angel. You just don’t ever see me. 

Bucky has done nothing short of pine after you from afar; stealing glances and furtive wanders to get close in any way he can. 

He knows you wouldn’t go out of your way to talk to him – you don’t run in the same circles and you are definitely not socially compatible. That doesn’t stop him from imagining how soft your skin must be, or how flawlessly your body would melt against his as he railed you into his bed. Your heavenly little cries of his name, breathless chants pleading him to “Keep going!” and “Don’t stop!” never leave his mind. They fuel his needy desires at night until he can get the real thing, whimpering your name until his voice is hoarse as he fucks his fist over and over and over – the thought that it was your hand or your pillowy lips guiding him into ecstacy pushes him to the very brink of insanity. 

The dreams will do for now, he thinks privately as he stares at you through the glass pane of his office wall, straight to your cubicle, the sound of your laughter echoing down the hall and muffled through the glass. He’s managed for the last six months since he first saw you, it’s fine. 

Impatience chips away at his resolve, though, and his fuse is shortening by the day.  No matter what it takes, no matter who you think is good for you right now, Bucky will have you, and when he does… He’s not ever letting you go.

[imagines-r-s]

Ocean’s Rise, Empires Fall

summary: you didn’t want your father’s death to be your downfall, but for the longest time it seemed like it was going to be to you and everyone else around you

taglist: @mdlyncline(send me an ask to be added to any of my taglists)

wc: 2.7k

a/n: kinda threw canon out the window, but nonetheless, i proceed. basically, clint and nat both survive- it doesn’t really check out but uh yolo

warnings: pretty angsty. very angst actually. there’s a description of depressive episodes so if that’s triggering please be cautious loves, mention of death

mentions of peter parker x stark!reader, but mostly avengers x reader (platonically)

When your dad snapped his fingers, he might have saved the world, but he destroyed yours. He obviously had no intention of doing so, he was just saving the world. You always knew your dad thought that he hadn’t done anything right in life, so you easily assumed that he thought this was his last shot. 

Tony wasn’t even aware of your existence until you were about four years old, but once he did find out he knew that he had to change his ways. When he did find out him and your mom came to an agreement for custody where he would see you every other week and every other holiday. 

What you didn’t know was that your mom had told Tony about you because she knew she only had a few years left with you, having been diagnosed with cancer a year before she had you meet Tony. She didn’t want you to be dropped off at some random man’s house and be expected to call him dad. 

She never had anything against Tony, he hadn’t done anything bad to her, she just figured with everything else going on in his life, he didn’t need a child to add onto that-boy was she wrong. When Tony met you the first time, his whole perspective on life changed. He wanted to be a good person for you, obviously, he wanted to for Pepper too, but he realized either way you would look up to him and you needed someone good in your life. 

He quickly noticed that you were just as intelligent as he was and the two of you bonded a lot through working in his lab. He made you do homeschool, considering how advanced you were and that if anyone knew that you were his daughter, you could easily be in danger. 

Tony didn’t hide anything from you, you were aware of the Avengers and that he was Iron Man, much to Pepper’s dismay. Considering that you grew up with all the Avengers, all of them thought of you as their own. You would always help your dad with upgrades to suits and the two of you even started on your own suit at one point. 

After the events that took place with Aldrich Killian, your parents were more adamant about your safety; making you train with Steve and Nat, finishing up your suit, and keeping more tabs on you. You understood, but it was still too much, which led to you starting to sneak out more. 

Although your dad had many regulations on your suit, you were still smart enough to be able to override them, that’s why you were able to leave the tower in your suit so easily. As you were flying over New York, you caught glimpse of a blue and red form also moving through the air. “FRIDAY, scan the area for any heat signatures.”

“Sure thing, Miss Stark,” the A.I responded before doing what you had asked. Whoever was flying was found easily, and you followed them until they stopped on top of a building. Expecting some sort of suit, you were surprised to see someone who looked to be about your age, wearing a homemade jumpsuit and mask, “what are you supposed to be? The outfit is kinda wack, not gonna lie,” he hadn’t expected anyone else on top of the building, so when he looked over and saw you in your suit flying beside the building, he was shocked. 

“You’re asking me that when you’re the one flying at the edge of a building?” you could tell he was your age by the way his voice cracked. Opening the suit to be able to step out, you stood by yourself on the roof of the building, “there. Is that better?”

“Oh, uh-uh, yeah. Is that Stark tech? Oh my god, you’re- you’re his daughter?”

“Aw, so smart.” 

“What are you doing here?” he asked. You simply shrugged, “Just disappointing my father, what about you, I never caught your name?” 

“It’s Pete... Peter. My name is Peter,” he said, purposefully lowering his voice. “My name’s y/n,” you mocked his fake lower voice, “So how do you do that exactly?”

“What? Swing?” you simply nodded your head, “oh, well, I was like bitten by this radioactive spider, and then all these cool things started happening. Like I’m stronger than I was before, I have quicker reflexes, etc.”

“So, you got the qualities of a spider, is what you’re saying basically?”

“Uh, yeah. Well, when you put it like that, the explanation is shorter,” you simply nodded once again. “So, Petey, what’s your superhero name? You obviously attempted a superhero look, but failed miserably.” 

“Uh, spiderman? I haven’t really thought of it.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into it, haven’t you?” he shyly nodded, “haha, well, you have the name, you have the missions or ‘civilians’ to rescue yet?”

“I just stay around my neighborhood, for the most part, you know friendly neighborhood type beat.”

“That’s honestly really cool, looking out for the underdog that not many think to save immediately, I get it. It’s cool. Do you have a phone?”

“Uh, yeah, you want it, Stark?”

“Well, I know you want mine, Parker,” his eyes widened at the sound of his last name, “yes, I knew your name before I asked you.” He slowly nodded in response, handing you his phone to add your number, “so, what do you look like under that mask?”

“Oh, hold on,” as you watched him remove his mask, you smirked as his floppy brown hair fell over his face before he had the chance to move it up, “Oh, you’re cute, Parker. Well, you have my number, so text me. Gotta go.”

You quickly left before he had an opportunity to respond to you. Leaving him with your number and the hope that he would see you again. 

Peter had texted you shortly after, leading to the start of an amazing friendship. The two of you started teaming up more and more, which caused your dad to find out about your sneaking out, but it helped him with his discovery of the Spiderling. You two were a duo that no one wanted to mess with and it was that way for the next few years, up until Thanos attacked. 

You like to think that Thanos caused everything in your life to be messed up, but there were so many things contributing to your downfall: the Accords breaking your family apart, not seeing said family for years, Infinity War, losing the person you were in love with but too scared to tell, losing your family after they had reconnected for the first time in such a long time, your dad being lost in space, the five years, getting everyone back, and then losing your father.

Although a lot of good things came from all of that, you refused to think about the positives. Everyone tried to help you out of whatever was going on in your head, but no one could help, not even Peter. 

For the first time in your life, you were fearful. Fearful that another bad thing would happen. Fearful that you would lose more people. Fearful that you might self destruct, too. 

Pepper had tried her best to help, but she was also grieving. Peter was, too. Morgan didn’t understand. The whole team was sinking, but they worked so hard to keep you afloat. 

Bucky and Sam were trying to get you back into training, but anytime you went, you were hurting yourself more than anything else. Nat and Clint tried to get you back into your suit, but it had stayed in its case since the day Tony died. Wanda had tried to get in your head and help, it was a last resort, but she was hopeful. Banner tried to get you back into the lab. Steve and Rhodey were both well aware of how similar you were to your dad, so he simply kept a distance while keeping you away from things that would hurt you more in the end. Even Coulson tried to help by showing you his Captain America trading cards. 

But nothing they did worked. 

None of them gave up, but they were all losing hope that they would be able to get any aspect of you back to your old self. They knew that you were simply winding up to self destruct with all these bottled up emotions, and they didn’t want it to go terribly wrong. 

You hadn’t cried since the day he died. You felt terrible for not going to most of the funeral, but people understood. You felt like a disappointment knowing that you weren’t there for the people that needed you most. The completely abandoned them from such close proximity, any other time you would have found that statement funny, but know it just made you feel worse. 

When it hit a year since the funeral, you knew you either had to get up now or you’d slip deeper down the rabbit hole. For the first time in a long time, you got up from bed and you were able to take a shower. You combed out your hair, detangling out the knots. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make you feel good at that moment. 

You felt a little bit more like yourself again, it wasn’t much but you’d take it. You had started walking towards the kitchen of the compound when you heard one of the doors in the hallway open. Looking down towards the hallway, you saw Morgan leaving her room. “Morgan, you ok?” 

“Yeah, I just wanted a juice pop,” she said smiling up at you. “That’s an idea I can get behind, c’mon let’s go.”

As the two of you were eating the juice pop, you hadn’t noticed that your family had crowded around the kitchen watching the two of you. Peter had woken up a little bit later than everyone else, but he saw that they were all crowded in the hallway, “guys, what’s going on?”

“y/n’s up and is laughing with Morgan,” Pepper said. Peter quickly turned the corner to see for himself, when he saw the two of you he smiled. He was so happy to see you up for the first time on your own since everything went down.

“You know that I can see all of you guys right there, right?” you said, after seeing the crowd of people in the corner. They all slowly emerged from the corner. “Yeah, we aren’t that small of a bunch are we?” Bruce stated to which you simply shook your head in response.

“It’s nice to see you up, doll,” Bucky said, kissing you on the top of your head. “Yeahhh, uh, I knew I needed to get up eventually, I guess. I don’t know.” 

“Hey, take all the time you need. Don’t stress about us, y/n,” Sam said. 

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

For the next few weeks, you eased back into everything. You started eating more, you got back to a kinda regular sleep schedule, you started training in small amounts, but still wouldn’t go down to your and your dad’s shared lab. 

It didn’t take you long to realize that even when some superheroes take time off, the bad guys never stop. Which was the reason why the team had been trying to talk you back into getting into your old suit. “C’mon, y/n, please, we need you. Your dad’s tech is what we need. Please,” Steve said. 

“Well see here’s the thing, it’s a dead man’s tech that hasn’t been used in a year, I don’t think it’ll help much,” you said pacing the livingroom. You didn’t want to bring the team down, but you weren’t getting back into your old suit. 

“y/n. Listen, HYDRA is planning an attack and we don’t know exactly when it will happen, but it’s happening tomorrow, please. Think about what your dad would have wanted,” you drew the line at him mentioning Tony. 

“My dad wouldn’t want some arrogant asshole to be trying to make me do something with his tech that I don’t feel comfortable doing yet. If you cared, you’d respect that. Now, talk to Peter or Banner, I’m sure they can figure something out.” with that last statement you walked away towards your room. 

You had a few moments to yourself before you heard a knock on your door, “y/n/n, it’s me.” You recognized Peter’s voice anywhere, “you can come in.”

“Are you ok?”

You simply nodded when you realized you were tearing up. No one had asked how you felt, simply because they assumed that you didn’t want to hear the question. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said before wrapping his arms around you. “Love, it’s okay. Let it out.”

You weren’t sure how long you had been wrapped up in Peter’s arms, but he held you tight as you cried through this moment. Everything you had bottled up was finally coming out. All the walls you had built in the past year were breaking. 

“Pete, I can’t help. You have to understand that I want to, but I just can’t go down to the lab and help. I can’t. And Steve expects me too and he said that dad would have wanted me to help and I just- I just don’t know what to do.”

“I think you have to trust your gut with this one. If you can’t go through with it, then don’t force yourself. Tony wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

You simply nodded at the boy in front of you, “I’ve missed you, Sunshine.” He grinned after hearing the nickname he hadn’t heard in so long from you. “I missed you, too, Starlight.”

----------

Somehow a newscast had gotten to the fight, it wasn’t in a private place, so you weren’t surprised to see the cameras angled at your boyfriend and your family. Everyone was being taken out, one by one. 

Sam, Bucky, Nat, Peter, and Steve were the last few still standing, but you could see how worn out they were. You thought about how you could help and there was only one valid option, you just didn’t know if you wanted to go through with it. Correction, you didn’t know if you could go through with it. 

You made your way downstairs, stopping right in front of the lab that still looked exactly the same. “Miss Stark, it’s good to see you again,” you head the familiar A.I say. “It’s good to see you too, J.” 

Slowly taking in the room in front of you, you slowly walked in. The familiar smell of your dad’s cologne still lingered in the air somehow. It wasn’t sad, it was just a bittersweet moment. “JARVIS, can you bring out Mark 85?” 

“Of course, Miss Stark.” You smiled to yourself when you realized that Bruce had likely updated your suit. 

The bracelets that went with the suit quickly clung to your body, giving you the opportunity to suit up with the click of the two bracelets. “Alright, JARVIS, play dad’s kick ass playlist.” The sound of AC/DC filled your ears as you made your way to help protect your family. 

By the time you had gotten there, the HYDRA soldiers had the upper hand, but you knew if you came around unexpectedly they wouldn’t be able to do anything. You took the time to get the other models to get to where you were, that way you could surround them. You watched as the Avengers all smiled to themselves after realizing you were the one doing this. 

The other models were able to disarm HYDRA, giving all the worn out Avengers to strike at them and get them to the right correctional facilities. 

“y/n, you came,” Peter said, he was the only one that wasn’t completely out of breath at that. “Yes, yes. No need to thank me, I completely saved your asses back there,” you have a slight bow causing everyone to grumble. 

“Man, you really are your father’s daughter,” Rhodey said. “And you love me for that, Rhodes, don’t even,” you said raising a brow. 

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 4/23/21: MORTAL KOMBAT, DEMON SLAYER, TOGETHER TOGETHER, STREET GANG, SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS

Ugh. Trying to maintain this column as a weekly entity during the final few weeks of the longest Oscar season ever has been really hard, and I’m not sure that will change once the Oscars are over either, because I look at the number of movies being released both theatrically and streaming over the next few weeks, and it makes my head hurt. Sorry for the kvetching, it just is what it is.

There are two big theatrical releases this weekend, Warner Bros’ MORTAL KOMBAT and DEMON SLAYER THE MOVIE: MUGEN TRAIN from FUNImation Entertainment, both which have already been released internationally. I also probably won’t be able to watch or review either before this column gets posted.

Mortal Kombat seems like the easiest sell being that it’s based on the popular Midway Games video game franchise introduced in the early ‘90s that led to a series of films, books, comics and you name it. It was a very popular fighting game that had over a dozen iterations including one in which MK characters fought against DC superheroes.

The very first Mortal Kombat movies opened in 1995, right amidst MK-mania, and it was directed by one Paul W.S. Anderson, his very first movie in a long line of video game-related movies, including a number of Resident Evil and the recent Monster Hunter. There are a lot of people who love those games, and yes, even people who love that and other movies, but to others, who may have been too old to get into the games when they came out, the whole thing about different fighters fighting each other just looks kind of studio. Even though I’m interested to see what producer James Wan brings to this reboot, I just don’t have much interest otherwise.

