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the-witty-pen-name · 4 years ago

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Can’t Help Falling in Love

Loki x Reader (f)

Valentine’s Day with the God of Mischief

Based on suggestion by: @squadleaderchase

A/N: Thank you so much for the suggestion! I loved writing this, it was so much fun!

Happy Valentine’s Day y’all!

There is also a gender neutral version of this fic, and will be posted shortly after this one! Read it here!

I recommend to putting on Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis towards the end just for that finishing touch!

Summary: When Loki learns about the traditions of Valentine’s Day, he asks you to be his Valentine- and reluctantly takes advice from Steve Rogers.

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: none; just fluff

“Can’t Midgardians have a holiday that doesn’t involve such a grotesque display of… red?” Loki asks walking into the living room of the Avengers compound. Loki arrived at the compound a few weeks before Christmas and so far, he’s experienced two Earth holidays: Christmas and New Year’s. Of course, Tony had picked the theme for both parties to be elaborately red and gold- he claimed the fact that it matched his suit was merely a coincidence.

“Just wait until next month,” you reply casually, your eyes not leaving the brief you were reading while you sat cozied up in one of the large armchairs. “I think you’ll like St. Patrick’s Day much more… color scheme wise at least.”

Loki looked up curiously at the hearts of all shades of red and pink Natasha had hung up to decorate the Avengers’ living quarters. She had gone to visit Clint’s family and his kids spent hours making Valentines and decorations out of construction paper and glitter. Loki looked almost puzzled at the lopsided hearts that hung from the ceiling on transparent line so they looked like they floated mid-air.

“Perhaps I might,” he mumbled to himself, the lovesick aura of his surroundings making him slightly disgusted. “Though I suppose I find your rituals as bizarre as you’d find on Asgard.”

“Mhmm,” you mumbled in response to his thinking out loud. It was rare that the compound would be this quiet. It was a Friday evening and in the middle of a team meeting earlier today, Tony declared exhaustedly that everyone needs to start the weekend early and dismissed everyone despite Steve’s protests. You weren’t sure where everyone else went and you didn’t particularly care- enjoying the rare peace and quiet.

You didn’t mind Loki’s company. He was a little aloof but overall, you found him more to be misunderstood than anything else. He wasn’t like Thor and sure, he had a very trouble ridden past to downplay it- but he’s confided in you all it wasn’t entirely his doing. Out of everyone living at the compound, he probably had grown the closest to you, or as close as Loki would allow himself to be to someone.

“What even is this holiday?” Loki asked, pulling his attention from the decorations to where you sat, binder in your lap. You looked up and closed the brief, tossing it onto the coffee table in front of where you sat.

“Sunday is Valentine’s Day,” you say looking back over to him, meeting his eyes. “I mean overtime the traditions and how we celebrate have changed but it’s originally the day meant to honor St. Valentine and commemorate his death. There’s a lot more to it than that and there’s all different of different origins, but now it’s more like a day where you celebrate love, because he was the patron Saint of Love.”

Loki nods, liking the idea of this holiday much more than New Years already. He didn’t mind Christmas, but the elaborate parties made everything not very appealing to him. You can’t blame the god for not having a good time at parties where every guest fears him or hates him. He walks over and takes a seat on the couch and crosses his legs. He was intrigued enough to continue the conversation and ask you more questions. “What are the traditions?” He asks curiously.

“Traditionally, you would ask someone to be your Valentine, and that’s the person you want to spend the day with,” you answer with a small shrug, trying to explain a holiday you’ve never had to explain before. “Some people have it easy and they ask their significant other, and if you don’t have one, you ask someone you’re romantically interested in to be your Valentine. Then you give each other gifts, like chocolates or flowers, anything really that’s romantic and you go out on a date, like a nice dinner but it doesn’t have to be. That’s the basic gist.”

“Thank you, (y/n),” Loki said, mulling over your explanation. “You’ve been helpful, as always. Tell me, who’s your Valentine?”

“I don’t have one,” you answered honestly. The only time you really celebrated was when you had been with someone. You’d never really participated otherwise. You planned to just spend the night alone or with Nat if she also didn’t have plans and probably watch a movie- most definitely Pride and Prejudice.

“Shame,” Loki said with a tsk. “Perhaps, if you would be interested, you could be my Valentine?”

“Really?” you ask, honestly surprised.

“I actually like the idea of the day,” Loki shrugged. “And I don’t know many people, people seem to hate me on this planet- no idea as to why. You’ve always been kind to me, and you are the most tolerable person I’ve encountered on this planet.”

“That’s oddly very kind of you,” you say with a chuckle. “I appreciate the sentiments. Um, yes. I’d be happy to be your Valentine.”

“Excellent,” he grinned. He clapped his hands together and stood up. “Splendid. I’ll ask Thor to help me plan something.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” you smile, picking up your paperwork again as Loki heads off to find his brother.

***

“Brother,” Thor’s voice echoed in the training room. “Spar with me?”

“As much as I would love to,” Loki said sarcastically, “I need your help with something I need to plan.” Loki walked over to the side of the mat where Thor had been training with Captain Rogers.

“Plan what?” Captain Rogers asked curiously. It was an innocent enough question but Loki took it as Rogers insinuating his distrust in him. Of course, Loki can’t blame the man but it did rub him the wrong way.

“If you must know Captain Rogers, I’m making plans for this upcoming Valentine’s Day,” Loki said matter-of-factly. “I’m sure since you have quite the active love life recently, your words of wisdom are probably of infinite value.”

“You can learn a thing or two from me,” Steve retorted as he put the punching bag beck into place. “But I don’t like your attitude.”

“I don’t know how I’ll ever manage without you,” Loki scoffed. He turned his attention back to his brother. “I need help to determine where I should take (y/n) and what I should get her.”

“(y/n) agreed to this?” Thor asks, his eyebrows raised in confusion. Rogers kept his mouth shut, deciding to see where this conversation will go before

“Yes, brother. I asked her to be my Valentine as stated by tradition and she said yes.”

“Ah! Good for you, brother!” Thor exclaimed, happily. “I’m glad you’re immersing yourself in the Midgard culture.”

“Yes, yes,” Loki waved him off, “Now, please, tell me what I should do.”

“I’ve never celebrated Valentine’s Day,” Thor says with a shrug and a sympathetic look. “I haven’t had much opportunity to explore the culture. Every time I’m on this planet I’m a little busy preventing its destruction. Perhaps Rogers can help you?”

Loki let out an exasperated sigh. He avoided Rogers as he knew the man had such a smug look on his face. Loki refused to give him the satisfaction. However, he realized that wouldn’t be fair to you. Rogers not only knew what to do, but he was also close friends with you. He quickly realized if he wanted to celebrate with you properly, he’d need to rely on the infamous super soldier.

“Captain Rogers,” Loki said with a charismatic smile, turning back to the man. “I wholeheartedly apologize for my lack of… social niceties. If you’d be willing to help me, to ensure your dear friend enjoys her holiday, I would be sincerely grateful.”

“Only because of (y/n),” Rogers says skeptically, waving a finger at Loki. “She deserves to enjoy her time and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you screw up her evening.”

“What a loyal friend.”

Years later, the Avengers would still talk about the fact Loki cared about you so much, he sought out advice from Captain America and Thor. And as Captain America said, he helped Loki with every last detail and Steve never let Loki forget it.

***

Loki had told you that he’d come to your room to get you at 6 o’clock Sunday evening. He wore clothes he had picked out, black dress pants, a white button-down shirt and shiny, black dress shoes. He had kept the last button of the shirt unbuttoned and he had rolled the sleeves up, a styling tip he had gotten from Thor. He had his long hair gelled back and tamed, ignoring Captain Roger’s horrible suggestion for a haircut. He felt very weird not wearing any green, but he took the advice he was given on his ensemble.

You were just putting on your heels when he knocked at your door Sunday promptly at 6pm. Of course, Loki would be very punctual. You gave yourself one more quick once more in the mirror in your room before heading to answer the door.

You had on a pair of dark green heels that perfectly matched your dress. You also layered over the outfit a suede brown jacket, that complimented the jewel tone of the dress and shoes nicely. You kept your appearance simple, sticking to how you usually styled your hair. Not wanting to keep him waiting, you quickly opened the door, your jacket and bag both in hand.

“Wow,” you say with a grin, when you take in Loki’s appearance. “You look very nice.”

“You look stunning,” Loki said, his eyes widening, taking in your appearance. The compliment made you have butterflies.

“Thank you,” you said with false confidence. Underneath, you were a nervous wreck as you took the arm that he extended to you.

“So,” Loki began to walk down the hallway with you. “Apparently, this planet has something called reservations, and anyone who tries to get one a few days before Valentine’s Day is a “moron,” according to a very rude young man I had the pleasure of speaking with- the first time using a phone too on top of that. So, I hope you don’t mind if the evening is a little… makeshift.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” you reassure him. You feel him relax slightly. You found how hard he was trying so endearing.

Where else did he bring you but just down the hall to the living room. At night with the lights dimmed, combined with Natasha’s homemade decorations, it actually looked quite beautiful. He had decorated with an eclectic array of candles as well that covered most surfaces of the room. It also looked like he had swiped every throw pillow in the whole compound and had them arranged the coffee table in the center of the room.

“Did you do all of this?” You ask in awe.

“Yes,” he replied, just watching you. “Do you like it?”

“It’s perfect.”

“I had to make my own version of advice I received,” he disclosed to you. You sat opposite each other on either side of the coffee table, you kicked off your heels and he did the same with his shoes. “Captain Rogers said- and I’m trying my best to quote verbatim, ‘You need to show a girl a good time. You gotta take her to dinner and dancing.’” He even mimicked Steve’s voice perfectly. It made you laugh.