Unfortunately, and this is pretty daunting, Warner Bros. wasn’t sending out screeners to critics until Wednesday with a review embargo for Thursday night at 7pm, which is never a good sign, and yet, it continues Warner Bros. continuing the trend of being one of the only studios that screeners EVERY movie to film critics rather than just making them pay to see it on Thursday night or Friday. I hope to watch it and maybe add something Thursday night, time-permitting. Not sure you heard but the Oscars are Sunday.

As far as box office, Mortal Kombat opens on Friday but also premieres on HBO Max, and I’m not sure there will be as much urge to see MK on the largest screen possible, as there was with Godzilla vs. Kong. Because of that, I think the cap for this one over the three-day weekend is about $10 million but not much more and probably more frontloaded to Friday than we’ve seen in some time.

Mini-Review: As you can imagine from my statement above, I don’t hold the Mortal Kombat games or other iterations in any particular high esteem, so I’m basically jumping into this movie, directed by Simon McQuoid, just as a movie and not necessarily as a video game movie.

It starts off promising enough like a samurai movie with a flashback where we watch Hiroyuki Sanada’s hero sees his wife and son be killed by Joe Taslim’s character that will later become Sub-Zero. The general principle seems to be that there’s a world where people from other worlds fight each other to gain complete control. The hero is Lewis Tan’s MMA fighter Cole Young, presumably a popular character from the game? He is also soon attacked by Sub-Zero presumably because he’s marked with a dragon tattoo that deems him a champion of these fights, but he needs to find someone named Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) to help him get to the “Mortal Kombat.” At the same time, he meets the movie’s most entertaining character, Kane,

played by Australian actor Josh Lawson, mainly because he swears constantly and cracks wise -- he’s a bit like Wolverine, actually, and he’s actually the best part of the movie.

Otherwise, everyone and everything is always so deadly serious that everyone else we meet just doesn’t have much impact, because frankly, none of these names or characters mean jack shit to me. Sure, some of them sound vaguely familiar but I was more interested in the great Asian actors who turn up including Tadanobu Asano’s Lord Raiden, who is gonna claim Earth if its champions lose at Mortal Kombat. And Sub-Zero basically just shows up and tries to kill everyone.

As with far too many action movies, the action itself is great, the writing and acting not so much.

As it goes along, things become more epic and fantasy-driven but that also makes the dialogue seem even worse. Similarly, the fight choreography is pretty great, but the movie still leans way too heavily on visual FX to keep it more interesting for anyone not too interested in MMA… like myself. When all else fails, they can show off Sub-Zero’s cool ice powers every chance possible as well as the other’s powers, but some of them (like Lord Raiden) just made me think of this as a rip-off of the great Big Trouble in Little China.

The thing is I’m not a fan of the video game nor of MMA, so Mortal Kombat really doesn’t have much to offer me. The whole thing just seems very silly, just like almost everything from the ‘90s. (How’s THAT for a bad take?)

That said, I thought the final battle was great, and I enjoyed some of the gorier aspects of the fights, too, and it all leads to my favorite part, which is the three-way fight between Cole, Sub-Zero, and… actually I’m not sure if it’s a spoiler or not, but it’s a pretty cool fight that almost makes up for some of the dumber characters introduced earlier on. (LIke that guy with four arms. I know he’s a character in the games, but I didn’t even care enough to look up his name.)

It’s perfectly fine that they decided to go Rated R with the movie since most of the nostalgia for this movie and franchise will be towards older guys, but at times, the CG blood is so hinky it feels like the decision to go R-rated was made well after it was filmed.

Even though I went in with the lowest of expectations, I still found most of Mortal Kombat kinda trite and boring, maybe something I’d appreciate more as a teenager but not so much as a grown adult. But what do you expect for a movie based on a video game that’s just a bunch of “cool fights”?

Rating: 5.5/10

And yet, Demon Slayer could be the surprise breakout of the weekend, considering the theatrical success FUNimation has had with theatrical releases of the My Hero Academia movies into theaters in 2018 and 2020, and the hugely successful Dragon Ball Super: Brolly, which grossed $31 million domestically after a surprise $20.2 million in its first five days in roughly 1,200 movies. In fact, it made $7 million its opening Wednesday in January 2019, and FUNimation is hoping that Demon Slayer will have a similar success by opening it for a single day (Thursday) in IMAX theaters before Mortal Kombat takes over on Friday.

Demon Slayer has already grossed $383.7 million internationally compared to Mortal Kombat’s $10.7 million, and you cannot ignore the huge popularity that anime has seen over the past few decades. In fact, a bunch of screenings for Demon Slayer in NYC have already sold out, although you have to bear in mind that these are 25% capacity theaters. Even so, I still think this can make $4 to 5 million on Thursday and another $7 to 8 million over the weekend, depending on the number of theaters. Yes, it will be quite frontloaded, and I’m not sure what the cap is on theaters and how that will affect how it does over the weekend, but expect a big Thursday and a more moderate weekend but one that might give both Mortal Kombat and Godzilla vs. Kong a run for the top of the box office.

Also hitting theaters before streaming on Netflix (on April 30) is THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES, the new animated movie produced by Chris Miller and Philip Lord, following their Oscar win for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s a little weird to open a new animated movies, presumably in select theaters, when such a hugely anticipated animated movie like Demon Slayer is opening, but Netflix won’t

The movie itself is directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe, and it involves a family named the Mitchells, whose eldest daughter Katie (voiced by Abbi Jacobson) is leaving home for college, so her father (voiced by Danny McBride) decides that he’s going to drive her there and use it as the chance for a cross-country family trip. Meanwhile, it’s set up how the world becomes overrun with robots when a tech giant creates a new personal assistant.

I wasn’t sure whether I’d like this even though I’m generally a fan of all of Lord/Miller’s animated movies including both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies. It took me a little time to get into the family and the general premise. In some ways it reminded me of Edgar Wright’s The World’s End where it’s trying to merge these two disparate genres, but when they actually merge, it just doesn’t work as well as it may have seemed on paper. That worry is soon expunged, because Rianda finds ways to integrate the two ideas over time.

On the trip, the Mitchells run into their perfect family neighbors, the Poseys -- voiced by Krissy Teigen, John Legend and Charlyne Yi -- and you’d think they might be a bigger part of the movie then they actually are. I’m not sure I would have liked doing the family-vs.-family thing so soon after last year’s Croods movie, but I did love the dynamics of the Mitchells being a very relatable imperfect family with Danny McBride being particularly great voicing the family patriarch. It even has a really touching Pixar’s Up moment of Katie’s father watching old home movies of them together when she was younger.

In general, the filmmakers have assembled a pretty amazing voice cast that includes Conan O’Brien, Olivia Colman, Fred Armisen and Beck Bennett. Actually the weirdest voice choice is Katie’s younger brother Aaron, voiced by Rianda himself, and it sounds like a strange older man trying to be a kid, so it doesn’t work as well as others.

What I genuinely liked about Mitchells vs. the Machines is that it doesn’t go out of its way to talk down to overly sensitive kiddies or skimp on the action while also including elements that parents will enjoy as well, and to me, that’s the ideal of a family film.

While some might feel that The Mitchells vs. the Machines is fairly standard animated fare, it ends up being a fun cross between National Lampoon’s Vacation (cleaned up for the kiddies) with Will Smith’s I, Robot, actually, and yet, it somehow does work. It’s a shame that it’s really not getting a theatrical release except to be awards-eligible.

Next, we have two really great movies I saw at Sundance this year and really enjoyed immensely…

So as I mentioned, I first saw Nikole Beckwith’s TOGETHER TOGETHER (Bleecker Street), starring Ed Helms and Patti Harrison, at Sundance, and it was one of my favorite movies there with Helms playing a middle-aged single guy named Matt, who hires the much-younger Anna (Harrison) to be his surrogate, because he wants a baby. It’s a tough relationship thrown together due to each of their respective necessities.

Part of what drives the movie is how different Matt and Anna are, him being quite inappropriate with his suggestions and requests but not really having a working knowledge of female anatomy, pregnancy, delivery etc, but being really eager to raise a child and having the money that Anna clearly does not.

While I was familiar with Helms from The Office, The Hangover, etc. I really didn’t know Patti Harrison at all. Apparently, she’s a stand-up comic who hasn’t done a ton of acting, comedic or otherwise. That’s pretty amazing when you watch this movie and see her dry sardonic wit playing well against Helms’ generally lovable doofus. What I also didn’t realize and frankly, I don’t really see this as something even worth mentioning, is that she’s a trans woman playing a clearly CIS part, and she kills it. I certainly wouldn’t have known nor did it really affect my enjoyment of the movie, yet it still seems like such a brave statement on the part of the director and Harrison herself. The thing is that Harrison isn't just a terrific actress in her own right, but she brings out aspects of Helms that I never thought I would ever possibly see. (If it isn't obvious, I'm not the biggest fan of Helms.)

The movie has a great sense of humor, as it gets the most out of this awkward duo and then throws so many great supporting actors into the cast around them that it’s almost impossible not to enjoy the laughs. There’s the testy Sonogram tech, played by Sufe Bradshaw from Veep, who tries to maintain her composure and bite her tongue, but you can tell she’s having none of it. Others who show up, including Tig Notero, Norah Dunn and Fred Melamed. Just when you least expect it, Anna Conkle from Pen15, shows up as one of those delivery gurus that make the two of them feel even more awkward.

What’s nice is that this never turns into the typical meet cute rom-com that some might be expecting, as Beckwith’s film is more about friendship and companionship and being there for another, and the lack of that romantic spark even as chemistry develops between them is what makes this film so enjoyably unique. Beckwith’s sense of humor combined with her dynamic duo stars makes Together Together the best comedy about pregnancy probably since Knocked Up.

Another great Sundance movie and actually one of my two favorite recent documentaries AND one of the best movies I’ve seen this year is… you know what? I haven’t done this for a while so this is this week’s “CHOSEN ONE”!! (Fanfare)

(Photo courtesy: Robert Fuhring/Courtesy Sesame Workshop)

Marilyn (Mad Hot Ballroom) Agrilo’s STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET (Screen Media/HBO Documentaries) is a fantastic doc about the long-running and popular PBS kids show that’s every bit as good as Morgan Neville’s Mr. Rogers doc, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Which was robbed of an Oscar nomination a few years back.

Let me make something clear on the day I’m writing this, April 21, 2021, that this is my favorite movie of the year, the only one I’ve already given a 10/10, and the end of the year might come around, and I have a feeling it will still be my #1.

You see, I was raised a Sesame Street kid. It’s not like I didn’t read or play outside or not get the attention of my parents or family, but there was so much of my happy, young life that I could attribute to my time watching Sesame Street, and when you watch Marily Agrilo’s amazing doc, it all comes rushing back. There is stuff in this movie that I haven’t seen in maybe 50 years but that I clearly remember laughing at, and there’s stuff that got into the mind of a young Ed that influenced my love of humor and music and just outright insanity. Sure, I loved The Muppet Show, too, but it was a different experience, so to watch a movie about the show with all sorts of stuff I had never seen or knew, that’s what makes Street Gang such a brilliant documentary, and easily one of the best we’ll see this year. Of that I have no doubt.

From the very origins of the show with Joan Cooney developing a show that will be entertaining and educational to the kids being plopped down in front of the TV in the ‘60s and ‘70s, so they can learn something, it’s just 1:46 of straight-up wonderment.

Besides getting to see a lot of the beloved actors/characters from the show and many of the surviving players like Carol Spinney aka Big Bird/Oscar, you can see how this show tried to create something that wasn’t just constantly advertising to young minds.

More than anything, the show is a love letter to the bromance between Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and you get to see so many of their bits and outtakes that make their Muppets like Burt and Ernie and Grover and, of course, Kermit, so beloved by kids that even cynical adults like myself would revert childhood just thinking about them. Then on top of that there’s the wonderful music and songs of Christopher Cerf and Joe Raposo and others, songs that would permeate the mainstream populace and be remembered for decades.

The movie is just a tribute to the joy of childhood and learning to love and sing and dance and just have fun and not worry about the world. I’m not sure if kids these days have anything like that.

It also gets quite sad, and I’m not embarrassed to say that in the sequence that covers the death of Mr. Hooper, I was outright bawling, and a few minutes later, when Jim Henson dies in 1990, I completely lost it. That’s how much this show meant to me and to so many people over the decades, and Brava to Ms. Agrilo for creating just the perfect document to everything that Sesame Street brought to so many people’s lives. This is easily the best documentary this year, and woe be to any Academy that doesn’t remember it at year’s end.

The other fantastic doc out this week, though I actually got to see it last year, is Lisa Rovner’s SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS (Metrograph Pictures), which will play at the Metrograph, both on demand and part of its Digital Live Screenings (available to join for just $5 a month!). This is an endlessly fascinating doc that looks at the women of electronic music and the early days of synthesizers and synthesis and some of the female pioneers. It’s narrated by Laurie Anderson, which couldn’t be the more perfect combination.

The movie covers the likes of Suzanne Cianni; Forbidden Planet composers Louis and Bebe Barron, who created the first all-electronic score for that movie; the amazing Wendy Carlos, who electronically scored one of my favorite movies of all time, Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange; Delia Derbyshire, who was also the subject of Caroline Catz’s short, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes, which tragically, I missed when it premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March. Derbyshire was also famous for creating the iconic theme to “Doctor Who” while working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the '60s. Others who appear in the movie, either via archival footage or more recent interviews are Pauline Oliveros and Laurie Spiegel, who I was less familiar with.

The point is that as someone who was a fantastic for electronic music and synthesizers from a very early age and for someone who feels he’s very familiar with all angles of music, I learned a lot from watching Rovner’s film, and I enjoyed it just as much a second time, because the footage assembled proves what amazing work these women were doing and rarely if ever getting the credit for what they brought to electronic music, something that still resonates with the kids today who love things like EDM.

An endlessly fascinating film with so much great music and footage, Sisters with Transistors can be watched exclusively through the Metrograph’s Live Screening series, so don’t miss it!

Hitting Shudder this week is Chris Baugh’s BOYS FROM COUNTY HELL (Shudder), which I didn’t get a chance to watch before writing this week’s column, but Shudder in general has been knocking it out of the park with the amazing horror movies it’s been releasing on a weekly basis. This one involves a quarelling father and son on a road who must survive the night when they awaken an ancient Irish vampire.

Also hitting theaters and streamers and digital this week:

THE MARIJUANA CONSPIRACY (Samuel Goldwyn Films)

MY WONDERFUL WANDA (Zeitgeist Films)

WET SEASON (Strand Releasing)

CRESTONE (Utopia)

VANQUISH (Lionsgate)

BLOODTHIRSTY (Brainstorm)

SASQUATCH (Hulu)

SHADOW AND BONE (Netflix)

And that wraps up this week. Next week? No idea… I know there’s stuff coming out but I probably won’t think about it until after THE OSCARS!!!! On Sunday.

[milky-teaway]

Questions for your fic "I'll have to drive through those gale force winds": 8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it? 9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic? 11: What do you like best about this fic? Thanks in advance. :)

Hi there, you don’t know how ecstatic I was to see your question about the fanfiction, tezlababe! Thank you for the ask, I’ll try not to ramble!

Did Any Real People or Events Inspire Any Part of it?

YES, most of the original characters are loosely based on people I’ve met before that left some impact on me. The strangest part was that I hadn’t realized it until I looked back on the way they are written into the story. I think that’s what makes writing the fic easier, because I can sort of scramble experiences with new imagined ideas together. For example, the character Tony is based on this guy that was sort of my friend in elementary school. He was always just a dick to me and a major follower. He regularly singled me out and teased me because I was the quiet girl in the group and had fun doing things solo, coincidentally much like Melise.

This is gonna sound weird, but I named the character Emla after this product for numbing the skin I had randomly found in my house. It’s literally called Emla, and I thought, wow, that’s kind of a cute name… Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking giving her that name, but ah whatever, its not so bad, I guess.

Leon, Jackson’s pitty forklift was based on an early name of Jackson Storm’s supposed ‘trainer’ (the name there was ‘Leo’ that appeared on his wikia page in the ally subcategory. I researched and found zero evidence of this character existing, so I just took him and turned him into a tech savvy sort of pit crew member for IGNTR instead. 

The biggest event that catalyzed the start of writing the story was how poorly Jackson Storm was developed in Cars 3. Even today, most of us barely know what kind of personality Jackson has below the surface past our fandom interpretations, so I wanted to explore that. I think it was exactly a day or week after watching the movie that I walked all the way to Chapters in the town over to buy the Storm Chasing book and get some basic personality to work with for beginning the fanfiction. Quickly, I figured out, yeah… this guy ain’t so bad, he’s a competent young adult with no direction of where to go. Jackson is basically a chill kind of car living in an era (now) where he must put in twice the effort with minimum rewards. He hates it and that’s his drive to push against mostly happy-go-lucky cars like Cruz and Lightning. Racing made his world complete, but that chill personality will always be there. Jackson loves the fame and fortune and knows his way around, nonetheless he’s established himself in adulthood already (a contrast to McQueen in the first film, hence Lightning’s immaturity) so he has no problem being a jerk because he’s got a reason; being tired of the cookie-cut ideals of modern culture. I honestly think Jackson is the kind of guy that likes creativity, individuality and unique aspects someone can bring to the table, it makes the boring world out there a little more bearable for him.

Were There Any Alternate Versions of This Fic?

 I will admit, I’ve been basically improvising every single chapter along the way, and I didn’t plan properly for the choice of making Melise take up modelling. It was purely improvised because I needed some sort of conflict to take the story forward in a way where she was affected by the photos of her and Jackson that allowed her to still maintain contact with him, I had no idea where to go, so I pulled the modelling idea out of nowhere. Here’s a little secret, the fanfiction was originally supposed to be about Melise befriending Jackson Storm and it would be purely platonic, she would basically show him how to not be a jerk. I quickly found that concept to be lacking because it didn’t create enough of a plot and it was just boring. Furthermore, Jackson Storm liking someone was a lot more interesting to write. I could explore his personality even more, which was the whole point of writing the story in the first place. 

I also had a list of names to choose from for my OC, and Melise was just one that I liked best. I had this idea once where she was going to be the younger non-twin sister of Mia and Tia, but it didn’t really stick either.

On another note, about a year ago, I wrote a now scrapped chapter where Jackson would randomly throw a family reunion party to basically brag about himself being legendary in the entire Storm family, and he would invite Melise along. Subsequently, I deleted the draft because it would be another side story with little connection to the main one between Jackson and Melise.

 I was going to include some more McQueen and friends  POV, but found that it– again, took away from the main plot. Also, there are tons of Lightning McQueen and Cruz Ramirez fics on FF.net. so I opted out of the idea… I just find Jackson more interesting and realistic, plus there aren’t much Jackson Storm fics out there, so win-win. 

What Do You Like Best About The Fic?

I love that so many people like the story! Seriously, it means so much to me to be able to write in my own personal way for you guys and to have people love genuine story telling. My favourite thing about the fic is how likeable, yet full on jerk I’ve managed to write Jackson Storm and the simple yet captivating story thus far with what i consider realistic and relatable characters. I love the art, especially the digital artwork FeDrawsStuff made of Melise, and how active the fandom is in helping me with art and just chatting away random ideas for fics or headcanons. Its fantastic to engage with so many positive people daily. Love Y’all!

[coolingdownanddrawing]

heres some idea’s for redesigns along with some bulletpoints on what I was thinking for story stuff involving remaking the series

Im having trouble reading off the screenshots so Im gonna write it out under the cut along with probably adding some ideas or expanding on the bullet lists (future me here: I wrote a Lot)

Sam Manson:

-Rich Activist, meaning she’s kinda blind to some troubles going on or doesnt full understand how others are doing financially, along with being raised in a house with people who arnt exactly empathetic and more focused on appearances then worker rights, sam can come off as shallow to others doing activist work.

 it could be a really interesting character arc for her to realize some of the things going on outside of her school and plants that she can help with, along with dealing with that sense of helplessness she feels at being to normal to help anyone she expresses in the show.

-Goth, but cheery? One thing i noticed in the show is how overall cheerful sam can come off while toting goth ideal’s, which may be a part of why she isnt shown to have many goth friends with them seeing her more as a poser becouse their teenagers and teenager Be like that sometimes.

 It’s not a problem in my book but it could be fun to see tucker or danny question it when in goth spaces and sam basically saying the truth that you dont have to be miserable to enjoy dark subject matter. maybe with tucker and danny getting a small interest in some of the “lesser” goth stuff sam introduces to them.

-fights everyone, becouse teenager with boundless energy and Ghosts attacking all the time. sam didnt fight much in the original series and thats a shame.

-facinated by ghost, becouse duh

-I was kinda thinking of her and tucker being introduced by them competing for class president, becouse that seem’s like a position both would be interested in and it be more interesting then having tucker face dash

Tucker Foley

-Likes to influence others is a general statment, but its true tucker likes to be involved in other peoples lives and generally have his oppinion affect people in possitive (or negative) ways. he likes seeing that his involvment matters and he suffers when people ignore him or take his oppinions for granted and id love to see stuff centered around this trait

-level 1 leader/planner, sorta connected to the influencing people thing I think tucker really would thrive in leadership roles that danny just isnt suited to handling, big mobs of people and sam on his side and he is a force to be recond with. Tucker thrives in getting big groups of people to side with him esspecially since technology profficientcy isnt a sign of weakness in this day and age. 

plus him working on his public speaking lines up with his motivation of wanting to be attactive to ladies. 

also Having him working on public speaking stuff and general people person scenario’s gives a lot of reason for the group to interact with the A listers in a less hostile scenario

-tech god I guess, becouse tucker foley

Dan Phantom

-Incarnation of discomfort being the unintentional (At least the first time) fusion of a stubborn 14 year old and his crazy 40 year old father figure with very different morals and oppinions makes existing very, very akward for dan, but great comedy fodder!

-dan is able to have legs or a ghostly tail whenever he pleases unlike vlad or danny, becouse I figured it be a good way to make fights more interesting and their fighting styles different becouse I want more vlad involvement and having  them be extra different types of ghosts makes watching either of them fight much more interesting

-wishes to not exist, esspecially in the presense of either danny or vlads love interests becouse WOW thats akward

-WAAAAY more powerful then danny and vlad, partially becouse making dan a final everything is going to hell desperate final action for danny and vlad would make dan’s appearances more interesting but also becouse of difference’s about vlad plasmius and danny phantom I will talk about when I get to them. 

Dan Discomfort Masters

-“Vlad’s nephew” becouse if you’re meeting this guy stuff has gone horrible wrong on the de-fusing front  and he needs a reason to be in either fenton on masters house hold to get whatever he needs to fix the ghost catcher 

- big ol liar pant’s, partially becouse danny and vlad are Huge Liars but also becouse of the whole, I need shit to stop existing 

-Trying to keep it together becouse he’s probably made to interact with people vlad and danny have Opinions On and honestly he cant decide if he wants to viciously prank jack at every oppertunity or punch himself for thinking of being mean to jack, among other such mixed feelings.

Vlad Masters

-Certified genius due to a number of thing’s including his obession, and becouse being smarter then jack makes him happy and if jack ever expressed interest in a subject He Must Be Better, he might not be trying to kill jack becouse he doesnt want to deal with a ghost hunter ghost for who knows how long but he wont be lesser then jack in ANYTHING.

-fruitloop, still has some backwards logic and morals such as having valarie become a ghost hunter to offer a sparring buddy to danny and whats a better motive to shoot at someone then they ruined their life right but he’s generally such a over the top bird brain trying to show off to everyone that fruitloop is the only description he can be given.

-less evil is a Big Thing, he’s still objectively not a very good man but I want him and danny working together and sharing a roof on the weekends but that means not shooting first and asking questions later on site, so a less evil vlad is needed, plus it just generally makes there interactions more fun and less dangerous which is what im going for, since walker can take over a lot of vlads antagonist role in the story plus danny and vlad making agreements to get stuff out of eachother sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, i liked eye for and eye vlad sue me.

- as a side not I want vlad to be a lot less physically fit and practiced with doing things as a human, seeing him as a man who lords his power over others when he can he prefers relaxing and working as plasmius more then masters, which affects his health and serves a purpose in story for a lesson id like made after watching phantom planet last night

Vlad Plasmius

-loving guardian in that he really, really does want to be a good father and mentor figure to danny even if their relationship is rocky due to long standing lies he’s been feeding him and how tight a grip vlad has on his familys financial health. as well as the whole snatching partial costody as soon as costudy was called into question after dannys accident (Ill get to that) vlad’s babysat in the past for the fenton which is part of it, along with his desire to be better at jack in every aspect.

-great implorer, in which he likes to get minions when he can and usually only grumbles if his minions already have plans when he calls for them, pays great by ghost zone and human standards and usually offers a full health plan, though skulkers case that full health plans is for when he gets his head up his ass and thinks he can actually get either danny or vlads pelt, one of skulkers suits is on vlads lab wall with a nice hole where its face should be as a reminder to those who cross him.

-only legs,  meaning he uses 100% more kicks and ground based attacks then danny and can kick below the bet where danny cant, this plus his fire core making him have to get creative lest he burn his surroundings to the ground has him fighting in a very different way to danny, along with his 20 years of experience. vlad tends to fight ghosts with less reason to leave the ghost zone, and invading lairs to get what he wants, leading to more serious encounters then what danny faces in the begining.

-loves dramatics, becouse vlad plasmius everybody he’s a cookyier villian here

-less evil and more ruthless and efficient to those who get in his way, that arnt who percieves as family 

-Plasmius’s obsession is teaching people lessons, in all the good and horrible ways that can imply. halfa’s have more broad and less restrictive obsessions then other ghosts which makes them more dangerous and able to ammas power.

Danny Fenton

-Fenton works heir, which is played up a lot more in this with vlad backing his family and giving them chances to disgrace themselves on public telivision and get shamed out of wherever their currently living, leading them on a series of moves throughout dannys life before amity park show off their inventions to the world! Since Jazz aggressively refused the role it fell on danny and he actually takes it pretty seriously, believing as a little bab in ghosts and being convinced of their evil from a young age by his parents which you can only imagine does great things for him when he becomes a halfa and learns unkie vlad is one as well.

-has been haunted by the creepy ghost boy title his whole like due to his situation and the fact he is usually made to assist in showing off his parents weapons publicly as a apprentice ghost hunter, one such invention was the fenton portal that had a wire loose during the presentation, when he went in and put it back the doors automatically shut him in and jack and maddie didnt notice he was in there still until the screaming started, this led to some public outcry over weather jack and maddie are fit to raise kids and vlad swooping in for partial costudy of both fenton children “to ease the masses, and besides he’s basically helped raise them anyway whats garenteed weekends at one of vlads places going to do?”  it was a sucky situation.

-bad reputation due to general protectiveness of his parents along with terrible social skills, along with his new trouble of hiding and controlling emerging ghost powers.He doesnt leave a initial good impression on sam and tucker when he first meets them as fenton, and people tend to avoid him to keep away from his parents wierdness anyhow.

-is less good in the traditional sense but wants to keep people safe and happy if he can help it, though its argueable if thats simply a manifestation of his obsession or if its just becouse he’s a sweet kid, once he gets it into his head that ghosts arnt always evil he tries really hard to be nice to ghost too and even tries to save them from his parents when he can. putting his neck out for them.

Danny Phantom

-just wants a lair is a shorthand for wanting to just experience regular ghost things when he’s going ghost, he’s less inclined to fight every ghost he see’s unless their actively hurting people and tries to talk them down, not wanting his afterlife filled with enemies when he officially keels over. 

he has big dreams for a super cool lair of his own that are explored upon the one time he’s split apart by the ghost catcher, mostly becouse phantom rips the  door to his room from its hinges and zooms into the ghost zone as soon as he’s out, found aimlessly wondering helplessly looking for the PERFECT location to start building. he tends to day dream about the lair of his dreams in class.

-no leg’s leading to more air combat and trying to immobalize people with his tail, usually fighting fairly though with his moments of cheap shots in partiicularly deadly battles,, he usually fights people like johnny 13 who mess with people then he does generally harmless ghosts like box ghost in the begining, plus with his in development abilities that include a versatile ice core his fights are more strategy  then sheer beat down or creative weapon making (or heating whatever metal the ghost is wearing to the point of insanity) 

Danny also has this little problem where he “died” in a anti ghost hazmat suit made of stuff to weaken and harm a ghost who comes in contact with jack and maddies little boy and it means its harder on him to access his powers, taking more energy to do things that most ghost would find easy like intangibilty and invisibility, which is a major problem for him esspecially at first, danny’s only made aware of this though vlads help and their working on a way to trick the hazmat suit into changing material with what danny was wearing under the suit, since its being difficult with changing on dannys command, he can put stuff over and under the suit but the suit itself is hard to make budge.  the outfit shown above is after danny learns how to at least add stuff over it with vlads help.

dan does not have problem’s with the material of his costume making him have access to all dannys abilities easily, along with vlads experience and power and dannys creative thinking dan gets the nickname of the ultimate enemy with good reason

- Loves exploring, esspecially the ghost zone its so interesting and full of enteraining characters and the food is Amazing at least in ghost form and vlad’s show him some pretty incredible places in the zone when they agree to work together in the sense of vlad stealing madde and jacks thermoses at the end of fenton fights and danny helping him spelunk in the ghost zone,  its a guilty pleasure to be able to show sam and tucker around when they become friends, natural portals are a tempation danny has a hard time ignoring when he see’s one, much to his loved ones annoyance.  wolf is a terrible enablr of a friend.

- due to his obession with proving himself (its the wording i go with now i might change it to something like control or being loved) danny tends to want people to like him and seeing a opertunity to get them to like him sorta throws him off balance and out of fight mode, usually leading to him cuddling up to them, in phantom form dannys a great cuddler. take caution though he’s been known to trick enemys into thinking he’s gone out of fight mode and either shove them into the nearest portal/thurmos or later freezing them where they stand.  dannys terrible with crowds, esspecially crowds of people who dont like him he freezeses up.