“I can’t believe you subjected yourself to Steve for me, I’m touched,” you smiled. “I mean I love Steve,” you continue, “But I can’t imagine you too being best friends anytime soon.”

“No, I suppose we probably won’t be,” Loki chuckles.

“I hate to point it out,” you continue, “but I think you missed both the dinner part and the dancing part of that plan.” Loki smirked and when you blinked, he transformed the whole room.

“Did I?” he asks, with an eyebrow raised. You gasp, looking around the room you were now in. You knew it was an illusion, but it felt very real. The atmosphere, the breeze coming in from the large bay windows that weren’t there before. The coffee table now a table now one of many dining tables in an incredibly high-end restaurant. The table had food, and a bottle of wine. You were stunned. There was a live band and other couples in other tables and out on the dancefloor.

“Loki?” You exclaimed, looking around at your new surroundings. It was amazing. You couldn’t believe the magic right before your eyes. Of course, you knew it was just one of his tricks, but it felt so incredibly real. You picked up your fork and took a bite of the food in front of you. It was incredible, you questioned if you were even eating.

“It’s real,” Loki said, like he could read your mind. Honestly, he had only just anticipated your next question. “I made it. Well, I made it with Friday’s supervision.”

“It’s fantastic! I can’t believe you went through all this trouble just for me.”

“Sweetheart, you are very much worth it- worth much more than this,” he responded casually, throwing in the term of endearment to see how you’d react. He caught the way it made you smile.

You continued to talk for a little while, and shared stories. You were worried that compared to his life on Asgard, he’d find your stories incredibly boring and mundane. It seemed to be the opposite. His attention was only on you and he held on to every word you said. He created this elaborate setting just to keep you the center of his attention.

“Should we dance?” He asks suddenly, a glimmer in his eye. You looked down apprehensively.

“I’m not really a dancer,” you tried to insist.

“Do you actually not want to dance, darling? Because if so, I will not bring it up again,” he says earnestly, “But, if you’re saying no because you’re afraid I’m going to judge you, I honestly can promise you I would never dream of doing so.”

You give it another moment to ponder over his words. You were taken aback at how well he seemed to know how you were thinking. You let out a sigh of defeat, and smile. “I’d love to,” you reply.

He stands up and offers you his hand. His smile is enough to make you weak at the knees. You take his hand and he leads you over to the dancefloor as the band starts playing its next song. “Does that singer sound like Elvis?” You ask, the small glitch in the illusion throwing you off for only a moment.

“I don’t know who that is,” Loki says with a laugh. He pulls you in close and rests one hand on the small of your back and the other grasps your hand close. You wrap your other arm around his shoulder. You are both pressed up incredibly close to one another. You rest your head on his chest comfortably, and you can’t see how much the action makes his whole face go red. Guiding your movements together, it mostly just swaying in place. The steps were small, and with the music playing for the two of you.

“This place is incredible,” you sigh happily looking up at him. “But I think I liked the first place a little better.”

He nodded in agreement and you got to watch a green hue encompass the walls of the restaurant as they almost melted away, and everything around the two of you just fade away. The sconces on the walls, revealed themselves to be the candles that cluttered the living room and the couples evaporated with the green mist. The table you had both sat at, turned back to the coffee table but the empty plates remained. The elaborate statues that surrounded the room turned into the furniture you knew well, and then the live band faded away to reveal Steve’s record player indeed playing a 45 of Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley.

When the room finished revealing its true appearance to you, you laid your head back on Loki’s chest and mumbled that now it was perfect. He smiled to himself, thinking about how without a doubt in his mind, Valentine’s Day is his absolute favorite holiday on Midgard. He now couldn’t believe this reality was real. If he wasn’t holding you, he’d pinch himself. You were here, with him, in his arms, dancing in the middle of the living room on this godforsaken planet.

“(y/n)?” he whispered softly as the song was coming to an end.

“Mhmm?” You responded, your eyes closed, really just basking in the feeling of being so close to him and the smell of his cologne.

“Will be mine?” He asks carefully, remembering the phrase from Captain Roger’s advice. That phrase apparently being very important if today went well and he wanted to ask you to “go steady.” You chuckled softly, hearing Steve’s influence in the phrase.

“I would love to,” you say with a shy smile looking back up to him. He beams, incredibly happy you said yes. Swept up in his emotions, he swiftly leans down and presses his lips to yours capturing them in a passionate first kiss.

“Oh gross!” You hear someone exclaim, making you both pull away. It’s Tony- who was currently holding his side in pain as Pepper elbowed him in the side.

“You really had to do that?” she chastised him, rolling her eyes and giving an apologetic look to you and Loki before pushing Tony down the hallway to give you both your moment back, as sullied as it had become thanks to Tony.

“I’m so sorry,” she said embarrassed by his outburst, ushering him out as quickly as possible.

Loki turns his head back to you, immediately after they are out of view. “Where were we, darling?” He smirks, pulling you in for another kiss.

#loki laufeyson #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x y/n #valentines day imagine #marvel imagine #mcu loki #loki imagine #loki fluff #fluff imagine #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddelston imagine #tom hiddleston x y/n

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st-louis · 4 years ago

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okay i think it was you that said you didnt like erin manning and. anyways mini rant/question OKAY so she said that suzuki is thriving under a team that trusts him (true enough) and kk is gonna have that one day but the team wont be the habs. im a big kk girl so going into his rfa year im very scared and was just wondering if you thought that he might not want to play here because of ducharme/other reasons. sorry if this is stupid lol

yes i don’t like her at all haha.

okay there are two things that m*nning is banging on about here:

kk not wanting to stay with the habs

whether the team would trade him

with regard to the first, kk’s rfa year doesn’t really mean anything. the whole point of a restricted free agent is that the team retains their rights until unrestricted free agency (which is age 27 or seven seasons played, whichever comes first so in kk’s case it’s probably gonna be seven seasons). but for the meantime, he is still the habs’ to sign unless someone gives him a qualifying offer. and tbh considering his point production recently (not that i think he’s been playing badly or that this is mostly his fault) AND the flat cap, i don’t think another team would do that. when it comes to his options as a ufa i guess that’s an entirely different story, but given the way he talks about the team and his teammates and the fact that he’s like learning french and seems to genuinely enjoy montreal who knows. the point is he doesn’t have a lot of options as an rfa and a LOT can happen in four seasons.

whether the team would get rid of him. this is where my dislike of m*nning comes into play because like. my dudes. she has been watching hockey for maybe a year? and as a person who loves to write and also loves hockey, i can understand the fondness for Narrative. however, the narratives she picks are honestly kind of bizarre and not entirely founded in reality. she has constructed this whole victim story for kk where the team hates him and the front office doesn’t value him and the coaching staff is purposely sabotaging his development.

like does dom’s deployment puzzle me? yes. does it make me scratch my head when he plays an injured eric staal over kk? yes. does it make sense to me that nick is getting double shifted and playing 22 min while kk plays 9? i guess you could say that they wanted to win that game and clinch, but do you need to exhaust one of your top players when the player you’re benching isn’t playing badly badly? idk. but like... this is where the coaching staff does sometimes know stuff we don’t. dom’s said stuff about both kk and romanov to the effect that sometimes giving a kid who’s struggling more will make him regress more. so like whether you agree with that or not, the point is that the coaching staff is clearly working with him and doing what they think is gonna be best for him at this point in time.

whether the front office values him? i think they clearly do. everyone was shocked when kk was picked third. he played his way into the lineup in his first camp. there’s definitely an argument to be made that he should have spent another couple of years either in finland or in the ahl to get stronger and more confident, but they didn’t do that. what’s done is done. still, he is a third overall pick, he is a center, and he is only twenty. i think if he’s still struggling this much next year, in a normal season, there might be some cause for concern, but right now i think a lot of his rotating carousel of linemates is solely due to this weird season, injury, and the fact that the team doesn’t have time to practice and dom is desperately trying to find anything that works. i think that’s the same reason eric staal was bought in. as insurance, because we saw what happened in that one game where phil hurt his wrist. the other centers struggled. and as i will point out to you, our organizational center depth......... is not fantastic, which is another reason why i don’t think kk is going to be traded anywhere.

so at the nhl level right now, you have, other than kk:

phil danault - our shutdown center, arguably the 1c when healthy, defensive metrics darling but not lighting up the scoreboard anytime soon. i really hope we re-sign him because i think what he provides to the team right now is incredibly valuable both on the ice and off, but who knows. we won’t until the offseason i think.

nick suzuki - arguably the 1c for stretches even when danault is healthy, although he’s played up and down the lineup this year. i think he is our future 1c without a doubt, although depending on whether kk gets his confidence back i’d be very happy considering them both a 1a/1b situation. he’s not going anywhere.

eric staal - hoping that his numbers this year have been due to injury because yikes. (sorry isbah.) i don’t think he will be back next year.

jake evans - he’s fantastic and i love him. i think depending on how the roster shakes out he could either be a 3c or a 4c. he’s a hard tryer and hard worker and he’s fast! he’s so fast. who knew! i think he has a long future with the habs and i’m very happy about it.

at the ahl level right now, you have, in alphabetical order:

joseph blandisi - he’s 26 years old. he’s one of the rocket’s best centers, but if he hasn’t cracked an nhl lineup at this point, you can’t really expect him to. he could fill in for a callup in case of injury but he’s not gonna be one of your regular lineup guys.