Danny to-tired-to-function (school and not working with parents danny)

-cant wait to to graduate, with no plans to go to college becouse he’s not paying for more hell

-is really in a bad place socially and mentally in the begining, but will become a lot happier once he befriends sam and tucker, though before that he tends to do some pretty desperate and embarrasing things to get attention and has a problem with letting people drag him into trouble on the promise of friendship.

Danny’s Chore’s list:

-deadly laundry with ectoplasm contaminated laundry machines to content with

-helping whoever wants to cook, cook, or being in charge of dinner most nights unless someone else wants to cook (breakfast is jazz’s job, maddie and jack are gently discouraged from cooking, jazz and danny usually or use to just grab take out for lunch if they had time)

-cleaning the lab

-dishes with ecto contaminated dishwasher are always a little dangerous damn appliances and their wills to reak havoc, jazz likes to help make sure it doesnt hurt anyone since its more dangerous then the laundry machines

-assembling weapons with parents for the vault, or incase of a huge ghost invasion so everyone has a chance at a weapon, danny usually just assembles the less dangerous stuff that doesnt require a lot of welding

-general house maintense, vacuuming and window cleaning while jazz mops and dusts 

-jazz cleans the weapons vault after learning dannys secret becouse its a lot less dangerous for her then for him and hes infinitly grateful

AND DONE thats some of my thoughts on what could be done with a re design of the characters and story beats listed, im tired of writing now but enjoyed getting this out

[rose-lighters]

Time to rank every MCU film

Yes I am doing that oh so original thing of ranking every marvel film from worst to best. Criticisms and debates are welcome. (Disclaimer: I like all these films unless stated otherwise)

X. Incredible Hulk - I haven’t seen it. Sorry.

21. Guardians Of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - I can honestly say I hated this film. The only likeable part of the whole film was the soundtrack and the first few minutes with Groot dancing. Beyond that it was dull, cringy and oh so predictable. The second that Ego (???) appeared and said he was Quill’s dad I was just like “Oh so this guy’s the villain then” and noped out of there. I never saw past that point and don’t intend to.

20. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - People praise this film till kingdom come and I for one do not get it at all. Many say that it is unique in moving away from the typical superhero film and towards the spy genre. Maybe I just don’t like spy films but it is in no means a great Marvel film. I liked it enough but it’s so forgettable I had to google the plot for this review. I liked the characters and all but it just never stuck with me as anything special.

19. Guardians Of the Galaxy -  Maybe I just don’t like the guardians??? I don’t know but this was another film that just didn’t stick with me. I like Rocket and Groot but beyond that the Guardians themselves hold no interest with me. I don’t care for the humor particularly and whilst the music is great that really shouldn’t be the best part of a film unless it’s a musical.

18. Avengers: Age of Ultron - People hate this film, I however do not. It’s an okay Marvel film, I don’t care for it enough to hate it. I like that scene where they’re all trying to lift mjolnir and I think I liked the ending (I watched it like two years ago so I don’t remember that well) but I have to agree with a lot of the criticism of white washing the Maximoffs (despite how much I love Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor Johnson, it was still shady). I didn’t hate the ‘giving Hawkeye a family’ like a lot of people did because the already made it clear he wasn’t like comic Clint.

17. Thor: The Dark World - Now we’re moving into films I do like (I love Marvel films more than I dislike them, it's literally just GOTG2 that I don’t like). This was a good film from what I can remember (as I said it's been a while since I’ve seen a lot of these films). I liked the story arcs, I liked that it was set in places other than America and space (ok, so I’m from England, sue me), I loved Tom Hiddleston in this film and I like Darcy. All in all it was an enjoyable viewing, a little dull at times but generally harmless.

16. Doctor Strange - This would be further up if it wasn’t for how dull the first half hour or so is. I had to go back and watch this months after I had first tried just because the start was so boring. Once I moved past it however it was a great origin film. I liked the humour in it and I have always had a soft spot for magic so it was a brilliant film. The effects were absolutely stunning and on aesthetics alone it would place as the second or third best marvel film. I loved the good guys and was genuinely rooting for them despite Strange being a bit of a snarky arsehole.

15. Iron Man - Is this a very important film? Yes. Is it a great film? Also yes. Do I remember it? Not at all. Okay, so I remember some stuff and what I do remember was great but to say its a film that sticks out would be a lie. It’s THE origin story in as much as it’s a formulaic one: flawed character is traumatised and realises their flaws in the process, is influenced by important person, becomes a hero and is betrayed. It works though. That’s the thing, it works so damn well that its almost not in the formula. It's a great watch and honestly RDJ looks great in it (so not the point but I digress). That bit with Stane ripping out the arc reactor made me feel betrayed and I kinda knew it was coming. ( https://tonynatashas.tumblr.com/post/184375713429/that-scene-in-iron-man-where-obadiah-stane-is this post explains why this scene is so great important)

14. Captain America: The First Avenger - Another (enjoyable) origin story. If Sebastian Stan wasn’t in it it would probably be three places down but hey I have a type. No but seriously this was a great film because not only did it show off the brilliance of Roger’s transformation and gave us an idea of who he was and what motivates him but it also then gives us details of his waking in the 21st century and begins to expose his issues with this time travel (for want of a better phrase). This film shows you what you’re gonna get whilst still having pretty good effects, a good, solid storyline and a pretty badass comic book villain. The serum guy creeps me out though and there are so many ethical issues of that level of human experimentation on a person whose only friend went off to war, had Steve died they chose someone no one would really miss which is so concerning.

13. Captain Marvel - A lot of people may have a criticism of this film being so far down but for me it needs to be. I like superhero films where the main character overcomes a flaw and amnesia is not a character flaw. This is a good origin story but it is not a great marvel film. I like Carol but I don’t love her. I love the fact that we have a superhero film with a female main character and i liked that scene where she talks with biker guy but it felt like Samuel L Jackson was a more interesting character at times. I often rate characters on humor so there’s that. It was a good film but I’m mostly looking forward to what will be done with the character as she has so much potential. 

12. Spiderman: Homecoming - This is a weird one for me. It’s the only marvel film I own on DVD and it’s the only one I like where I skip scenes. I can not deal with cringy humour so I skip 80% of the jokes and awkward moments in this film however it’s a really good film. It’s funny and the music is great, I love Zendaya and Jacob Batalon probably more than Tom Holland, their roles are great and the film’s emphasis on friendship is one of the elements from the Iron Man and Captain America films that I love just further amplified. The references to Ferris Bueller and the fact that it is, at its core, a teen flick makes it a brilliant film. The vulture twist was also amazing. 

11. Ant-man and the Wasp - I feel like it isn’t talked about enough but I really bloody love Scott Lang. He is one superhero that I can really get behind because above all else he is just the nicest guy. He is probably one of the most human seeming characters in the MCU and it always makes for such an enjoyable viewing. This could probably draw with ant-man in terms of great films. I loved Ava Starr so much and my heart really went out to her and that FBI guy was a total joy to watch. The Ant man films are so funny and light hearted that they don’t have that sort of weariness that other MCU films have. If only Luis told more stories in the MCU.

10. Ant-man - Honestly just look above. Also I love Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne so much. The villain was kind of eh but I loved the heist aspect.

9. Black Panther - I watched this film for Shuri and to an extent because I felt obligated to so I had low expectations. People were talking about it for the significance of fighting for equality (which I am all for, don’t worry) so I was expecting it to not live up to the hype and it didn’t. That being said it was a bloody great movie. The movie was beautiful, the use of colour and the CGI tech was so damn pretty. The plot was brilliant and for a while I wanted Erik Killmonger to win, he put forward a good argument and I like a ‘baddy’ so to speak. The fights were great and I was so here for their version of going under cover finally not being a hoodie and cap. Was it over hyped? Hell yeah. Was it still a great film? 100%

8. Iron Man 3 - This gets a hell of a load more crap than it deserves, mostly from comic book fans who can’t stand that their precious mandarin was a hoax but honestly I respect the fuck out of marvel for that. Rather than having a stereotypically asian terrorist they turned that stereotype on its head and made the white guy the actual terrorist. Ben Kingsley is one of my favourite actors and he was amazing. I, obviously, also loved the representation of PTSD as a serious issue and how it was displayed in all of its real ugliness. For once it didn’t just show a damaged person who was fixed with romance. So yeah, this film was a masterpiece.

7. Captain America: Civil War - Zemo may just be my favourite MCU villain to date, why? Because he fucking won. This was a film about a man who knew his victims and rather than stupidly trying to attack the big scary strong guys he exposed them and made the best of circumstance. He got under Captain America’s skin and played him like a puppet. This was more than just a villain, this was finally a smart villain. Not to mention that this film had some of the best action sequences and heart breaking moments whilst still having time for a laugh. It’s also the first film (in my opinion) that called out Steve’s morals and his obsession with the past. Bucky was hot used against him and it showed that above all else, even the little people, Steve’s loyalties are with his past.

6. Thor - Most people would disagree and rate this film far lower however for me this was the start. I didn’t grow up watching superhero films because I didn’t like watching TV as a kid so it wasn’t till I was 13 that I saw a superhero film and this was it. I honestly watched it because my friend had it on DVD and I thought Tom Hiddleston looked hot but from what I can remember this was one of the best films I ever saw. I wasn’t too bothered by Jane Foster but I absolutely loved Darcy, Loki and Thor. Whilst I’m not adopted I do know what it is like to be the younger and smarter sibling with an older thuggish brother who is still the favourite so I loved Loki with a passion and was so upset when he fell.

5. Iron Man 2 - This was the film that made me realise that I liked girls, Scarlet Johansson in a black cat suit and red ringlets was an amazing thing to little 13 year old me. Beyond that it was just a solid film, it had spies and daddy issues and sass and Samuel L Jackson. What more can you want?

4. Thor: Ragnarok - This is the peak of Thor, I’m calling it now. Never had a director before been able to capture the absolute chaos of Loki and the sweetheart-ness of Thor so brilliantly. As far as representations of characters this, Captain Marvel and Iron Man 3 may just be the best of all the MCU. This is the full completion of Thor’s arc, this is the film that the first Thor set up. Finally Thor is ready to be King. This film had so much humour but still set it all up so perfectly that it was more than just a comedy. Jeff Goldblum was amazing and honestly Taika Waititi should direct the whole of the MCU. He knows the characters better than anybody.

3. Avengers: Endgame - I cried three times. That scene with the portals was the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed and whilst many criticize much of the plot I don’t have too much I’d change, though in fairness I did like the cursed child so maybe I just have a soft spot for all things time travel. Dynamic timelines are not used in cinema enough and the three alternate timelines create have all sorts of implications for future films in the MCU. If Thor is not fat in the next film this may go down to 20th though.

2. Avengers Assemble - This is the film that I believe best represents what the MCU has to offer. It’s a light hearted superhero film with all the characters that were needed at this point in time. For its time it was ambitious and honestly it shows. I loved the dynamics between the characters, the plot was engaging and not overly complex and even if you haven’t seen any other MCU films it makes perfect sense. In some respects it probably is the best the MCU has to offer.

1. Avengers: Infinity War - Oh boy do I love this film. This isn’t just a film, this is the film. Did it have the same emotional impact as Endgame? Fuck no but it didn’t need to. It was serious. It was funny. It had just the right amount of just the right characters and may I just say that is the best that Captain America has ever looked in the MCU. I (controversially) really loved Gamora dying and most of the Guardians being dusted. The memes were great.This was the most ambitious cross over event since Wizards of deck with Hannah Montana. One thing that I can’t get out of my head though is Bruce’s comment of “broke up like the beatles?”. Does that make Bucky Yoko Ono?

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, DE! You’ve been accepted for the role of SEBASTIAN with an FC change to BRANT DAUGHERTY. Admin Rosey: I always imagined Santino as the softest marhsmallow of them all. But you showed me the iron will of his caring, the protective nature that’s there. In the interview, the voice you gave him provided the perfect amount of hesitance before each answer and the light note of despondance that seems to cover it all. De, you provided a whole other side to Sebastian that makes him infinitely more interesting and infinitely more lovable. I can’t wait for you to bring him to life! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | De

Age | 27

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Activity Level | About the same as I am right now. Things are gonna get a little hectic in the coming weeks because I have three different techs happening on three different weekends (I know, what the heck De) but It’ll be fine. Because my weekdays are still pretty open.

Timezone | CST

Current/Past RP Accounts | Current: @justtotallystab

In Character

Character | Sebastian (FC Change - Brant Daugherty, please!)

What drew you to this character? |  I mean, I’m always a sucker for sibling relationships, and the one between Valentina and Santino is just G R E A T. They’ve been by each other’s sides since birth, and there is no one more important to Santino than Valentina. She is his sister, his other half. The yang, to his yin, and I’m absolutely in love with that dynamic, and what all could happen between them. Because there could be the chance of them leaving, of Santino finally finding a way to escape the Montague name–but what if Valentina doesn’t want to go? There are so many different things that can be done with him, and I’m really interested to see where he can go–and whether he’ll survive them all.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

1) Love. If there’s one thing that can both bolster a person, and rip them apart, it’s love. Santino has spent so much of his life focused on Valentina’s well-being and survival, he’s never allowed himself to love anyone but her, but I want him to experience that. To lose himself in another person, and find someone else to fight for, besides his twin and himself, and inevitably what the fallout of that love might be. It could be the best thing to ever happen to him–or the worst, and I’d love to explore that. Santino has so much of himself to give, and the Montagues have only ever seen one aspect to him, and that can be used to his advantage, or be his downfall.

2) Labor. I mean, what’s more interesting and exciting than finding that one, final thing, that turns the ever hopeful into the despondent? I’d really love to find that thing that causes Santino to lose all of the hope that he’s carried with him since birth. Nothing has been able to scrape it away from his very marrow, not the death of his parents, or the streets of Verona, not even being the Montagues’ soldier has taken that away from him, and I really want to find it. I want to find what makes that last flicker of hope extinguish in his chest, so that Santino can see what he’s really made of. Will that loss of hope cause him to completely fall apart and lose touch with what makes him him? Or will it cause him to break down the pieces of himself and build it back up into something bigger, and stronger?

3) Loss. Valentina has not only adjusted easily to being a soldier, but she is thriving. Where one part of him is happy for her, glad to see her taken care of and kept safe, there is a part of him that despairs at seeing her lose herself in something he never wanted for her. He’s tried his hardest to keep the darker parts of their life from her, but here she was, in the thick of it, and becoming something to fear. There are times when he’ll look at her, and almost not recognize the other half of himself, and that fear will come back tenfold, shivering down his spine. There are many things that Santino is willing to do to survive in this world, but losing Valentina is not something he think he ever could, and he will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen. Whether its take on the more dirty missions that might’ve ended in her lap to keep her from the carnage, or simply stick to her side so hard she has no choice but to stay with him. He is willing to do anything and everything to keep his sister by his side, and that just might be the thing that drives the final nail in the coffin and sends her far, far away.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | I feel the same as with Boris. If there’s a good reason for it, and it helps move the plot along I’d be relatively okay with it. But I’m not okay with just a random death that I have no say in <3

In Depth

In-Character Interview:

“I know this probably isn’t–” He cuts himself off with a quick snap of a grin that fades easily back into the rather bland, yet affable, expression he typically wears. “Okay, if I tell you, this stays between us, alright?” He leans forward, every inch of him practically thrumming with the intensity that comes from growing up, and surviving, on the streets, but there was none of that in his face. Nothing but that bland look, and the curve of an almost-grin at the corner of his lips to belie the humor underneath. “Twelfth Night, okay?” He waves a hand to keep the interview from speaking, “I know, I know. Really, whatever you’re gonna say is something I’ve probably heard a thousand times, already. ‘What’s a guy like me, doin’ in a place like that?, yeah?.” Santino shrugs away any comment they might’ve made, and lets his head tilt to the side, “I just like looking at the pictures…seeing places I’ll never go, all that history. I just…” He looks away, his voice softer than before, “Like it…”

“Oh, huh…I guess.” Santino frowns for a second as he tilts his head back to survey the ceiling, searching through the hours of the day he’d just had, and simply shrugs. “I make coffee and pastries. That’s about it.” Or, at least, that’s how it appears to anyone that isn’t on either of the Families. The reality starts with Santino’s scarred knuckles, and ends with blood splattered against the curve of his cheek. He’s big, bigger than most, and the Montagues have found the best way to take advantage of that side of him–while disregarding most of the things that he’d found himself to excel at, before that one fateful night signed both of their death warrants. They only saw the scars, and the strength, and the stature, and refused to acknowledge the quiet soul underneath all of that who has a talent for quick wit, and even quicker fingers. He is just as much a weapon as his twin, only…the longer they worked for the Montagues, the less she seemed to be as bothered by it all. Not like him.

Santino is silent, and still, for perhaps the first time the entire conversation, and its only then that the interviewer seems to take notice of how much he moves. Whether its the tap of a finger against the curve of his knee, or the way his eyes never settle on one place for too long, he’s not the quietest they’ve ever seen him. He’s certainly spent a few moments in quiet contemplation, but it’s the first time there’s been such an absence of anything around him, and they can’t help but wonder what changed. For a moment the interviewer believes they’ve gone too far, found the thing that the usually talkative man will refuse to answer, and in some way, they’re right. Between one blink and the next, that stillness is gone, the tapping of his heel against the leg’s chair creates a soft murmur between them, and the interviewer feels like they’ve missed out on something tremendous as he tilts his head to the side with an almost too-soft smile, “What was the question?”

“There’s a lot that’s been asked of me lately that hasn’t been the…easiest.” It was easier when it had been just Valentina and Santino against the world. When all he needed to worry about was keeping her safe, and the two of them fed, he could forgive himself for the things he did to survive. He may like to admit it, but he has done many, many things that would’ve made lesser men cower and scream, but all in the name of keeping Valentina safe and warm and full, but now–now they have shelter, they have security, and they have food. And all Santino has to do for it–is kill. He is a conman at heart. Well-versed in words, and actions, and the quick wit that has kept him alive and moving while his mark left with no idea their pockets were now empty. That’s not to say he hasn’t earned his own fair share of scars, but they are nothing like what he carries no, both on his body, and in his mind. here might’ve been a time where things could’ve been different. Where the twins had grown up with a loving pair of parents, where they could’ve gone on to get an education, and a career that left them with a sense of safety and security, but not anymore. Not when the name Montague hung around his neck like the ever tightening noose simply waiting for him to take the wrong step. “I’ve never really liked cleanup duty.”

“What’s there to think about? I’m a Montague, that’s all that matters.” And yet Santino, at the heart of it all, is a Gallo. He doesn’t want to be a Montague, or a Capulet, or anything else. All he wants is to have a life where he and his sister are happy, and healthy, and free–but that can’t happen anymore. They’re trapped, just as simply as they are ‘saved’. He’s heard stories of people leaving the Montague family, or even the Capulets, but not without great loss–and most aren’t even heard from again. Santino doesn’t want that for Valentina, doesn’t want to risk her being hurt because of something he did, again. So he stays, and he follows orders, and he watches over the two of them, time and time again, forced to watch as Valentina throws herself into the violence like a moth to a flame, while he’s forced to wait and see if she’ll survive, or become another casualty in the long line of soldiers before them.

Extras:

HC: Santino is the older twin, but no one would ever know it. Valentina has always been the one to act ‘older’, to be the protector, at least when they are out in public, and Santino is happy to indulge her. He’s the silent watcher, the protector from the shadows who always makes sure that she is the first one fed, and to bed. Uncaring that he’ll go hungry more often than not to make sure that she stays strong, and healthy and happy. So if she likes to huff, and puff, and play the ‘older sibling’ card, he’s happy to let her, because he knows the truth: That’s he’s been watching over her, since the second she was born.

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/arrowofdreams/sebastian/

Mockblog: https://saintgallows.tumblr.com/

[adamarinayu]

I really love your PK 2017 AU please more headcannons please?

Mm alright! I’m always happy to talk about anything PK related :) I’m just gonna list a lot of stuff, almost in a timeline kinda but not exactly.

This just might become a masterpost of this AU XD Because I wrote a lot of stuff. I suppose they’re less “headcanons” and more “abouts” than anything.

* Donald started dreaming of becoming an avenger in high school. Every vacation, many weekends and such Scrooge would take him and Della on adventures that would normally turn out badly for himself and like many kids, he fantasized about revenge. However, it wasn’t until he went to Italy for his language class’s culture trip (he was in year 4 Italian) that he found inspiration to actually become Paperinik (or the Duck Avenger). 

* Like in the old Paperinik comics, he was originally basically a prankster (less malicious in this AU, since it doesn’t fit DT17 Donald’s personality to be malicious) out to get revenge on Scrooge and Gladstone (and sometimes Della, too). (As an aside, in my personal canon he joins the navy at 18; in this AU, becoming Paperinik changes that, and he never joins the navy.)

* Donald’s thirst for revenge pretty quickly shifted into a thirst for justice, which is what started him on becoming a hero. As he was one day planning revenge on Gladstone with a gag gun he ended up in a situation where only he could stop the bad guy (in this case, it was a robber roughing someone up in the alley in which he was hiding in wait for Gladstone). He managed to stop the robber with his “gun” and the victim managed to get away and call the cops. He was hailed a hero rather than a menace after this, and with that taste of heroics he decided he wanted to keep up being a hero, almost completely dropping the revenge aspect of his identity (yet still known to locals as the Duck Avenger (despite him insisting on being called Paperinik)).

* After deciding to become a hero, Donald realized he needed actual gadgets. Although in DT17 Gyro looks pretty young, I’m just gonna go out on a limb and say he’s older than he looks and that he and Donald knew each other when they were younger (though not very well), and Donald knew he was a genius. So when Donald realized he needed gadgets, Gyro was the first person he thought of, and Gyro provided him with his gadgets for the first year or so of him being a hero (~aged 18-19).

* Donald does, in fact, have his old 313 (a small soft-top two-door convertible (it does have a backseat, uncomfortable though it may be)), which was a highschool graduation gift from Scrooge and Grandma. Simple, cheap (it’s an old car), and a car Donald had had his eye on since he was literally a child, Scrooge decided he could spoil Donald and Della just a little by getting them the cars they wanted (Grandma pitches in, but Scrooge covers most of it since he’s a trillionaire). Therefore, Gyro still tricks it out into the 313-X.

* Donald still adventures with Scrooge and Della, so he’s not exactly a full-time hero. However, when he’s gone Gyro deals with the problems in the city with his genius (robots, holograms, warning the police, etc).

* When Donald is ~19/20, Scrooge buys Ducklair Tower and Donald works there (by his own choice, of course) between adventures, not wanting to feel like he’s freeloading even if his uncle is the one who signs his paychecks. Also it gives him more leeway to be away from Scrooge and Della when he’s in Duckburg, not having to make up some ridiculous excuse to get away. This leads to him meeting Uno, and not only upgrades his tech but also the threats he’s dealing with. He goes from part-time crimefighter to full-time hero, not just in Duckburg but all over the world and, after meeting Lyla, time (where he ends up meeting Odin Eidolon). Things get much more difficult around this time as bigger threats start showing up, and Donald and Gyro both understand that Gyro’s assistance is no longer needed or good enough (Gyro hated admitting that) with Uno, an advanced (and also alien, spoiler alert) AI in the picture.

* Shortly after meeting Uno is when Donald gets the PKar (Duckmobile in the English translation, I think, but I prefer calling it the PKar), making the 313-X completely obsolete, and it enables Donald to deal with threats all over the world. Despite this, Donald keeps the 313-X as long as possible, until it becomes such a safety hazard Uno, concerned for Donald’s life, finally convinces Donald to at least take the “X” mechanics off. Donald agrees, under the condition that it’s still able to fly.

* When they’re 22, Della finds out that Donald and Paperinik are the same person. She’s simultaneously proud and worried, and does what she can to throw Scrooge’s suspicions when Donald is absent. For the record; Della is terrible at acting, and Donald is about 98% sure that she made Scrooge even more suspicious. He’s grateful for her help, anyway.

* Random fact needed for those who have read PKNA and understand why it took Uno 200 years to become an android canon-wise, Due’s story ends in Donald’s time, rather than two hundred years in the future, meaning (spoiler alert) Uno absorbs what’s left of Due more “now”ish than “later”ish, enabling him to become an android sooner.

* On his very last trip to the future, when Donald is 22, going on 23, Odin gave him a computer chip and told him to give it to “his tech guy,” obviously meaning Uno. Donald does as told, which later proves to be a very good thing; not long after, Ducklair Tower is destroyed, thankfully after everyone clears out of the building… well, everyone who could leave. Uno is Ducklair Tower (the AI who controlled everything inside), and with its destruction Uno should have essentially died. Among the rubble, though, Donald finds the chip Odin gave him, and on a whim decided to put it in his computer back at home. Lo and behold, Uno was on that chip, having been saved. Uno is as confused/surprised as Donald is, but relieved.

* That chip enables Uno to go into any device it’s installed on, causing Uno to basically be anywhere Donald is (so long as he doesn’t turn his phone off). On the chip there are also instructions on how to make 23rd century androids, which gives Donald the idea to build an android body for Uno so he isn’t stuck in his phone or computer. Donald, however, is no scientist and struggles a lot, and it’s only under Uno’s careful direction he’s able to do it.

* He continued being PK until Della disappeared.The triplets were left in his care and between jobs and children, Donald realized he couldn’t keep up with being a hero. Uno understood, and since the bigger threats to the planet as a whole were gone he didn’t put up much protest, knowing how important raising the kids was to Donald. This, however, also put a stop to the android being built. 

* One night when Donald couldn’t sleep and the triplets were finally asleep, Donald decided to continue working on the android, if only to distract himself. After that he worked on it in his free time- whenever he was between jobs and the triplets were at school, when the triplets were at Junior Woodchuck meetings or camps, etc etc. It takes him years to complete the android- in fact, it’s not completed until after Scrooge and Donald are talking again.

* The first thing Uno does with his new android body? Follows Donald and the family across the world and ends up saving Donald’s life when he nearly falls off the mountain. This prompts an unplanned, early meeting between Uno and the family, where they have to quickly come up with a story that doesn’t contradict. That story ends up being;

They met in Italy when Donald went on his culture trip and Uno (who had been designed with an English accent but needed a reason to have an Italian name) went to find out more about his ancestry, and they became friends and kept in contact afterwards. 

This is followed up with the claim that Uno was planning to move to Duckburg, and Donald “offered” a room on the houseboat (knowing damn well Uno’s been living there for 11 or 12 years already…) until he found a place. Uno then joins them for the rest of the adventure, him and Donald talking about what has actually happened in Italian. The rest of the family (bar Scrooge) is surprised Donald knows Italian.

* At some point, Donald discovers his old 313 in one of Scrooge’s storage units. Donald had left it behind when he and Scrooge fell out, not wanting to “owe” Scrooge anything, and bought a car better suited for driving children around in. He’s surprised that Scrooge kept it all this time, and Scrooge reminds him that it’s Donald’s car, and Donald gets his trusty old 313 back. Ten years of neglect means it needs serious TLC, but Donald and Uno are willing to put in the work needed to fix it back up. The kids aren’t impressed with the 313; all they see is an old car, but Donald, Uno, Gladstone and Scrooge all have memories about that car.

* Uno doesn’t go with them to St. Canard where Donald & Co. (including Gladstone) meet Darkwing Duck. Donald, though, on a whim took his Paperinik suit (which Uno noticed), and ends up donning the suit in order to save his family with Darkwing’s help. Darkwing, afterwards, talks to Paperinik about it, encouraging him to take up hero work again, as “[his] kids are growing up and don’t need so much protecting, but there’s an entire world that doesn’t even know it’s in trouble, and it needs heroes.” 

* Also, it’s on this St. Canard trip that Gladstone, of all people, finds out Donald is Paperinik. While going out to eat with Donald, Scrooge, the kids (including Gosalyn) and Drake Mallard, Gladstone realizes he was missing his wallet and doubles back to the room he’s sharing with Donald. Unfortunately for Donald, who had haphazardly thrown his PK suit back into its secret compartment, Gladstone notices part of the suit sticking out of the suitcase. He pulls it out and realizes the truth- not just because Donald has the suit, but because the suit is warm. It was, clearly, just worn. He goes to rejoin the others, intending to confront Donald about it, but when he sees Donald listening as the kids all excitedly recounted what happened he realizes he just can’t do that to Donald. Donald doesn’t know until much later that Gladstone knows.

* After the St. Canard trip, Donald recounts what happened to Uno, who agrees with Darkwing but ultimately leaves the decision up to Donald. After some debate, Donald decides they’re right, but he needs a proper HQ again. Uno is delighted by this prospect; he totally wants a facility to play with again. This ends up with them salvaging the remains of Ducklair tower (including a certain AI in a super secret chamber *cough*) from where they’re stored, and rebuilding the tower. Yes, they totally get Everett Ducklair’s help for this. Even after the tower is rebuilt (and left in possession of Solomon (the AI mentioned earlier)) Uno sticks mostly to his android form, but is capable of retaking the AI space in the tower (just as Solomon is able to do, as well) when needed.

* As a funny note, one day at the mansion everyone’s just hanging out together inside when Solomon just shows up at the door, needing to speak to Donald (and annoyed that he wasn’t picking up the phone). Cue confusion as everyone tries to figure out how Donald knows Solomon, and Donald and Uno having to come up with an excuse on the spot (“Right uhhh Solomon is actually Uno’s older brother! So uh, yeah.” “… They look nothing alike.” “Adopted brother.” “They have different last names.” “We kept our birth names.” “But-” “They’re brothers, okay?”)

* EVRONIANS RETURN. Because I actually like the Evronians. Their return is what solidifies Donald’s choice to return to hero work.