laurent dauphin - same as above, even down to being 26 years old.

liam hawel - never signed by the team that drafted him in 2017. he’s only 22, but he’s on an ahl-only contract for a reason. he’s not going to be knocking down any doors, but look what happened to jake evans. (i still don’t think he’s really a threat).

cam hillis - only 20; eotp considered him their 19/25 player/prospect under 25 in the organization so...... like, he’s okay. not great, especially with small spaces, positioning, and awareness. probably career ahl.

jan myšák - also a pretty young guy. eotp had him 18/25. he’s intelligent, but not as much of a playmaker, and his skating is an issue. i think he was a pleasant surprise in the ahl this year, with a few years of development, i think he could crack an nhl roster. but i don’t think it’s necessarily going to be in the top six.

ryan poehling - i definitely think that before his wrist injury, he was gonna make the roster next season. he’s been amazing in laval this year after many wrote him off as a bust. i think his ceiling is probably a 3c. we’ll see how his shot is after surgery (this legit worries me considering what happened to jo). but he’s probably the “best” center on this list right now except jordan weal.

lukas vejdemo - he’s 25. eotp had him 17/25, but considering his age, what you see is basically what you get with him. he’s a defensive-minded center who’s not gonna throw up huge numbers. he’s been a 3rd/4th liner a lot in laval this year. probably not gonna be super impactful in the nhl if he makes it back on the roster again.

jordan weal - ah, jordan. :( he’s 29, he’s a 4th liner when he’s in the nhl and he’s too good for the ahl. i love him as a personality and an incredibly hard worker and good mentor for the younger guys, and i’m really sad he’s probably gonna be in the khl next year.

so in this list, it’s...... not that great. you have one guy who’s definitely nhl-ready depending on his health. you have one guy who IS a proven nhl’er, but can’t crack the lineup anymore and is probably signing elsewhere next year. you have a few guys who could crack the roster but probably are middle/bottom six at best.

and then you have kk, who has already played three seasons in the nhl, has a high ceiling and the pedigree of being a 3OA. so no i don’t think the habs are looking to trade him, especially given that almost all of the other centers on this list are older than he is. center i think is a lot harder than wing, and there are gonna be bumps and setbacks, i think the organization understands that. kk is only 20 and far from a bust.

also regarding his play, i do think that getting shuffled around a lot probably has had an affect, but given the nature of the season i don’t think there were a whole lot of other options. for example when he was moved to wing with danault and tatar, it was because they trusted him to take that position on the top line. i think he’s probably suffering from low confidence right now, but i think that’s more because he can’t score. nick even said it at a press conference. he’s just gotta get one, and then it will start to put itself back together. kk is a hard worker and a competitive person, and he rose to the occasion in the playoffs last year after a rough year and i have confidence he can do it again.

but please keep in mind that m*nning is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. she doesn’t understand how injuries impact the lineup, she cherry picks the stats she uses to make her points, and she completely ignores dissenting opinions even when they show their work because HER favorite is being ~treated badly~. which like, i understand the urge to be defensive. but if you actually look at the rosters, the history, and the facts, it’s very unlikely that kk is going anywhere anytime soon.

#Anonymous #questions #ari's opinions on hockey

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starlady38 · 4 years ago

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The Clone War has ended. The civil war is about to begin

The Bad Batch episode 1 thoughts under the cut

I’m not surprised they retconned the Kanan comics. Frankly I didn’t like the art on the Kanan comics and there is stuff in them that contradicts canon as it was at the time and still is, so whatever.

I thought they did a good job with Depa actually. I don’t know why they changed her lightsaber color but I thought they did a good job triangulating between middle aged tired chill movie Depa and bizarrely young personality transplant fierce comics Depa. And I’m pro Archie Panjabi.

I wasn’t in Rebels fandom as the show was airing and I had honestly never thought that Kanan wasn’t white. I feel like if LFL had thought of him as non-white they would have been touting it for diversity points in promo, etc? They certainly did that with Sabine. But obviously his skin tone is a lot lighter than it was, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t white before and now is. (Whiteness is a social construct and he’s well within the range of southern Mediterranean skintones in Rebels. Also everyone in Rebels is pretty tan.)

Which is not to say that I think people objecting to this are wrong, or wrong to do so! Merely to offer one small anecdata point from my own experience, such as it is. In the absence of any actual statement from canon about this, we only have the evidence of the shows to go on, and there is unequivocally a lot of change in the skintones across the board.

I genuinely think part of it is that the lighting algorithms have gotten a lot better and the animators are drunk on power.

But also definitely the Bad Batch have lighter skintones than they used to and these characters are definitely based on a dude who is Maori, that is all demonstrably true and they need to stop.

Echo is a different case, he is definitely in the “cyborg = fish belly pale” range of canon characters that includes Darth Vader, he is even described the same way Vader is in this episode (”more machine than man”).

There was supposed to be another Bad Batch arc in the original eight season plan and honestly they should have made that in new S7 too, as it stands we are not emotionally attached to these characters such that they can now stand in for all the clone characters we loved who have now had their personalities flattened by Order 66. It is a very clear synecdochic switcheroo! And I just don’t think it works.

The Batch did honestly seem slightly less abrasive in the new S7 arc than in the old story reels version and I guess this is why, but it needed to go a lot further.

I like Omega. It’s interesting to me that she has the thickest Antipodes (specifically Kiwi) accent in the franchise. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be because she’s never left Kamino or what. And if her having blonde hair is just generic special character stuff or specifically part of a mutation. She should also be darker skinned of course, though as it stands I think she’s darker than the Batch? It’s hard to tell.

We know from Mando that the Imperials were trying to create Force-users by the end, and I suspect that she may be an early attempt at that by the Kaminoans. Or a lucky mistake, like the rest of the Batch.

I feel like there’s not very many places this story can end up eventually, but I’m interested to see where it goes in the interim.

If anyone would move into the jungle on a week’s notice it would be Saw Gerrera, that totally checks out. See the title of this post.

#star wars #the bad batch

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fandomrewrites · 4 years ago

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Season 2; Episode 7: Restraint

Hello all! As you can see in the pairings, this is the first episode where (Y/N) is going to have some romance after Nate. I want to keep it a secret until you read the chapter which is why I don’t include the name in the pairings. Also I’ll probably never write hardcore smut just because I don’t think I’ll be good at it, but please give me any tips you may have about writing smut/mild smut. I’m not really sure if I did a good job or not so any feedback will be extremely helpful! As always constructive criticism is appreciated! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.

Season 2; Episode 7: Restraint

Pairings: Scott McCall x Twin Sister, Lydia Martin x Best Friend, ?? x Reader

Warnings: very mild smut (more like making out)

Word Count: 2,041

Season 2 Masterlist

Lydia brought me home after she finished translating the Kanima pages for us. The minute I was in the house I texted Allison to see if she talked to the boys yet. She hadn’t. Instead she was waiting for me so we could call them together.

I couldn’t stay at her house because Lydia would have gotten suspicious and I don’t need Lydia to think I’m choosing someone else over her. Allison called me and then I called Stiles, making a three way call.

“If Jackson doesn’t know what he’s doing then he probably doesn’t know someone’s controlling him.” Allison says.

“Or doesn’t remember.” Scott adds.

“What if it’s the same kind of thing that happened to Lydia when she took off from the hospital?” Stiles asks.

“A fugue state.” I say.

“He’d have to forget everything. The murder, coming home...” Scott trails off in thought.

There is a brief moment of silence, then Allison continues, “Getting rid of the blood.”

“But he had help with one thing. The video. Someone else helped him forget that.” Stiles pipes in.

“Probably whoever’s controlling him. I whisper, biting my lip in thought.

“Are you sure Jackson has no clue about any of this?” Allison questions.

“He thinks he’s still becoming a werewolf and that being with Lydia somehow delayed the whole thing.” Stiles states.

“So we try to convince him he’s not?”

“If it helps us figure out who’s controlling him, then yeah.” Scott says.

“You think he’ll talk to us after what we did?” Allison asks.

I scoff as Stiles answers, “Yeah. Totally. Right?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, it’s Jackson we’re talking about after all.” I say before hanging up.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Before first period Allison, Scott, Stiles and I go to the library. The two boys and I make sure we arrive before Allison and meet in a secluded section, where the security cameras cannot see us.

Allison and I stand in one aisle while Scott and Stiles stand in the one beside us. Allison opens her bag and pulls out a tablet, placing it on the shelf between us.

“It’s everything Lydia could translate. And trust us, she was very confused.” Allison says as I nod in agreement.

“What did you tell her?” Scott asks.

“That we’re part of an online gaming community that battles mythical creatures.”

“I am part of an online gaming community that battles mythical creatures.” Stiles says.

I immediately cover my mouth with my hand to hide the smile threatening to appear.

“Does it say how to find out who’s controlling him?” Scott asks.

“Not really. But Stiles was right about murderers. It calls the Kanima a weapon of vengeance. There’s a story in there about a South American priest who used the Kanima to execute murderers in the village-” I don’t get the chance to finish my sentence.

“So maybe it’s not all bad.” Stiles cuts me off.

Allison and I share a look before I continue, “Until the bond grew strong enough that it killed whoever he wanted it to.”

“All bad. All very bad.”

“Here’s the thing, though. The Kanima’s actually supposed to be a werewolf. But it can’t be until...” Allison pauses as a teacher passes by us.

Scott starts reading from the tablet, “Until it resolves that in its past which manifested it.”

“If it means Jackson could use a few thousand hours of therapy, I could’ve told you that myself.” Stiles says.

“What if it has to do with his parents? His real parents.” Allison asks.