* Scrooge is incredibly suspicious of Donald being PK, and has been for years. However, he has no solid proof and keeps his beak shut about it.

* Donald and Uno realize Gladstone knows Donald is PK when Donald (as Donald) has to save their tails and Gladstone is not surprised at all. I won’t go into details about this scene because I really want to write/draw it out. This moment is also what convinces Scrooge that Donald is Paperinik.

* The way they all find out Uno is an android differs from person to person, most on accident but at least one is Uno telling them. Not gonna reveal details for this one, though.

* Duckburg may or may not be destroyed at some point…

And I have to go for now, but this is a good list of things about this AU. It’s not canon-compliant, but I tried to make the AU follow canon as closely as possible while mixing in some of the PK canon, too. Which is, surprisingly, less hard to do since Huey, Dewey and Louie weren’t that involved in PK in the first place.

[mipsyg]

start-up final thoughts let’s go

i’m gonna list everything i loved, liked and hated. yee, not in that order though i dont wanna end it with negative stuff, so i’ll go, liked, hated and loved instead. 

things i liked:

1. won in jae’s journey to becoming seo in jae again. i have to say i found her character hard to relate to but seeing as she’s the antagonist for a whole part of the show that’s normal. i feel like any kid that loved their father would at least feel some kind of regret if said father died suddenly a little after choosing to go live with the mother. but they never explored that with her.. she was still talking shit about him to her own sister years later for no real reason.... weird ok so yeah moving on.

2. i guess saha (was that even her name??) and chulsan were kind of cute. even if the whole funny comic relief guy relentlessly hits on girl who rejects him cruelly but she eventually sees a soft side to him and starts liking him back is a very tired trope lmao

3. dosan’s parents and their growth together as a family.

4. the whole corporate aspect of the story ksdjskd learned  a lot

things i hated:

1. injae at the beginning jkdjf dkfjdfjkdf she got better later

2. the fucking product placement. holy fuck!!!!!! it was fucking shameless fjkfjfjdkf never seen anything like it. like they weren’t even botherting to be a little subtle.

3. han jipyeong. the dude started okay. he was harsh and stuff but he was more or less, fine, at first.. and then.......... and then!!!!!!!! okidusdsjkdjskd jfkhugdjfdf like first of all, he just started liking dalmi bc dosan liked her first. FJKDJFDKF DUDE GET YOUR OWN GIRLFRIEND LMFAOOO JFKDJFFD also he looked like their dad at times.im sorry but you’re old leave these young ppl alone thnak you. no im just kidding that’s just me nitpicking. no but honestly. what’s so great about this dude?????????? i don’t get it i really dont. all he did was flaunt how rich he is, yell at the poor grandma out of nowhere multiple times, and try to destoy other ppl’s self-esteem constantly. i would ask someone to explain it to me but the truth is that i hate his fucking character and i legit don’t wanna hear anyone talk about him ever jkgkfgjfkgfjkg

4. the fucking letters. FJKDJFKDFJ LIKE??? in what world would some letters from fifteen years ago be so important to someone that they wouldbe like no i dont know if i like this amazing dude that clearly loves and supports me or if i love this dude that i dont know but wrote me some letters when i was a fucking kid jfkdjfkdf absolute non-sense

now moving on onto stuff i loved

1. the samsan tech guys!!!!!!!!!!!!11 i loveeeee

2. every single story line related to the grandma, even the han jipyeong one. he’s an annoying prick but the grandma loves him anyway. incredible. 

3. jipyeong being like “in 15 years i didn’t bother to look for you” in the last episode. LOUDER!!!!!1 LIKE THE DUDE LITERALLY GAVE ZERO FUCKS. he literally just wanted her bc dosan wanted her too that’s literally all it was. and him being sad that dalmi is experienced enough and doesn’t need his advice anymore therefore proving how much of a loser he is lmfaooo anyways he sucks

4. dosan. just dosan. he’s the bestest boy <3 a sweet angel, will smash nameplates of powerful people that talk shit about your dead dad and do absolutely everything in his power to make you happy. bestest sweetest boy,

5. dalmi and dosan. THE CHEMISTRY!!!! THE LOVE!!!!!! the fact that they didn’t stop thinking about each other for the three years they were separated after their break up!!! their amazing first kiss!!!!!!!!!!! the pining of it all. “the reason is you”. the hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how much they care and support each other dkfjkdjskds pls

no but i rly liked how the writers tied up the love triangle in the last two episodes. dosan being like she finally said something about me, she liked my big hands. and jipyeong remembering that the excuse she’s still giving to reject other guys 3 years later!!!!! is that she likes big hands. please!!1that was really good- the hands won over the first love and letters in the end and that was all dosan <333

anyways

dosan and dalmi are in love and successful <3 its what they deserve and yall can rot. next time watch the fucking drama and realise whose love story it is to save yourself the disappointment and tantrums jdksjds xoxo

[critgemhero]

The very few things I disliked in Star Wars: The Last Jedi

After seeing this film twice, I’m now able to pinpoint the few aspects of it that I found either poorly executed, or just a little off. Anything I DON’T talk about here, I FRIGGIN LOVED AND HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT.

That being said, lets get into what I found to be bad or meh. Spoilers below!

THAT Milk Scene:

While Daisy performed Rey’s reaction wonderfully... just... no. No to that scene entirely. Point over.

Poor usage of Maz Kanata:

Poor, poor Lupita Nyong’o. This whole scene screams contractual obligation. Again, while her performance was top notch and I was super amused by her “Union dispute” bar fight (That jetpack was cool) there was VERY little reason given as to why she was the person to call of ALL people. Why the hell was it Poe’s idea? How does he KNOW Maz??? Was there any indication in TFA that she knew hackers or tech people? That SHE was a hacker? That a union dispute was more important than the entire resistance?? I thought she was just a force sensitive alien that owned a Cantina. 

Her overly specific detailed knowledge of convenient stuff (like the broach) seemed like a poorly executed plot point to me. It was fun to see Finn, Rose, and Poe work together and listen to her plan, but what a damn shame for her to be wasted. Why couldn't Maz just SHOW UP and help?? It was super lame.

DJ’s stutter, and his first scene:

I thought almost everything about Benicio and the role of DJ was pretty damn great. He added some great humor, and was super essential to Finn’s growth!!! His betrayal and philosophies are what drove Finn to be a rebel! But this is a dislike list, sooo...

His stutter was very annoying. It made it occasionally hard for me to understand him at all. I really liked his strange accent and behavior, but the stutter was a smidge too far and silly.  

What I also disliked was the prison cell scene. Just, the way it was filmed was really awkward and not very well executed. That, and WHY WAS HE IN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE IF HE COULD JUST ESCAPE?? Maybe he was waiting to exploit a few new prisoners (which I guess worked), but it just seemed really contrived. One of the few parts of Canto Bight where I agree with the criticism. Which is what brings me to...

The flawed bits of execution on Canto Bight:

I must reiterate that anything I don't talk about here is something I loved about the film. That being said, here is the list of stuff I didn't like about Canto Bight

Inside the Casino, it looked too much like a normal Earth Casino. Wasnt nearly creative enough on the inside as it was everywhere else. No unique forms of gambling and the rich people’s clothing seemed too normal as well. Everything else on the planet I found beautiful and well established.

Too much setup time, not enough time inside. It was very weird to spend a lot of time with these long sweeping shots of locations, and for Finn and Rose to be thrown into prison very shortly after. It literally starts with location setup, BB8 being stuffed with coins, and then Finn and Rose claiming they looked everywhere when we saw them barely explore.

When they find “the broach” guy. This was already a barely established guy who was super contrived, only for him to be nothing but a Mcguffin and for them to be sent to prison for a friggin PARKING violation. Really? Kinda lame. I already said this earlier, but I just didn't like when they were sent to that prison and how that guy broach guy meant nothing.

The moments when the film would cut BACK to Canto Bight. I found that occasionally, it was just weird to cut back to Canto Bight right after some emotional stuff. Poor pacing in that regard. Still wanted to see more Canto Bight, but maybe choose different places to do so.

In conclusion, they needed to be there longer and add more dialogue scenes with Rose and Finn. Yes, this is a controversial opinion, but instead of just “cutting out” their entire role in the film (it was kinda critical to the resistance and Poe), I feel as though it would have been a lot more engaging and entertaining if this part of the film wasn't rushed and did the prison scene a LOT better (or just wrote it completely different) it would have fleshed out Canto Bight more and added more weight to the messages they were presenting. The second half of Canto Bight was super well executed with the Fathiers escape (the destruction was glorious, and their ship blowing up was hilarious) and setting up the slave children, and the resolution to DJ and BB-8, but the first half needed WAY more meat too it.

The one scene where Holdo refused to tell her plan.

After seeing the film a second time, I actually enjoyed the Poe and Holdo subplot even more! I went in thinking I was gonna be disappointed by a lot of stuff that I didn't notice the first time since by the time Poe realized Holdo’s plan it seemed ridiculous how everything went down. However, I actually thought it made a lot more sense a second time around and was better executed than people give it credit for. 

I liked that she didn't let him walk all over her. That she stood by her anointed position and was right to not always have to talk with him and let him eat up her time when she had plans to work on. He was the one that started disrespectfully talking to her, and she called him out on his demotion. At the START of this arc, her behavior made sense to me.

That is until it reached ONE glaring scene.

I’m talking about the scene where Poe notices the fuel being transferred to the Transports. There are people in the room who looked just as surprised as Poe does. He calls her out on not explaining the plan to all the troops. He calls her a traitor! He throws a damn HISSY fit and kicks over a bucket. And what does she do?

Nothing. Nothing but escort Poe away. She doesn’t even defend herself or explains herself. She just lets him throw his completely rational (if not childish) fit and tells other people to take care of it for her. At that point, it seemed like she cared more about Poe learning a lesson than the safety and comfort of those she is in charge of. It seemed like THE MOVIE cared more about Poe’s lesson than any rational sense. It was completely weird and ridiculous.

That said, I like that Holdo wasn't perfect. That she clearly wasn't quite fit for the position she was put into but was put there because of her close relationship to Leia (which is why I liked it when Leia blasted Poe. He hurt and betrayed her friend. He committed MUTINY. She had every right to). Poe WAS wrong to distrust Holdo’s intentions and letting his hotheaded “blow it up” attitude lead to such a ridiculous mutiny. But he was RIGHT to call her out for not being more transparent to her own damn crew. Everyone made mistakes, and I kinda liked that. 

However, the way this one specific scene was filmed, executed, and hell even WRITTEN just screams “Poe has to learn a lesson from this for the sake of the story” rather than it seem realistic or rational at all from ANY point of view. It was the embodiment of this gif.

Overall, the resistance acted pretty damn incompetent. That's kinda why most of them were wiped out. It was a little lame at times, as MUCH as I loved these characters and performances. The whole movie was about failure, and I loved that, but did they have to fail THAT hard from something so avoidable? Lol

Rose Kissing Finn:

Ok, so I actually loved how Rose saved Finn because I know his ship could NOT take out that cannon! The entire point of not destroying what you hate, but saving what you love, was a sUPER good lesson emphasized by Poe’s plit as well. Finn also finally deciding on sticking to his guns and not running away was also amazing

But then she went and kissed him and damn did that undercut it, and was really wierd and awkward. It did NOT work at all. Finn even looked like “WTF???” Instead of “wtf... oh shit wait that was special to me”. There wasnt really any romantic chemistry there at all, BOTH ways. Rose and Finn actually didnt talk a lot as you would think, and I actually found that it made more sense for Finn to like Rose than Rose to like Finn. She seemed kinda pissed at him most of the time but did find good in him, but enough for LOVE?? Hell nah.

It really made it stupid in my opinion... and now we have a shitty love triangle between Finn x Rey or Finn x Rose set up for Episode 9. Ugh...

Chewbacca shoulda ate that already cooked Porg:

He scared away all the porgs watching him. He was hungry. He should have eaten his cooked porg, but maybe looked super guilty about it? What a waste of food, Chewbacca.

Ok, that last one is kind of a joke, but not entirely. There are always little things I could nitpick (for instance, I forgot to say that I thought the Rey mirror scene lasted way too long), but I cannot stress to you enough that anything I didn't discuss here I friggin LOVED AND ADORED. I found the film profoundly deep and emotionally resonating, with phenomenal character arcs and twists and turns that were absolutely riveting!! 

For me, there is so much more RIGHT with this flick than wrong, but I made this list to show that just because I adored the film, it doesn't mean I forgive it for all its flaws. There is plenty of stuff I didn't like too, so my complete and utter shock in the pure hate and negativity in the fandom comes from the fact that people are so toxic about it rather than me thinking the film was PERFECT or something.

So next time you insult or dismiss someone for liking or loving The Last Jedi, remember that even THEY (yes THOSE “nimwits”) probably have some problems with the movie too. They just don't see them as that bad and as that movie destroying as you do. And that's OK!

[sleemo]

Star Wars: The Forces of Fashion

As the greatest film franchise in the galaxy rolls out its latest episode, The Last Jedi, the planet’s top models explore the original trilogy’s many worlds.

— Harper’s Bazaar, Nov 2017

If you’ve picked up a piece of Star Wars merchandise in the past ten years, you can thank Brian Rood: since the release of Episode III, the illustrator has been responsible for defining and guiding the visual style fans of the franchise know and love. 

Here at Harper’s Bazaar, we know a thing or two about having a reputation for iconic imagery—so we enlisted Rood’s help in today’s supermodel “star wars” by asking him to cast the industry’s reigning catwalk queens in classic scenes from the franchise. (To wit: Kaia Gerber pulling a Princess Leia amid Hoth’s snowy tundra, or the Hadids emerging from the Millennium Falcon.) 

Working from his studio in Michigan, Rood walked us through his artistic process and told us what it was like to draw Taylor Hill storm(troop)ing the gangway of the Death Star.

Harper's Bazaar: You’ve played such a big role in determining the modern visual style of Star Wars. How much of that came from your style as an artist and how much of it came from LucasFilm?

Brian Rood: Honestly, a lot of it has been a huge jambalaya of a little bit of them and a little bit of me. I mean, obviously, you get art directed pretty extensively when you’re dealing with a property like Star Wars—you don’t really get free reign to do with it as you wish. But I’ve been working with LucasFilm for the better part of 13 or 14 years, and some of the stuff I’ve done in the past with the fine art line is very much something I get to develop as long as it gets approved by them and I don’t take the property in weird directions.

HB: What year did you come on board the franchise?

BR: What year did I try to start working with them or what year did I actually? [laughs] From the very beginning [of my career], I wanted to work with LucasFilm, so I really politely pestered and hounded and tried to put myself in the right place at the right time where the right people were having dinner. So I politely pursued them for probably close to a decade, and right before Episode III came out was when I got my foot in the door with the first official Star Wars gig. It definitely went above and beyond anything I ever thought—never in a million years did I think it was going to be this ongoing thing. It’s like a dream come true.