“Does anybody actually know what happened to them? (Y/N)?”

I shake my head, “I’m pretty sure they died when he was still a baby, but I honestly don’t know. Jackson isn’t really someone who openly has heart-to-hearts with his friends. Lydia may know, though.”

“What if she doesn’t know anything?”

“Well,” Allison sighs, “He didn’t get a restraining order against me. So I’ll try talking to him myself.”

“What do I do?” Scott questions.

“You’ve got a make-up exam, remember? For a few hours you need to concentrate on not failing out of high school. Otherwise, you’re not going to be helping anyone.”

Scott looks at Stiles and I. We both nod backing Allison up. “Promise me.” She speaks once more.

Allison reaches a hand between the books, taking his. “Okay. But if Jackson does anything, you run the other way.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“If you get hurt while I’m busy with a stupid test, someone’s going to need to take care of me. If he does anything...” Scott trails off.

“LIke?” Allison prompts.

“Anything weird, bizarre, anything.”

Stiles then pops his head through the shelf, “Anything evil.”

Allison nods then pushes his face back as I shake my head and mumble, “Dork.”

*_*_*_*_*_*

I run a hand through my hair as I lean against the wall to take off my heels for a minute. I sigh and walk down the empty hall. Just as I turn the corner I nearly crash into someone. “You scared the hell out of me.” The person exclaims.

I let out a breath as I looked up at Matt, “I could say the same to you.”

“Nice heels.”

I look down at the black heels in my hand, “Oh. They’re new and bothering my feet.”

I bend back down to pull my heels on once more, “Same reason I never wear mine.” Matt jokes.

I lightly chuckle, “Funny.”

He opens his mouth to say something then pauses. I raise an eyebrow, “Yes?”

He takes a breath, like he’s trying to get the nerves to talk to me, “Did you hear about the underground show? I guess they’ve got some big name spinning.”

“You mean like a rave?”

“Is it still a rave if you don’t roll? I just call it a concert. I’ve got a hook-up for tickets if you’re down. Should I grab you one?”

“Uh... Like a date?”

“I mean, only if you want it to be one.”

I awkwardly smile, “I’m not really sure if I’m ready to start dating again.”

“That’s fine. It can be two friends hanging out then.”

I bite my lip, “Yeah. Sure.” I agree hesitantly.

“All right, cool. It’s Friday.”

“Looking forward to it.” I watch as he walks off down the hall.

*_*_*_*_*_*

At the end of the school day I find Stiles, “I can’t bring you home unless you want to wait for detention to get out.”

I gape at him, “What did you do now?”

“Why do you think I did something?” I raise an eyebrow, “It was Scott and Jackson who got into a fight. Harris just threw everyone that was around them in detention too.”

“Who else?”

“Erica, Allison, and Matt.”

I scrunch up my face, “Have fun in detention. I’ll figure out another way to get home.”

***

After getting a ride home from Lydia, who still hasn’t told me about what she wanted to talk to Allison and I about, I sit on my bed doing some homework and contemplating who could be controlling the Kanima. So far I have nobody on the mental list. So clearly I’m doing great.

My ears strain as I hear a noise downstairs. I slowly slide my notebook off my lap, placing it on my nightstand. I then quickly grab the metal baseball bat from underneath my bed. I grip it tightly in my hands as I move quietly down the stairs, my eyes rapidly moving to take in every inch of the room in front of me.

I hear a sound from my left and swing with all my strength.

“God, (Y/N). You have a damn powerful swing for someone so tiny.” The person says.

“What the hell are you doing in my house?” I look on in shock as Isaac grips the bat, stopping it just inches from his face.

“Maybe I was hoping to catch you in the shower.” He smirks.

I scoff, “You’re disgusting. Seriously what are you doing here?” I gently place the metal bat at our feet.

“I was going to talk to you at school but you were too busy getting asked on a date.”

I roll my eyes, “It’s not a date. I don’t like Matt like that.”

“Does he know that?”

“I told him I wasn’t ready to start dating again.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t like him. And trust me, he likes you a lot.”

“Why does this concern you? Oh wait, it doesn’t.” I respond.

“Maybe it concerns me because I like you?” He says it as more of a question.

I narrow my eyes at him, “Are you asking or telling me?”

He smirks but stays quiet. I suddenly realize just how close the two of us are. His smirk widens, probably because he can hear just how fast my heart is beating at the revelation. “I really want to kiss you right now.” He mumbles.

Before I can stop myself I whisper, “Then what’s stopping you?” In an instant his lips cover mine, one of his hands are on my waist while the other is tangled in my hair. Both of my hands are tightly gripping onto his shirt trying to bring our bodies closer together.

I release the death grip I have on his shirt to instead lightly pull on his curly hair. He brings both of his hands to my butt muttering a ‘jump’ through the kiss. I do as he says then quickly pull away for breath. “My room,” I gasp out. He nods then starts to climb the steps as I lightly suck and nibble on his neck.

Isaac kicks my door shut as he lets out a low growl. He gently lays me on my bed and rips his shirt off, climbing on top of me. Our lips attach once more, his hands roughly grabbing at my hips, pushing my shirt up. We quickly break apart only to pull my shirt off then reattach our lips for a third time.

I break the kiss again so I can catch my breath, Isaac uses this moment to stat kissing my chest. Instinctively I push my chest closer to him as I moan out his name, “Isaac.” My hands grip his shoulders and legs wrap around his waist.

He places sloppy kisses on my chest and neck as my hands start to wander down to his jeans. I start to unbutton his pants but he stops me, pulling away. “What’s wro-” I cut myself off as his breathing becomes heavier and his claws start to grow from his fingertips. He quickly backs away from me and closes his hand into a tight fist.

“Isaac...” I tentatively whisper, slightly nervous that he won’t be able to regain control.

I sit up as he answers, “I’m alright.” He turns back around and opens his hands. His claws are now replaced by fingernails. “Maybe we shouldn’t try that again until I have control.”

I nod in agreement. Then quirk an eyebrow, “So you think we’re going to try that again?”

All he does is reaches down and tosses me my shirt with a small smile on his face. “Thanks,” I mumble as we fix ourselves. “I’m guessing that wasn’t the original reason why you came here?”

He looks at me and hesitates to answer, “No. Derek thinks you know who the Kanima is.”

“Derek’s a smart guy. I’m sure he can put it together.” I stand up and cross my arms as I answer.

“That’s all I’m going to get?” Isaac raises an eyebrow.

I nod, “And you won’t be telling anyone what happened between us if you want it to happen again. I don’t need my brother freaking out about me sleeping with a werewolf.”

Isaac smirks, “Are you sure you’re not concerned about what your date might think? Also, you think we’re going to try that again?”

I roll my eyes and flip him off but can’t stop the smile that falls onto my lips, “I already told you, it’s not a date. And about this,” I gesture between us, “You’re hot. So I personally don’t mind doing this again. Now get out of my house.”

#teen wolf imagine #series rewrite #sister mccall imagine #lydia martin imagine

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reynesofcastamere · 5 years ago

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Thrown Gauntlet[Ω]

(A/N: Sooooo....I’ve decided to start another series of fics that I will be marking with [Ω] in the titles: To disinguish them from both the main series (which I am still working on) and the [β] drabbles (which are all over the place in terms of timeline, setting, universe, etc.). Essentially a very self-indulgent AU where Savage, Maul, and Feral all get adopted by Clan Wren. This installment takes place in 20 BBY, so Ahsoka is around 16 and Maul is about 34. However. I want to state outright that the dynamic is intended to be a verrrrry slow build and that nothing romantic and/or sexual will be occurring between Maul and Ahsoka until MUCH later. If what I’ve described does not sound like your personal cup of tea, then by all means, feel free to give this fic and/or series a pass. This is getting a bit long, so to sum up: No trigger warnings, Obi-Wan is an Incurable Flirt, Rex is Flustered, and Maul is about 100% Done With Everyone’s Nonsense. Unbeta’d) The Jedi Temple is buzzing. Not literally, of course, but Ahsoka can feel a strange vibration in the Force. Excitement, or maybe irritation? There’s definitely quite a bit more whispering amongst her fellow Jedi and the clone troopers she passes on her path to the east hangar. Master Anakin had told her to pack for a long trip, which she can only assume means they’ve been assigned another mission and he’s withholding the details so as to ‘surprise’ her appropriately. Typical Skyguy.

She spots Rex near the door, sans helmet. “Good morning, Captain.” A proper salute, quickly returned, though her tone is light. “Morning, Commander. And-er, yes, it certainly is.” He actually seems to be fidgeting a bit, and his face- “Rex, are you...blushing?” “N-no. No. Just-ah...Finished up my workout routine. Took more out of me than I expected. You know how it is; One day you’re all shiny-new and the next you feel older than General Yoda.” “Reeeeexxxx....Come on, whatever it is can’t be that bad.”