HB: Yeah, you’re the guy now. And the remarkable thing about your work is that it feels very modern but it’s still a continuation of the same style as the illustrations from the original movies.

BR: I’m stoked you recognize that. That’s something I had in the back of my mind, for instance, when we started the storybook project. I’m essentially doing an illustration for every minute and a half of screen time—it’s about 100 illustrations per film that I’ve done now for Episodes I through VII. I’m in the stages now of working and finishing up Episode VIII’s storybook. So we’re talking close to 1,000 illustrations in total, and they needed to look very familiar style-wise to what people have seen before, but we tried to breathe a little new life into it as well so it would appeal to the kids nowadays too as well.

HB: How did you go about developing that style with an eye towards the heritage of the franchise?

BR: On accident. [laughs] Being such a slave to photo reference, that’s the beginning part of the process for me. I gather up all the reference I can and that’s where the creative process starts: I sit back and I start narrowing down which shot I want to use of the main character and what background I want to use. It’s like a big puzzle. 

I have to have all my source materials sitting out there in front of me, and that’s where the design element starts—in my head, at least. It doesn’t make much sense for me to sketch something out knowing I’m never going to find the shot of this actor looking like this. It’s a painful road to go down, because the art directors and editors get their hearts set on that initial thumbnail and then you have to revise it and change it based on the material I actually have to work from. And you’ll get, “Hey, I wanted him in that pose,” and it’s like, but that one doesn’t exist! So then you have to figure out how to pose it and shoot it and model it. It’s a lot better when you already have source material.

HB: Tell us about the illustrations you did for Harper’s Bazaar. What did your collaboration with the editors look like?

BR: They came through and they went through some of the storybooks that I had done and picked out some of their favorite iconic scenes from the Star Wars films, with backgrounds everybody felt familiar with that you’ve seen a million times, and they had a list of the models in those scenes that they wanted with the outfits they wanted. You know, kind of replace Luke with Kendall Jenner. So that’s kind of how that evolved.

HB: In all the aspects of the brand that you’ve worked on, where do you get to have the most fun?

BR: Doing the storybooks is really fun because we’re reinventing some classic scenes from the film that everybody knows, and oftentimes we’ll kind of pitch it from a different angle. We’ll paint it up in a way by using multiple sets of references and source material, so even though it’s a familiar scene and you feel like you’ve seen it before, it’s something new for the fans to get a kick out of: “Oh, we didn’t see it from that camera angle!”

HB: So are you trying to tell us that Han shot first?

BR: I ain’t going nowhere near that. Gotta leave a mystery in there somewhere—I’m not gonna be the guy that said any of that!

HB: It was worth a shot.

BR: Honestly, the funnest thing about Star Wars from an illustrator’s standpoint is that you get to dabble in a lot of different cultures with the Star Wars films. If I’m doing a fine art painting, I can almost do a Wild West painting, or I can do a very hard sci-fi tech-y painting, or I can make it more fantastical. I mean, that’s the beauty of the Star Wars films to me: they touch on so many levels and subject matters, and it’s cool creatively to spread your wings a little bit in so many different genres all inside of one film franchise.

Special thanks to Samira Ibrahim, Michael Siglain, and the brilliant minds at Lucasfilm and Disney. Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in U.S. theaters on December 15.

This article originally appears in the November 2017 issue of Harper's Bazaar.

[reading-with-nixie]

Top 11(ish) Books of 2017

This was a weird year for me reading-wise in a lot of ways. For one - I didn’t just fail my 100 book challenge, I basically turbo-failed it: I only read about 44 books (I’m on 45 now). Like last year, this year was not conducive to reading for many reasons. As most of you know, this year was pretty shit for me until about late September, and then in early October I switched to full-time employment and needed to chop my long commute into three much shorter parts - meaning that reading on my commute became harder.

All that said, I actually read more books that I actually liked this year than I have previously, because I started being less strict about my rules for putting down books. I used to only stop reading books if I had a major ideological difference with the text (not the story, the text - if this confuses you, talk to me). But this year I also stopped reading books if I noticed that I wasn’t inclined to read them. I finally settled into the fact that there are enough books out there that I’d love to waste my time on ones I don’t. So instead of 10 or 9 favorites this year - I have 11 or 12 (I lumped two books together; I’ll explain why when I get there).

So here we go, in no particular order:

1) Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

You’ll probably notice a trend for this year, which is that I read a lot of horror/thriller novels - Elizabeth is Missing falls into the thriller category, but only because of the point of the view in which it is written. Namely, the protagonist is an elderly woman named Maud who struggles with dementia. 

She is convinced that her friend Elizabeth has gone missing and that her older sister Sukey (who disappeared herself after World War II) was murdered by her husband. But no one is listening to her about Elizabeth, nor did anyone listen to her about Sukey - so Maud decides to solve both mysteries by herself. 

This book was memorable for me, again, because of the POV. The book portrays exactly how terrifying it is to feel with all your might that something is true, only to have everyone around you be dismissive. The reader also gets a glimpse into Maud forgetting things that her daughter, caretaker, and other people surrounding her say. So what happened to Sukey? What happened to Elizabeth? Is Elizabeth even missing in the first place?

All in all a very interesting read, but if you’re already terrified of aging, I’d maybe pass. 

2) The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley is a Hugo award winner and a woman...which means she’s needed to deal with a lot of shitty nerd boys. This (pretty inclusive) book discusses feminist sff, misogyny in nerd culture, and (most prominently) what it’s like trying to thrive in sff as a woman. Especially a woman who writes diverse books. 

This book is great for feminists and nerds - but above all I recommend it for my woman writerly friends. I really enjoyed her snark, but the main thing I got out of this book was an extreme increase in my desire to create.

3) The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey

This was definitely one of the more inventive books I’ve read this year or possibly ever. I’ve described it to people as being a zombie book that reads (at least in part) like a fairy tale; it’s been compared to Matilda a lot -- which I think makes sense. 

The narrator for much (though not all) of the novel is Melanie, who is a child zombie who “grew up” in an army base/school for child zombies. Then one day the school is attacked and Melanie, her favorite teacher (their relationship is really fucking touching), and some military folks escape and must try to survive out in the world. 

The book switches narrators, which allows for some interesting shifts in perspective. Some parts feel more like a typical horror novel than others, but all in all I would highly recommend this to someone who is interested in seeing a unique approach to zombies or horror. Or just people who like horror novels and also like Matilda. 

4) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Another really unique one -- but very, very different from the last. This one won the Pulitzer Prize and pretty much all the awards in 2014 and goddamn if there isn’t a reason. 

This one is less unique for the way it tells its story (it’s very lyrical, but not particularly groundbreaking in that regard as far as I remember), but for the content of the story itself. It’s a story set during WWII in Europe...but not the sort of story you’d expect. The main characters of the story are a young blind girl living in Nazi-occupied France and a German kid who ends up (obviously) working with Nazis. Neither of them ends up in a concentration camp or anything like that. Rather, Marie-Laure must deal with the social and economic everyday consequences of the occupation and Werner sees terrible shit happening around him all the time and doesn’t interfere despite having an increasingly bad feeling about what the German army is doing. 

Obviously, the novel is heavy as fuck, so definitely proceed with tissues. 

5) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire and The Diviners by Libba Bray

These two go together in my head, so I’m also putting them together here. They have completely different premises, but I read them at the same time and there are some weird similarities. Most notably, both books have serial killer antagonists who remove body parts from their victims - and the same body parts at that. 

Every Heart a Doorway is a really interesting novella which explores the idea what happens to children once they return from magical worlds (a la Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia). Nancy is a newcomer to a boarding school for these kids who makes fast friends with a couple of her classmates. When someone starts killing them, Nancy and her new pals come under suspicion and need to prove their innocence, and in so doing save the school from being shut down. It’s actually a novella, so it’s fairly easy to read in a short period of time. And gets a TON of brownie points for having a CANONICALLY ASEXUAL MAIN CHARACTER. 

The Diviners is set in the Roaring 20s and features a cast of teens with various and sundry magical powers that have to deal with shutting down a ghost that some dumbass rich kids unleash with a luigi board in the first scene. I was kind of pissed that there’s a scene early on in which sexual assault occurs and the narrative never addresses it as such - but aside from that major qualm I have with it, it’s solid. Also, totally spooky.

I recommend both of these books - just maybe not the same time? Don’t repeat my mistakes. 

6) The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If you know me more than just in passing, you know that I love me some Dark Shit™ in my literature. The Secret History more than satisfied that craving. The story, set in a rural Vermont college (apparently a Bennington expy...which I’m gonna go ahead and say is NOT a complement to Bennington), is one of pretentious classics students who are basically a cult. A new kid comes to the school, gets indoctrinated into said basically-cult’s bullshit, and gets fully entrenched into their bullshit when they semi-accidentally kill a guy and THEN kill one of the basically-cult-members (this is not a spoiler - the book literally opens with them killing the dude).  

It’s definitely not for everybody, but if you are also Team Dark Shit™ and like gorgeous writing - it’s probably for you. You’ll probably get even more out of it if you A) went to college in rural New England or B) were a classics student.

7) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give is another book that got a LOT of hype and 100% deserves every amount of praise it received. 

Sixteen year old Staff is one of few Black kids at a private school and still lives in a poor neighborhood, thus she divides herself up into two versions of herself to fit who those two communities expect her to be. One night, she’s being driven home from a party by an old friend (Khalil) they get pulled over and Khalil is fatally shot by an officer.

Both the media at large, at least one of Starr’s white friends, and a local drug lord try to paint Khalil as a thug. Thus Starr has to decide whether to stay quiet and keep her life in tact or to speak up and upend everything about her life.

Highly recommend, especially for other White folks.

8) Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Another thing to know about my reading habits: I really love mixed media and weird layout/typographical decisions.

Give me maps, photographs, whole pages with only one word, transcripts, just ALL the variety of ways of telling -- and I’m a happy camper. Like, go to a bookstore and flip through a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There is a reason its my favorite. 

Illuminae has an interesting story and all of these things. 

It’s sci-fi YA told from multiple POVs - the main characters are two halves of a couple that breaks up on the day that their home planet is destroyed, but there’s also an AI who becomes progressively more and more of an interesting character as it goes along. 

On top of a conspiracy, there’s a lot of action, potentially evil tech, and a scary af plague. It’s a little much for some readers, but I think it works - and it’s interesting to see several genres intersect. 

I highly recommend this for other mixed media loving folks and people who want to see how many tropes can interact with each other at once. 

9) Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Unlike most of the books I have on this list - I would actually recommend this to VERY FEW PEOPLE. It has aspects that could be triggering (namely, there’s a lot of suicide and some child abuse), it has multiple dog deaths (one of which is probably the saddest I’ve ever read; it had me crying on the bus), and is fucking TERRIFYING...but I loved it, so here it is.

In the world of Bird Box, something weird started happening - people started seeing something which launched them into a violent frenzy, causing them to sometimes kill those around them and always kill themselves. The book follows two stories - one is set five years after people started seeing whatever it is that’s driving them to madness, when Malorie and her two children need to leave their safe haven and travel down a river to a safe location that may or may not exist any longer; the other is set when Malorie is pregnant, people are just starting to see the thing, and Malorie finds (and loses) a chosen family in a sort of “how we got here” situation. 

I love this one for two main reasons: 1) It addresses things in a really interesting, vaguely Lovecraftian way because, by the very nature of the crisis, NO ONE has seen the thing (or even spoken to someone who has seen the thing) and lived to talk about it - so the characters spend the whole time wearing blindfolds, covering their eyes, or inside with things to block any windows and the readers spend the entire book having NO IDEA what the thing is. And that makes pretty much everything more terrifying. One of the most nerve-wracking moments in the novel is when a LEAF falls on someone’s shoulder and there’s the question of “OH SHIT WHAT IF IT WASN’T A LEAF” but the person obviously can’t just check. There are also several times when whatever the heck this thing is is in the same space as Malorie (in one of them it actually plays around with her goddamn blindfold) and obviously she wants to see what it is, but she can’t or she and her kids will die. Both Malorie and the reader also need to trust that her kids won’t look. 2) It addresses the sorts of questions that would occur in that situation. What if you view whatever the thing is indirectly? Are animals immune to the insanity? Couldn’t blind people just go about their lives more or less normally, provided they don’t end up around someone who saw the thing?

You can judge for yourself (or ask more questions), to figure out if this would be a good or safe read for you. 

10) Uprooted by Naomi Novik

To say that I enjoyed the experience of reading Uprooted would be completely incorrect. Anyone who was around me when I read it can tell you about the pained noises I was making most of the time. Most of the book was a conga of backfiring plans, terrifying bullshit, and the protagonist being thrown into generally unpleasant and/or bleak-looking situations. At one point I actually told Lauren “I...I don’t think I would ever say this...but it might be too depressing for me?” 

That being said, it’s actually really good - which is why I kept reading through the pain. All of the characters were really engaging, even the ones I didn’t like; I wanted to know what happened plot-wise; there’s a really interesting magic system; and so much fae nonsense. 

Agnieszka lives in a small village located near malevolent woods,a wizard takes her away from the village....and basically the entire rest of the plot is spoilers. But you should read it if you’re into fae nonsense. 

11) The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I haven’t finished this book yet, but I’m close enough to the end that I feel comfortable recommending it.

This is another ensemble cast book featuring a spaceship full of compelling characters (one of whom is basically an alien cultural anthropologist - which is neat) that form an amazing little chosen family. 

It has a cool plot, too, but let’s be real - this book is about the characters and their relationships. Insofar as it’s possible to have representation in a book with mostly alien characters, this book pulls it off pretty well. There’s at least one lesbian couple, an essentially chronically ill character, an alien/AI relationship, and an alien who’s basically autistic. A fabulous people who like the ideas inherent in science fiction but are bored of pew-pew action crap. 

I also have one anti-recommendation to close this out, because I feel the need to warn people away from this book.

DO NOT READ BOY, SNOW, BIRD by Helen Oyeyemi. It’s a transphobic piece of shit. 

It starts off gorgeous, has some nice magical realism, involves some really good discussion of racism and what it means to be biracial...and then gets WILDLY transphobic very suddenly in the last twenty pages or so. I’ve heard people say “OH, but it’s actually a METAPHOR, you see!” but here’s the thing, you can’t use real marginalized groups as your goddamn metaphors. NOPE. Stay away from this piece of garbage, or at least don’t give Oyeyemi your money and everything except the last two chapters out of a library copy. 

[newt-grundy]

some rabble

Holy shit. I am being swarmed with thoughts and emotion right now, so I’m just gonna write it all out. First off, fuck, that flew by. It seems so unreal that I’m already leaving, and in a huge way I feel shame and regret for wasting my time. I can’t help but think I should have played with Holland more, or I should have drew with him, or read him books, or just did a lot more than just hang around, play video games and such. I mean, that’s not all we did, but still. That little bugger gave me a big long hug and it’ll be the last “big hug” I get from him for a long time coming. I have to remind myself how unconditionally he loves me and he probably doesn’t even feel a fraction of disappointment in me. Regardless I still feel like a shitty older brother and I want to cry, I’m literally holding back tears right now. That little bastard is the one person who makes me cry I fucking swear.