“The Clawbirds arrived about an hour ago. Captain Wren’s refusing to do much of anything until he finishes repairs on General Skywalker’s ship.” Rex caves, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Master Anakin can’t be too happy about that.” Ahsoka observes, knowing just how...particular he is about his personal projects. “Should I be worried?” “Er...maybe? It’s kind of a toss-up. Depends on whether M-” He begins, before a subtler voice cuts in. “Captain, there you are. I was hoping to speak to you.” The speaker is a male Zabrak with soft golden-yellow eyes and skin, the latter of which is liberally patterned in brown markings. Unusual enough, but he’s also clad in full Mandalorian armor, helmet tucked under one arm and carrying what looks like field medic gear along with the standard jetpack and arsenal of weapons. And he’s glowing; a defined Force signature radiating Light and positive energy like a solar lamp. How-? “Medic Sergeant Wren. They are still getting along, right?” “Oh yes. He’s in a much better mood than last time. Apologies, am I interrupting?” “Thank the Maker. And no, um. Commander Tano, this is Medic Sergeant Feral Wren.” Rex looks like he’s in danger of heatstroke with how red he’s gotten. It’s not hard to see why, especially when Feral gives a smile that could melt half the ice on Bahryn. Rather than salute her, he stretches his right hand out so that they can clasp forearms briefly, a greeting from one warrior to another. “It’s a pleasure, Medic Sergeant.” She smiles back. Ahsoka can’t help it. He’s just...She’s fighting the urge to hug him like some kind of stuffed animal toy. Which is bizarre and will most definitely not be happening anytime soon. “Tano...Oh, you must be ‘Snips’. It’s almost a shame Savage volunteered to help the younglings train, we’ve both wanted to meet you for some time now.” Wait, what? “Tranyc’vod [Sunny(star-burned) brother] Anakin hasn’t been able to call as often, but he’s very proud of your accomplishments.” Feral remarks, genuinely pleased even as her head spins with the implications. Her Master has a lot of explaining to do. “Speaking of which, I’d better not keep him waiting much longer. I look forward to talking to you again, though. See you later, Captain. Maybe you should ask the Medic Sergeant about those stamina issues you’re having?” She can’t resist ribbing Rex as she departs, watching him splutter as Feral, like any good medic, starts making inquiries about his ‘condition’ while looking him over. And placing a hand on his chestplate, apparently. Huh. Maybe her friend’s obvious crush isn’t quite as one-sided as she’d thought. Ahsoka navigates her way through the semi-organized rows of ships. Even if Anakin’s presence in the Force wasn’t abnormally strong, she doesn’t need to focus to find him. Not when he’s talking loud enough to be heard across half the hangar. “-last time, it’s fine! You’re just being paranoid, as usual.” “Every ship I have been forced to borrow from you has either crashed, suffered a critical malfunction, or was confined to the scrap heap mere hours after landing. No one is setting a foot on this poorly-constructed death trap until I am absolutely certain it won’t spontaneously combust mid-flight.” And that must be Captain Wren. He sounds...irritated, to say the least.

“My ships run perfectly, thanks. Must hurt that Mando pride, knowing a Jedi is a better pilot and mechanic than you, Captain.” She’s not quite within visual range yet, but she knows her Master is smirking. “How sad that as a Jedi, you cannot recognize your own failings, General. Perhaps you should conduct a survey of your ‘victims’ instead of this poor attempt at distraction. Mir’osik adiik be’kyorla hut’uun![Dung for brains child of (a) rotten coward!]-” “Ouch. What, did one of your horns get caught in the hydraulics?” “Hilarious. Make yourself useful by grabbing a towel, or something from Kenobi’s closet. I’m coming out.” “Ah, Captain Wren. I thought the general ambience had improved. What were you saying about my clothing?” She hadn’t been aware of Master Kenobi’s presence before this. Either he’d used a secondary entrance or had been waiting for his chance to join the exchange while the captain was busy. “Kenobi.”

“Oh come now, surely you can muster a more polite greeting than that. You’ve been away so long I’ve had to listen to recordings just to remember the sound of your lovely voice.” “Perhaps I will address you with respect when you learn to stop leering at me, besom [ill-mannered lout].” “Busted. Again.” “You’re not helping, Anakin.” Ahsoka rounds a corner and-Oh. Wow. How far down do those-? She blinks a few times, just to be sure of what she’s seeing. Yep, there is a very shirtless Zabrak with the kind of muscle definition that would make scores of artists weep standing with his back to her and wiping his face off with a towel. She desperately hopes that her jaw is not hanging open as he turns his head to survey her with one vibrant yellow tourmaline eye. She honestly doesn’t know if she wants to draw closer or back away in that moment. His presence in the Force is not a benevolent, harmless light, but rather a controlled fire that sparks and issues dark threads of smoke. This...Ahsoka doesn’t understand what is going on, and it’s starting to make her uncomfortable. “The spy finally shows herself.” He remarks, assessing and dismissing her as a non-threat within the span of a few seconds, continuing to wipe off whatever type of mess had been spattered on him. “Don’t mind him, Snips. Someone shoved a shock baton up his ass years ago and the medics never found a way to pull it out. Tragic, really.” Anakin Skywalker grins, arms loosely folded across his chest and leaning against the outside of his ship. “Ahsoka, this is Maul. We’ll be working with him and his people for the forseeable future.” It clicks suddenly where she’s heard both his name and that of his group before: Captain Maul of Clan Wren and his company are the only Mandalorian supercommandos who will actually work with the Jedi Council. At least, when they’re not busy with bodyguard or mercenary jobs. Part of that involves what is referred to -with some awe and a lot of fear- as ‘running the gauntlet’, a mandatory training course for any Padawans or Knights posted to or intending to spend a considerable amount of time in the barely-civilized regions of space. It’s been suspended since the war started in earnest, but if they’re going to be sticking around for a while...Well, the implications are pretty serious. And Ahsoka has somehow managed to ogle one of the most infamous hardasses this side of the Mid Rim. Fantastic. Really. Maul disposes of the stained towel and turns to face her properly, Ahsoka’s gaze staying determinedly on his face as they grip each other’s right forearms. He doesn’t pull back after a few seconds as Feral had, hand locking in place as he seems to peer into her soul. “I will say this once. We are not like our evaar’la vod’e[young brothers]. We are not subservient to you, and I do not accept excuses or blatant disrespect.” A pause and a slight increase in pressure, just below the threshold of inflicting pain. “Are you ready, Ahsoka Tano?” “Yes, Captain.” She answers with a certainty that she can feel in her very bones, and is rewarded with the hint of a wry smile when he lets go. Well that’s...something. Master Kenobi clears his throat pointedly. Right. Mission briefing first. Sort out her feelings later. Still, she can’t help but look forward to whatever comes next. (A/N: *cracks knuckles* Well, that’s the first installment. A little vague on the details, but I’m hoping to elaborate on what’s been hinted at here relatively soon. The name of the supercommando company comes from the Legends novel Maul:Lockdown by Joe Schreiber. And yes, for fellow Rebels fans who are reading this thing: In this AU, Sabine and Tristan get three badass Zabrak-hybrid uncles and a fair amount of adopted cousins. (Which is entirely Savage’s doing.) I do believe that Anakin is a gifted mechanic, but also couldn’t resist the running joke of ‘Skywalker’s ships/anything he tinkers with only work for him and Artoo’. Cheers!)

#maulsoka #eventually #tbh this one is pretty gen aside from minor feral/rex and obi-wan failing his seduction roll #for like the hundredth time

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blurhawaii · 4 years ago

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yuletide 2020

dear yuletide writer,

hello and happy yuletide! i’m pretty sure my letters get longer and longer every year and yet i’m still terrible at putting what i like into words. just know that the prompts are just suggestions--if you’ve got something else in mind, go for it. and sorry this is so disjointed.

likes:

dysfunctional relationships eg. codependency, messed up father/son dynamics, enemies to lovers, power imbalances.

vulnerability in men, uncertain intimacy.

UST, slow burn, first times.

magical realism/cosmic horror. weird hints of it in an otherwise normal universe.

redemption arcs.

found family.

big loyalty kink. love it when trust is earned and kept.

praise kink.

open and honest communication between partners.

polyamory. it’s the journey of them getting together and making it work that interests me the most. or how a couple goes about bringing in a third person.

stories set in canon. or a divergence of canon. fix-it fics.

dark/bleak fics. don’t be afraid to drag characters through the mud. happy endings are welcome but i like the struggle.

i’m fine with anything from gen to porn but would be happiest with something in the middle.

canon typical violence is fine and to be expected from some of my choices.

characters and their relationships are more important than plot for me.

dislikes:

AUs that are completely disconnected from canon e.g. high school, coffee shop AUs.

established relationships

crossovers

genderbending

feminisation of male characters

fics that are entirely fluff

A/B/O fics

PWP

mpreg

first person fics (i have no problem with second person fics tho if you think that could work.)

The Departed (2006) *Billy Costigan *Sean Dignam

one of my favourite films ever. i request it every year so you can't really go wrong with this as i'm just thirsty for anything.

most of my love is for dignam and his tough love attitude towards his job and the undercovers he's responsible for. i am endlessly endeared by his wild card quality, expletive fueled speech and hair trigger temperament. the father/son relationship with queenan that’s contrasted against billy’s father/son relationship with queenan. his complete disregard for everyone else in that office, especially sullivan. and how despite all of that, it's obvious that he cares. i don't think you could do a job like that and not care, and it’s those few and rare moments where we see him soften around billy --we need you, pal-- that's what i would like to see more of. that juxtaposition of good cop/bad cop coming from the same guy. shipping fic is preferred but whatever you are comfortable with is fine. due to the nature of the film i am perfectly comfortable with violence and the screwed up relationship they are bound to have. the friction born of the situation vs the fact that they need each other to get through this is what i am all about.

things that really get me with these two: codependency, power imbalances, the enemies to lovers trope, vulnerability, the whole constructing intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men thing they have going on, as seen in the gif above.

fics where billy survives are my usual go-to. i'd love something that explores the angst of billy's ‘where the hell were you when i needed you’ reaction towards dignam following queenan’s death all the way up to the ending, and beyond that assuming billy lives.

i’ve spent far too much time thinking about the line --why don’t we just meet up, sweetheart, let me buy you an ice cream. the jokey seriousness of it just kills me. if you can somehow write that happening in a believable, in character fic you would earn my eternal respect. whether that’s a clandestine meeting during billy’s undercover period or some kind of post-film scenario where dignam makes good on his promises, i have no idea.

daemon au - very curious how this would impact going undercover. daemons expressing feelings that the characters otherwise can’t. the intimacy of touching/comforting each other’s daemons.

soulmate au - either having their names on each other or their first words. this is admittedly a longshot but interests me for the same reason the daemon au does, because i’d love to see how this would work in a universe where you’re undercover.

time loop/groundhog day fic where things go better. or worse, i guess.

Godless (TV 2017)

*Roy Goode *Bill McNue *Alice Fletcher

i’m a massive fan of westerns. the harsh way of life, the violence, the isolation, drawn out revenge plots, the murkiness of good vs evil or sheriff vs anti-hero, the importance of honour and heroism and how that differs for men and women, especially in this universe and its town full of widows. having said all that, i’m still very much a sucker for cool cowboys in a shallow female way.

my favourite thing to do is turn every love triangle into an ot3. so i’d love a fic post canon where roy comes back once he realises his found family is just as important as his real family. i imagine bill would try to do the gentlemanly thing of bowing out and letting roy and alice be together but i’d love for alice to have the agency of choice, getting to have her cake and eating it too by choosing both roy and bill. however you jigsaw them together my main thing here is that i don’t want bill to get left out.

i feel the roy/bill aspect in particular could be explored a lot more. i love the earned mutual respect and how easily they move around each other during the gunfight at the end. (bill’s deteriorating eyesight side plot fascinates me, how it goes with his loss of purpose and comes back when teaming up with roy to defend the town.) the usual ideas of western masculinity get all twisted around when roy and bill are in the presence of alice and they both seem kind of subby towards her, which yes please. the way alice kisses the scar she gave roy and the fact that he simply lets her is *chef kiss*

i’m actually very okay with letting them be soft with each other after all of their tragedy.

honest communication between partners could work wonders here.

Locke (2013)

*Ivan Locke *Donal

i honestly think this film is an underappreciated masterpiece. a hour and a half long car ride that's totally compelling, and it's all down to tom hardy and his welsh accent that's not even welsh. of all the relationships broken down, strengthened, or tentatively started, it's the one between ivan and donal that interests me the most. you're given just enough background to know there is a history between these two. whether donal is his right hand man on the project or is just an assistant that effectively gets promoted because he's the only one still there willing to take ivan's call. either way, there's trust there, on top of the shared knowledge of donal's capacity to get drunk on the job --this has clearly been a problem before-- but ivan still trusts him enough to get his baby of a building built when he can't be there personally, and that fascinates me.

the film ends very much in a lurch and i can't bring myself to see the ending in a positive light. a baby with a woman he doesn't particular like is not a recipe for a fresh start and i honestly can't see ivan not following up on the progress of his building.

i have this image of ivan sleeping on donal's couch because his wife won't take him back, bethan realises she just wants the baby and not him, he's lost his job and he has nowhere else to go and so he's just backseat driving this buildings construction through donal’s position. you've got this man who's lost everything and an alcoholic just wallowing together, maybe clinging to the idea that with this buildings success, they can fix themselves.

i also ship it and if you manage to take it in that direction i would be totally into that too. i guess i'm just looking for something post film with these two.

i don't know anything about concrete farming tho so feel free to fudge that as much as you need to.

The Boys (TV 2019)

*Billy Butcher *Homelander

what i like about this show is that it’s dark, it’s violent and the relationships between the characters are about as fucked up and convoluted as you can get. i am specifically interested in the relationship between billy and homelander and how the power is constantly shifting. i’d love something that just takes into account every horrible reason why they want to kill each but also all the reasons why they haven’t. ship fic is more than welcome.

details that interest me the most:

all the bizarre family dynamics - their shared bad relationships with their fathers. loved the scene where billy learns about homelander’s childhood and how that tiny humanising moment might affect his view of the man. especially in season 2 where we see them both interacting with ryan. love the inverse of homelander trying to be a good dad and billy wanting absolutely nothing to do with the kid. i wish we could have seen more of the dynamic immediately following the cliffhanger at the end of season 1. what happened between that moment and billy waking up somewhere else. maybe some kind of bizarre hostage situation family in this small suburban home.

i am fascinated by the idea of having the buffer of both becca and ryan between them. not being able to kill each other at the end of season 1 because of the deal becca made, and then again at the end of season 2 with homelander not wanting to be seen as a villain in front of ryan. maybe billy doesn’t ship ryan off at the end of season 2. maybe he thinks he can keep him safest by raising him himself and you get this weird co-dadding situation where the kid is the only thing keeping them from killing each other.

the public cleaning of the slate post-season 2 with billy not being a wanted man any more and homelander having to appear as a united front with the seven. would love something with billy pushing things in public because homelander can’t do anything about it.

homelander’s desperation to be loved. the potential of obsessive one sided relationships.

thank you writer and best of luck.

#yuletide #yuletide 2020

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steve0discusses · 5 years ago

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Yugioh S4 E3: So Many Dragons in This One

Y’all so I’m like getting over a pretty nasty cold that’s pretty much wiped me clean like a hard reset and this episode coinciding with it is something else because this episode is essentially a fever dream start to finish.

First off:

If your mind didn’t immediately start playing ska-like alt rock and go through every lyric from “Escape From the City” then I can’t help you. Because that’s where my mind directly went and stayed for the entirety of this episode.

Back in the museum, Yugi learns about some more crypto-history.

Because Y’all, Yugioh just LOVES to screw with history. I mean we’ve already seen what they did to Seto Kaiba’s timeline, but get a load of what they’re about to do with world history.

(Arthur now has the USA gradient because I was at a loss of how else to describe Arthur. If Bandit Keith comes back then I’ll be mixing fonts, yet again.)

This was done mostly to recap the last 3 seasons, but also to drop in some brand new lore that came out of freakin nowhere.

Atlantis.

Yes, he said Atlantis.

(read more under the cut)

In the actual dialogue of the show, Tea mentions she read a single book about Atlantis once in her life, and then Joey and Tristan go “Tea, you nerd!” and it’s like wow the standards are low in this group. One single book, boys? That’s all it takes to be a nerd? When you have any of the KAIBAS right over there? One single book is the requirement?

Starting to think no one in this universe knows what a nerd is.

So the underwater cave dwelling from a few episodes back is none other than the Atlantis ruins. I feel like this should be a way bigger deal in terms of like all of history, since in this universe, Atlantis is time wise at the dawn of (checks wikipedia)...proto-writing...and yet they seem to really have their math and large construction science down.

The arch wasn’t really utilized (I hesitate to say “discovered” as it is an arch) until about 2000 BC or so. Good on the Atlanteans, I guess?

Don’t know why we’re getting so sidetracked by cards when a civilization 10000 years ago could make immense underwater 60 ft castles that don’t immediately collapse under the pressure, but this is the Yugioh universe and everyone’s card addiction runs strong and true.

It just seems funny to me that Hawkins, who devoted I want to say like 60 years of his life toward becoming a walking encyclopedia about Egypt, got super sidetracked and ended up 10000 leagues under the sea in Atlantis. He just threw all that Egypt work completely to the wind and basically changed his career at age I dunno 70 or so. Or maybe this guy is only 50 but he just seems super way old to me.

(And raising his granddaughter for some reason? Hell knows what happened to Rebecca’s parents, but knowing Yugioh, it will probably be really, really tragic.)

So then, although Atlantis is in our world and under the sea, Hawkins decides to throw another fast one on us.

(I just chose a random number, but Buzzfeed decided Washington was 34th. Which is wild.)

Bro took this moment to explain to me in great and excruciating detail that the Atlanteans in Aquaman did in fact invent tanks. Aquaman is his favorite. Ya, I know.

So I thought “ah, this is the Shadow Realm” (since we have seen Bakura just make a monster a real boy before) but then it became kind of unclear if the Shadow Realm is a different realm than this other realm which is just where the nice monsters live. So um...I’m still not sure about that one, I’ll get back to you when it’s made clear (I may never get back to you on that one)

Then Rebecca decides to drop this lore about the ghost that lives in Yugi Muto’s head that we’ve been *pretty Sure* up to this point was strictly Egyptian dealing with strictly Egyptian things.

I am not entirely sure how we’re going to take a guy who lived 5000 years ago and explain why he’s living now in AD 2002 Yugi Muto’s head because of some guy 10000 years ago. But they’re going to try.

Like I’ve heard this referred to as a filler season, because it uh did not happen in the Manga. So, legally, they can’t really touch the manga at all (and I assume they were probably waiting for the manga to finish at this point), and so we’re just gonna...pull Atlantis out of nowhere because the nice thing about Atlantis is that it is so freakin old that it is well outside of copyright. Completely fair use. But it’s still kinda wild.

Also, Yugi made sure to off-handedly tell us that most of the monsters who’ve invaded their world have been very, very, nice, and that’s why everyone has been so chill.

I mean. OK?

You still have literal dragons flying around but apparently only some of the dragons are mean and attack, the rest just chill and float around like a fish or something. Personally, I wouldn’t be thrilled by this.

Hawkins notices Yugi’s enchanted dead guy necklace, and without asking “so...does this belong to a dead guy? Did you get this from the dead guy’s corpse? Yugi? Yugi, look at me. Yugi, young man, is this another dead guy necklace you’ve been carrying around in your pocket because I feel like I see a problem here, buster.”