It seems so out of nowhere, like I basically just got back home and now fuck, I’m leaving. I wish I would have gotten more time with my friends and said so much more to them and made them feel loved. It’s so hard not to let Babylon just, instantly changed me and especially putting me back into my default Babylon mode. I can’t believe how much fucking time I wasted watching TV, playing video games, just scrolling that goddamn facebook wall. I fucking screens, I abhor them, it’s pretty much the main reason I left last time and a big reason right now. It’s a shame I don’t have better self control where I can just use my computer for only productive means. Instead it’s like, hours of youtube videos, hours of facebook, hours of pornography, then some writing. The entire time I was gone last I didn’t watch any porn at all and it was fucking awesome. It was great, I never had that shame or struggle or anything. I barely even masturbated and since I didn’t have porn or really the chance to even masturbate (or will) then I would just fucking, get laid, like how humans are supposed to do it.

Technologies goal, with social networking and such is to just replace all human needs of other humans with a more artificial stand in. We use porn for girls, facebook for friends. We watch groups of people hanging out (it’s most tv shows, just people hangin out) instead of spending time with others. A lot of young men now just forsake dating entirely. When you have so much porn whenever you want, you simpy nip sexual desire in the bud all the fucking time. God I hate it, I have to leave. I have to go so I wont even have the tempations of bablyon and in a way I’m just switching those temptations for others. Sure I’ll meet people, be more sociable, write and read, and barely look at screens but last time I left I ended up smoking meth so, it’s simply a matter of pick your poison.

But I feel this is right. I have no desire to get a job, or really any need if I’m home and my parents take care of everything. I have no future in Iowa and that’s pretty much darn guaranteed at this point with the mountain of slander that now surrounds my name. If I’m homeless and struggling for the basics than I’m forced to work hard and I’ll get the satisfaction that working hard entails. Ah fuck it I don’t want to explain all of it. I know what’s best and it’s not even about what’s “best”. I’m done with always trying to be healthy and stable. I’ve never been fucking stable, never really had much of a stable life, why try and force it? Why trim off the lows and tops and sort of dull myself out. Numb myself with tech, and get caught up in some job I don’t believe in and all that fucking bullshit , fuck it! I snap everytime and that surely isn’t healthy. Better to die with some tweaker smashing my head in, or the bull shootin me, or falling off a train than to die by my own hand, alone in an apartment for one with only friends around that I saw once a week if that. Don’t misinterpret I love my friends here it’s just, people don’t really need people when are those needs are met by money, and the strangers time that money buys. I crave intimacy, and it’s so goddamn hard to ever be intimate when there’s always a fucking screen on, of some stupid comical whatever. I feel it’s really hindered my relationship with my family and friends and I grew so close to people on the streets because we never had that. You spend days with someone, struggling to survive, hours just waiting around entertaining each other, you grow fucking close, and you grow quick.

I’m still just self-rationalizing. What’s really bothering me is missing my brothers and my friends and feeling like I don’t make anyone happy. That I don’t give enough love or enrich anyones life and If I don’t do that then surely it’s not a noble or fulfilling life to live. I’m always so fucking caught up in myself. The artist type with a million projects and always just strategizing and thinking how to make a song better, or a magic deck better, how to write this story, paint this ect. I turn real people into fictional subjects of them all, all their feelings and being simply relative to mine. Savannah once said I saw others as mere extensions of myself and I fear she’s right. I’m afraid I’m a legitimate narcissist that doesn’t really care or empathize with others. I habitually deny those who request my intimacy and then go give my love to some stranger who just dumps it out. I really haven’t learned. Still Chasing girls, getting high, writing songs. Same shit I’ve been doing for five years. Life is still horrifying and intense and wonderful and just fucking insane all the time.

I mean, I’ve gotten better I think. Despite the whole abbie/jesse fiasco I think most people that actually know me think I’m an alright guy. They would probably say I’m nice and kind and helpful, I’m so fucking anxious about it and I do take action to try and be all those things. Give my time to others. I’m always thinking when I’m talking to someone “now don’t just respond with how that relates to you, ask a question, get to know them, let them talk about themselves, it’s not about you” ya know? Like someone says

“hey I have a pet rock”

And I want to say “oh yeah I had a pet rock my rocks name was yaddie yadda and I got it on whever and shit”

But instead I say, “oh that’s cool, what’s your pet rocks name? where did you get him?”

Ya know? But the problem with this is I want people to be fucking interested in me. I want to show everyone all my songs and artworks and have them see me as I see me. Because if I’m being honest I feel like I’m a fucking special person. Here comes the fucking ego, sorry, but like, how could you be good at something but be unaware of it? How can you make good art without understanding what good art is, and thus making the intention of making “good” art? Because I feel like I’m one of the best goddamn artist, on any account, that I’ve even met, and I strive to be so. I put in effort fucking all the time, every day, for hours, I obsess over the stories I write, rack my head over painting, plan, illustrate, strategize.

I mean, its like magic the gathering. The best magic players are who gives the game the most thought, who thinks the most about how they make their deck, essentially. I’m pretty good at magic, because I spend embarrassing amounts of time thinking about it. I’ll be up at five am just pacing and chain smoking and thinking about what cards to switch with what. I watch several series on magic, I watch judges explain rules, I research cards all the fucking time. And because I put all this work in, I’m good at magic.

And so, I do the same fucking thing with any art that I’m working on. I research heavily on what music to download then lay there on my back in the dark, giving the entire album my full attention in one setting, carefully studying what the music is, how they made it, all the parts and how they interact, ect. I put in this effort with any of my artworks and I put in mass amounts of time into constructing my own songs, and I have no shortage of inspiration because I have fucking insane feelings all the time, like I fall in love with everyone and hate people and hate systems, and love stupid little things and am always tying ot figure out how everything and everyone works, and I understand style and how to obscure and contort ideas into a voice and blah blah blah. Point is, I’m good, ok, arts subjective yeah whatever, with anything, the more effort you put in, the better the result, but like, the thing is,

No one gives a fuck. Because everyone is doing the same exact thing, the world is over saturated with twenty three year olds makes sad songs about their past girlfriend, and writing poems about being confused and painting girls and making magic decks, and essentially just complaining all the time, and they all want everyone else to see and acknowledge but everyones so focused on themselves that they can’t really take it in. When I listen to any music it always just comes back to me, how it makes me feel, what aspects of the music can I glean to then use in my own. A big reason I even enjoy art is because it motivates me to do my own. I’ve stopped listening to albums half way through multiple times just so I can go practice because I’m like ‘fuck this shit is good, I need to do better!”

I’m certainly rambling, god this is a ramble, one I wont even bear through to read but this is one of my last chances to use this computer to type out some shit so that’s what I’m doing. It’s five am, my brothers are getting up, reading up to leave with my grandparents on vacation, I’m glad I get to say goodbye again. I can hear Holland getting up he’s so cute in the morning. He rubs his eyes in that cliché way where he uses his entire fist like what?

It’s gonna be ok. I’m going to have fun, and feel great feelings and the road will be scary and terrible, I’ll be uncomfortable and in pain, maybe contract some more diseases, get some more holes in my teeth, fuck up my spine. But I’ll also witness miracles, meet incredible people and show love to them. I’ll help feed them when they are really hungry, I’ll take drugs with them, play games, talk laugh, open up. I’ll play my songs, and they will play theirs, we’ll settle drama and rabble, some of us will fuck, some of us will fight. I’ll never know what’s going to happen and I’ll become spiritual, put my trust in the road, manifest. I’ll have to psyche myself up to do illegal dangerous things. I’ll show off infront of girls I find attractive, compete with fellow men, I’ll be humbled when I’m defeated and uplifted by others who praise me. I’ll be alone and bored, hiking along the road, or waiting for a ride, or just staring up into space as I’m laying in my bag, too cold and anxious to sleep and my mind will just be turning over and over again and maybe something will come of it. But I always sleep, days are too exhausting to not, and I’ll wake up and do it all again, with no real end or goal other than what I’m wanting that day, I’ll change my mind constantly too, always excited and always disappointed, happy and sad and at least I’ll be fucking alive and feel like I’m living alive. If I die young I die happy and if I’m 80 and still homeless with nothing I won’t regret because my life was full adventure and excitement. I had brothers I fought along side with and I fell in love with women and confided in them and held them and tried to make them feel safe. I was nice to dogs and talked to them, didn’t hurt bugs for the fuck of it, not even spiders. I tried to learn and listen and grow. I stuck to my guns, didn’t give up guitar, didin’t stop trying to force my artistic perspective everywhere. I was an entertainer, I was open, made people laugh, usually a good person to go to if you were bothered and wanted to talk about it. It’s everything I’ve already done, just gonna keep doing it over and over, try and reach as many people, be a part of as much as the world I can. Then die, and soon after be forgotten, but hey that’s how it works. Could be a lot worse, and anything in retrospect really wasn’t all that bad.

[victoriaeligalan]

Entering Pandora: Discuss

Its been a process. I’ve been busy studying but my love for this knows no bounds. Every free time I find myself looking up licensing agreements and contract drafts from Universal and Disney. And for what? For the possible 2.5 readers I have out there. 

So lets talk about Avatar and, more specifically, the Land of Pandora opening in Animal Kingdom in May 2017. 

Its been almost a decade after a little ol James Cameron flick known as Avatar graced the big screen. First things first, let’s talk about the history behind this deal. We’re gonna look into the licensing agreement and discuss it a bit. Then, I’m going to talk a bit about the history of the very area Pandora will take over, before it was even known as Camp Minnie Mickey. Finally, I will discuss the patent which seems to hint at new tech to come and some rides the visitors can look forward to. 

PART 1: Licensing Agreement

What do Harry Potter, James Cameron’s Avatar and Walt Disney World have in Common? Simple, the only reason Disney made the deal with Avatar was in response to losing a deal they supposedly had “wrapped up” with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise. According to Theme Park Insider, in an interview with Universal Orland President Bob Gault, Mr. Gault reportedly claimed that Disney had Harry Potter “wrapped up” and they would look into acquiring Lord of the Rings. This deal, however, fell through and landed in Universal Studio’s laps. The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward to early 2011 when James Cameron is approached by Walt Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger over the possibility of an Avatar themed attraction in a Walt Disney World theme park. Discussions moved the setting from Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where they originally conceived placing it, to Animal Kingdom. In 2011, Disney entered an exclusive, long term licensing agreement with Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment and Fox Filmed Entertainment.

Now you may be scratching your head right about now asking, “So, does Disney own Avatar? What is a license? Is it a Contract?”. A license, my dear readers, is a form of a contract. Remember, a contract is a written agreement which contains an offer, agreement and some form of consideration (which is an exchange…so money or a favor of sorts) …a license contains these elements. A license, however, authorizes the licensee use of the property the licensor is granting without the risk of being sued for infringement. Therefore, Disney isn’t buying Avatar and James Cameron is not selling Avatar. Rather, Mr. Cameron is allowing Disney to use the name and likeness of the film and franchise to increase revenue for the park. This specific agreement, while confidential, gives Disney theme park rights to be able to build attractions, offer food and beverages and sell merchandise with the permission of 20th Century Fox, Lightstorm Entertainment and James Cameron. So, what can’t they do with this agreement? Make a movie, for example, or sell music. This agreement is similar to the agreement Universal has with Marvel as it bars them to only be able to work in regards to the theme park. So, don’t worry, readers, Disney is not going to be making Avatar 2 anytime soon. If that ever becomes a reality, it’d be all Mr. Cameron’s work.

PART 2: History of the Area

Now, the license is interesting to look at and talk about, however, an important piece of the puzzle in figuring out why this sudden deal is to look at the area. While numbers are steady at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, it’s easy to see that the park is not a fan favorite. The attraction was offered to be moved there to see if numbers go up, possibly inspired by the success seen at Universal with Harry Potter. However, to understand the thought process, we must go back and look at the property itself and what used to be what is now Pandora.

The land which will be known as Pandora come May 2017 has gone through two major changes in its lifespan. Originally, the concept of Animal Kingdom featured a theme area dedicated to mythical beasts of legend and lore. This land would be known as Beastly Kingdom and it was scrapped before opening, but a little late in production. Because of the time in which it was scrapped and the production already put to work on the Kingdom, visitors can still spot remnants of the idea. For example, the original logo includes a dragon, a parking lot contains a section called “unicorn” and a dragonhead statute is on a ticket booth at the park’s entrance. There was slight faith that Beastly Kingdom would someday become a reality, however, Camp Minnie-Mickey became the placeholder for this idea and visitors could enjoy attractions such as The Festival of the Lion King as well as meet and greets with Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse and friends.

The Festival of the Lion King is currently playing in the Harambe Theater but come May 2017, the area known as Camp Minnie-Mickey will be no more and Pandora will take over. The basic thought is that since Minnie Mickey was known as a “placeholder” area, this could finally be the compromise Animal Kingdom was always looking for. They got the mythical aspect Beastly Kingdom would have been able to provide while giving a third-party perspective on nature and the value of human and animal life, a concept Avatar delivered well. Visitors can look forward to new attractions, characters and even some new advances in technology made in the name of Pandora. Which brings me to my third and final topic when it comes to this discussion of Pandora.

PART 3: Patent and Attractions

Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a land dedicated to nature, love, human and animal relationships and all that magical good stuff that only Disney can bring. The pursuit of magic is something the company excels at and in that pursuit, there are discoveries and inventions made. No wonder the Disney engineers have been called the Imagineers, if they can dream it, they truly can do it! The proof lies in the patent.

A patent is a set of exclusive rights which are granted by a state (United States, in this case) to an inventor for a period of time in exchange for public exposure to this invention. Disney filed a patent, which may or may not be a part of the new Avatar attraction, known as “User Interactive Living Organisms”. This patent includes the concept of user-interactive bioluminescent forest and plant life! It is unknown the extent which the Imagineers will be able to develop this, but if it is anything like the reactive technology seen in the past (for example: Universal’s E.T attraction), visitors can expect to be able to interact with plant life throughout the area and have this “life” react to it. The plants may even be able to remember who the visitor is and be able to have a continued interaction! Whatever this patent brings, it will be nothing but innovations and excitement for the visitors who attend

Aside from the new technology, Disney also announced two attractions which would be featured in the area. There will be a flying simulator attraction and an attraction known as the Na’vi River Journey, which will probably utilize the patent technology mentioned. This attraction will feature a boat ride attraction showcasing the native fauna and flora of Pandora, which will include the animatronics and new technology to be featured.

WORKS CITED

http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2016/05/disney-files-possible-patent-that-shares-more-on.html

http://www.themeparkinsider.com/news/response.cfm?ID=1208

http://themeparkuniversity.com/disney/does-disney-own-avatar/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_%E2%80%93_The_World_of_Avatar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Animal_Kingdom#Beastly_Kingdom

So what do you guys think? Excited to go check it out? Even though I feel it has nothing to do with Disney, I’m actually very excited for this development. 

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