Hawkins suggests, instead:

Oh OK...that’s a lot to take in.

Didn’t expect giant possessed lady statues but it’s a nice spooky touch. Can’t have enough giant possessed lady statues in your anime, honestly.

Also, I’m really glad they gave this skinny lady statue a double chin.

And after all that, Hawkins decides he’s done with his one single afternoon in Japan, and he’s going to go and travel 16 hours back to the US stuck in a plane within hearing distance of Rebecca. Worth that 32 hour round trip for that one afternoon in Japan (or actually one way is 4 hours longer than the other way or something? I forget the details.)

And like the show had him blush and then Tea got mad, but like Yugi also blushed when Mai gave him a note once that said “thanks for the help!” so I feel like Yugi just shuts down completely whenever he has to deal with girls.

Maybe this is just the face Yugi makes when he quickly enters the pyramid zone and is like “Pharaoh, it’s getting mad weird out there!” And Pharaoh’s just sitting on his throne eating cheese whiz straight out of a can in star pj’s with matching bootspants and he’s like “My Gods, Yugi! If I’m here, and you’re here, who’s driving the plane!?” and then they just start shrugging at eachother about who has to go on the date this time until Yugi snaps out of it.

ah, a disembodied voice.

Literally thought it was my own voice.

It keeps Yugi up for a while, but when has Yugi ever fallen asleep right away on this show?

After Yugi calms down enough to go the hell to bed, we zoom back to our Xtreme sports boys who have finally decided to stop Tony Hawking all over this island long enough to deliver the sober news that Gurimo is freakin dead.

Which they barely brought up at all because who freakin cares about Gurimo? This guy sure didn’t.

Cool. Good plan.

Hard to rebuild civilization without people. Just throwing that out there.

But ya. Lets go end mankind on Episode 3. Thought it would take a little bit longer for him to get enough soul juice but apparently he’s good on the soul juice from these three juicy cards that have no souls (I thought).

3 God Cards + 1 Gurimo - 1 Rex - 1 Weevil = Destroy Humanity

First, a dream sequence.

This is one bizarre ass dream sequence and like...I don’t even know if I have much to say because it’s like...so out of left field and both out of the lore of this show and just barely inside the lore enough for it to work.

Still feels hella out of nowhere though.

That may be just the Dayquil talking.

Either way, we get to have Yugi run around in pjs again, but unfortunately they have no stars so I just don’t freakin care when see it. I get that stars are hard to animate and he’s a year older and maybe grew out of the star pj’s but c’mon. We had a good thing going, show.

But they hear a voice within the pyramid, and I’m using Tea’s font color here but it’s not Tea, it’s another girl who is...a lot like Tea honestly.

So up to this point we’ve accepted that the puzzle is all of Pharaoh’s mysteries and also mixed with the memories of Yugi as well. We have a room of short term memory (that pharaoh never uses) full of little clones of Yugi’s friends. We have a room full of all the lego pieces that Yugi lost over his young life (and 2 very cursed tamagachis.) We have a room that has a gigantic guardian Dark Magician who almost killed Shadi once. We also have several rooms that are just traps that can basically kill you, or if you are Shadi, just totally set you on fire, because screw Shadi.

Also it has this room:

But we find a new room that is like an entire fantasy realm and it’s like...so what memory is this?

Somewhat confusing if you’re me and you’ve assumed up to this point that everything in the puzzle has something to do with Pharaoh’s past. Apparently there’s just a door to another world in here they just never knew was here.

Just this entire time Yugi and Pharaoh were completely unaware that they had a DOOR TO ANOTHER WORLD in their necklace. Which, as I mentioned before, is where all the duel monsters live, but looks nothing like the Shadow Realm, which we’ve seen before.

And like honestly I kinda just figured at first that the giant eye was supposed to be there eating dragons, as if this was some sort of cycle of life for the duel monsters, to be a dragon, grow old, and then get devoured by the eyeball in the sky to start over again as nutrients to feed the baby dragons.

But in fact the eye is Not Normal and we should be alarmed by it.

Very hard to know what should and should not be normal when I’ve never seen this place before, also it has three crystal dragons that I guess the other monsters MUST be worshiping or something because check out the purple tile palace they made just for these crystal dragons.

Like this made me ask a LOT of questions about the civilization of duel monsters. Like who made this? Did a bunch of Kuriboh make this? Hell does this civilization works and is it a monarchy and are there castes?

Do they do taxes?

And then we meet her, the voice asking for our help, it’s this girl. Dark Magician girl. Nice to finally meet you. Wish it had a little more build up and made more sense.

We’ve talked to this chick before. She was digital at the time, but she kind of pretends that she already knows Pharaoh and Yugi and they kinda just...take this as it comes. I mean there wasn’t much time to deliver this dialogue so they were like, if the lady in the cornucopia hat says so, I guess we have to do the thing.

It is nice that we do finally get an explanation for why Pegasus could make all these cards but could not resurrect his dead wife--being that she is...not from this world.

But like now the puzzle not only dives into Pharaoh’s past but is also just a straight up a dimension portal. You can just...visit these people whenever? I guess?

I was getting used to the puzzle being a very large metaphor, and I wasn’t actually prepared for it to have a utilitarian use like a Stargate. This asks a lot of questions, but put those questions aside because we have to adopt this dragon by pulling a huge ass sword out of it’s right eyeball.

This show is SO mean to eyeballs.

She explains that there was some lore that lead to this sword being plunged into this buddy’s eye over here but I forgot it already. It was like half a sentence and then it was gone and I’m on Dayquil and I’m sure it’ll come back. At some point they’ll bring it all full circle, I’m sure.

Like if this happened in a dream then does this place even exist on a mortal plane at all? Can it only be accessed through dreams and being dead? It’s kind of a fascinating concept since these duel monsters have to be summoned through paper, which has all sorts of relevant meaning in a lot of Eastern mythologies.

Stuff I’ll never know because say goodbye to the Duel Monster Land that Apparently-Exists-Now-And-Absolutely-Always-Existed,-Stop-Thinking-About-Who-Invented-Tanks,-It-Was-Obviously-The-Atlanteans-10000-Years-Ago, we’re gonna go and take this huge ass dragon we have no business inheriting but are anyway because the dumbass ghost in our brain has this grand reputation that he banished some sort of evil 5000 years ago but has absolutely no memory of how the hell he did that or what even occurred, and because of his completely wiped bean, this makes him a complete idiot at best and a complete psychopath at his absolute worst.

But yeah, lets take this dragon and see what happens.

You gotta bring furniture, but the dragon is free. 2 bedrooms, no rugs, it’s free.

I just realized we got a dragon and not the sword. Only in this anime.

And then he wakes up to the last thing I expected.

It was nice of Yugi to take the time it took for him to get entirely dressed and ready, but I guess if the world has to end you gotta go out in style. Which for him means his school uniform because, although Yugi absolutely hates this school for some reason, he has a lot of pride for it. Just a crazy amount of school pride for how rarely he attends school and for the lengths he went to get out of soccer practice that one time. But will Yugi be caught dead in anything but his school colors? No.

HOW IS THIS CITY STILL STANDING.

Also Kaiba must be having a wild time on the top of Kaiba Tower but maybe he took a helicopter a while back to go on a world dragon tour because we didn’t hear a peep out of him this entire very Very VERY dragon-centric episode.

Really weird how many dragons there are with so few Kaibas. It’s like the moment they turned around, every dragon on Earth came out of hiding to throw a huge ass dragon party.

PS get a load of this dragon.

Why would you ever give a dragon an ass?

I don’t even know how this is possible because it doesn’t have a butt crack, but it’s got serious ass going on. It’s the Lizzo of dragons, when you set it to defense mode, it probs just twerks to intimidate the other side.

(Yugi’s friends are so freakin patient OMG)

Also how the hell can Yugi play this card on his duel disk if neither Kaiba or Pegasus have any idea this card exists? Magic, I guess? The duel disk is part magic?

Not like it matters much, we know from Bakura that you don’t need a duel disk to make real boy cards if you have a millennium item anyway.

So at this point I’m like...I think I watched the last episode of the season, I think it’s...out of order and bro was like “nope...it’s Episode 3. We’re still on Episode 3.”

And so after that it closed the...dimension joining portal, which was a Golden Compass style aurora borealis, then Dark Magician Girl returned to her home planet.

...Which is also dangling around Yugi’s neck.

This was a lot.

I have a lot of questions.

Everyone in domino SHOULD have a lot of questions but I think they all went back to bed.

A tornado with a GLOWING EYE tried to destroy their city, and they just rolled over and went back to bed.

This season sure takes off really quickly holy crap.

Now fair warning, because I’ve been hella sick the next recap is uhh...a huge mess so it will probably be a week or so before I post it/even get to it. At some point I started numbering them completely wrong and I either saved 10 caps to a different folder or I never made them in the first place and I honestly am not entirely sure. Last week is kind of a blur and it’s a mess on my desktop right now, so my pacing is gonna reflect that because I am...behind...on everything.

Oh dude and actually now that I look at what date it freakin is, I have to go to one of my best friends weddings real soon so can we just say...it might be a few weeks before I can steadily update again? I have to learn a whole dance routine for this giant wedding and y’all, I am not a dancer. And, while my friends have had dance classes since they were like 5, I’m like...low key extremely certain I will fall completely on my ass. Anyway, there is no way out of this situation I thought would never actually happen, and thought was just a funny idea they invented when they got drunk at the bachelorette, but nah, they remembered, and this is really happening but the bride will think it’s funny so here we go.

PS this dance is to the only existing mashup of Bollywood and N*syncs Bye Bye Bye (which, yes, it is a breakup song) I hope you feel the second hand embarrassment through your computer, I am dancing for 300+ people. Directly following the groom’s parent’s dance, which is 10 minutes long, and for which they hired a professional choreographer. We are the only dance out of four epically spectacular dances that is from the bride’s side, and our dance is...2 minutes and the equivalent of a high school lipsync.

TBH I'm low key excited to do it because potentially it could be a really great story depending on the reaction of what happens.

Anyway, so if I disappear for a while only to post fanart I’ve drawn out of stress, that is what I’ve been doing in the background. I’ve just been trying to remember how to do the Bye Bye Bye dance correctly for 2 straight weeks while feverishly trying to catch up with all my other work.

Also, because I mentioned George Washington, I had to go and find the horny grandma clip from Gilmore Girls and I’m so glad that two people on the internet managed to clip it, and I can’t believe the only two people who’ve clipped this did it with their phones. In fact, kudos to this youtuber for videoing a Tablet with his phone, because there’s no better way to watch a show from the 00′s than to make you feel really illegal about it.

youtube

#Yugioh #ygo #photo recap #episode recap #Yugi Muto #dragons #Joey Wheeler #Tea Gardner #Tristan Taylor #Arthur Hawkins #Rebecca Hawkins #Grandpa Muto #The Eye of Sauran or something #Again this episode is kind of a blur and I'm amazed I managed to cap anything this week #Oh yeah #The lost city of atlantis #s4 ep3

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wordswithkittywitch · 5 years ago

Text

Donner, Blizten, and Pooka

The traditional host for Billy and Zoë, DeviantArt, is being recalcitrant, so I’m posting it directly to my tumblr this year. If AO3 had a spot for original work, I’d use that just because I love how straightforward their system is. I should look for a better platform, I guess. But for now, this year’s is hosted on tumblr. (I don’t know why I never say Zoë and Billy. I guess it’s just that I’ve been saying their names in alphabetical order since 2002, and I’m not likely to start now.) This is actually an idea I've had since the first year I starting writing these, and I'm so glad I've finally done something with it.

This year’s story has a few instances of gruesome imagery, but no major triggers behind the obvious “character death”, as you know at least one character, be it recurring or otherwise, is going to be a dead one.

With no further ado, enjoy 2019′s addition to the Billy and Zoë universe.

(4940 words, 9 pages, several horror elements. Because it’s a freaken horror story.) Recomended audio accompaniment.

Donner, Blitzen and Pooka

No, this isn’t the same story as last year, just the same exposition

Billy and Zoë were always said to be good kids, not getting in fights, making the sports teams, honor roll, debate team, cheer squad, chorus and band. Both moderately popular jacks-of-all-trades, they managed to make prom king and queen even though they were just friends, and got scholarships to the same college. Billy played sports year round, but managed to talk about other things, mainly debating, singing or playing clarinet. Well, not when he was doing those things, as they involved his mouth. He had a tall, muscular build, his features seemingly mismatched. He had soccer legs and basketball feet, baseball arms on a football torso, which his head was thankfully not too small for, his white blond hair contrasting with his cheeks, which were always red for some reason, be it anger, embarrassment, or chill. Zoë’s body, however, seemed more perfectly constructed. Her complexion was warm and comforting like a cup of cocoa and she had shiny black hair, large brown eyes, long willowy arms and legs rippling with muscles and small, athletic breasts that did not get in the way when she cheered, played the flute, lacrosse, tennis or cricket. Both frequently smiled, especially when the life-long friends found out they were going to college together.

It was a bright, cold day, one of those days in mid-December when there’s finally what to Billy’s mind counted as an “adequate” amount of snow. It was just so hard for him to really get into the spirit of things when the weather looked less like a Christmas card and more like a whole lot of dead plants stuck together with asphalt. Why someone who went for a jog through the woods every morning before class was so excited about five inches of snow was beyond even Zoë’s understanding and also Billy’s ability to explain. The cold air just felt so… crunchy on his lungs. It sounded bizarre, even to Billy, but once he’d been going long enough that he didn’t feel too cold, running in the snow was so refreshing.

So, despite the fact that his cheeks looked like the entire cheer squad had slapped the shit out of him and there wasn’t exactly what one might call feeling in his fingers, Billy was in a very good mood. He turned away from the main road and jogged into what was charitably called the cross-country trail by the college track team. It kept the name mainly because very few people were wiling to reassess it. There was nothing quite like going over broken ground to get the blood pumping, Billy thought. He was immediately greeted by the smell of pine and the crunch of unbroken snow under his feet. He took it from the fact he couldn’t hear water trickling that the river had finally frozen over. He couldn’t see it from the trail, but from his previous morning jogs he knew that it ran parallel to the trail for about half a mile.

Some people asked him, and quite rightly, when exactly a first-year college student had found them time for a morning jog, but it was early in Billy’s athletic career when he learned how to have the “Why am I doing this? It’s way too cold out. It’s way too early. I hate every choice that led me to jogging in the snow.” during the first ten minutes of the jog itself instead of for a twenty minute block beforehand, so that saved a lot of time. It was all a matter of dedication and mind over matter. Also, he had dropped his 8:00 AM ethics lecture within the first month, so that gave him plenty of time. He could drop one course if it gave him enough energy for his other classes, this college had a notoriously high freshman drop-out rate, and Billy refused to be just another fresher who dropped off the face of the earth.

It was nice to have a jog into the thin strip of forest that the college seemed have bought to be a pleasant stripe of green forty feet in the background of the models in their early thirties wearing backpacks that came around about once a year to pose for photos that would make the college look more fun-loving and ethnically diverse on the website. It was one of the few places on campus that was far enough away from the Laundromat basement to not smell heavily of dollar-store Febreze knockoffs. Even on days when he had to substitute his morning job for an afternoon jog, because after all, no amount of Red Bull can hide the fact an all-nighter was all that stood between Billy and a “incomplete” assignment, especially not if you were the teacher’s aide who had to read the damn thing; Billy almost never saw any other students or faculty on his jogs. Unless, of course, you counted the caretaker’s distressingly fat Maine Coon a part of the faculty, but Billy had only encountered one student who was willing to argue Timmers worked for the college, and that person was a third-year law student who had just smoked a bag of marijuana so large Billy honestly wondered if it was now available at Costco.

The fact of the matter was that Billy had never seen another human walking the cross-country trail at eight in the morning, so when a slender figure stepped out from between the trees Billy let out a manly exclamation of surprise that he would insist did not sound remotely like a three-year-old girl stepping on the tail of a cat of the same age. Fortunately, that slim figure was Zoë, and she’d been friends with him long enough that there was no point in trying to fake having dignity in that moment.

“Zoë!” Billy exclaimed, deeper than his previous scream but still high enough that he took a moment to cough and compose himself before he continued, “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zoë said urgently, which is never a good way to start a conversation. She held out her hands in that position people usually only take if they’re trying to calm down someone who is on the verge of throwing a fit or if they’re pretending to tame a flock of velociraptors.

“You look like hell,” said Billy, which was true. She was still wearing the outfit she had been the night before, but appeared to have taken her morning shower anyway. Water dripped miserably out of her sweatshirt and dribbled down her leggings, her long black hair plastered to her face in a single black, tattered sheet. Her makeup ran down her face in long black streams that made her eyes look large and hollow, and heavy brown stripes that showed thin strips of bluish-pale skin between them.

Despite knowing as little about makeup as he could manage, Billy was aware that Zoë was not exactly a beauty vlogger and her usual approach to makeup involved pulling random tubes of liquid out of her coat pockets and saying things like, “Oh shit. I’ll just blend it out I guess.” or “Or don’t look at me! Don’t look at my eyes, I hate this, I guess I’m just catwoman now!” or “I guess that’s what blotting is for.” Somehow seeing it running off her face made it look more dramatic and distorting to her features, rather than “I’m a woman performing a musical recital and if I do not rub something on my face it will appear from where the audience is sitting that I have rubbed something on my face, but in a way I do not want.” That was definitely not the effect it was creating now; now it looked like something had tried to rub her face off her head.

Billy thought that he could see faint white etching of frost forming on her hands and up her neck, but he was fairly sure that was an optical illusion caused by the thin light through the branches and the part of his sock that melted snow had now soaked through sending a “it’s too cold out here to be alive” message every few seconds.

“Billy.” Zoë said urgently. She stumbled forward, her legs seemingly unwilling to bend properly. Her hand grasped his shoulder, so cold he inhaled sharply with pain. It was like the mere touch of her skin on the fabric of his sweatshirt was actively stabbing him through to the bone with knives so cold his flesh stuck to the blade like lips on cold metal. She looked into his eyes and he shuddered again. There was something wrong with her eyes, they looked concave, like the eyes on fish that has no business being still sold as edible at that age.

With apparent effort, Zoë forced out another four words. Though the phrase was short, each word was spoken with the slow intensity of someone fighting both the urge to scream in someone’s face and the urge to collapse with exhaustion. Billy was far too distressed by the state of his friend to notice that, as thin and breathy as her voice was, she didn’t inhale before speaking.

“Leave the reindeer alone.”

Startled and not yet getting a concept out of what Zoë had just said, Billy pulled away from her instinctively. He tried to parse out a meaning from her statement, but with only half of a mind on the subject, as the rest of his mind was taken up by worrying about what Zoë had done to get in that condition, it seemed meaningless.

“What happened to you?” Billy asked, trying to fight his urge to recoil and losing. Zoë simply shook her head and began to back away. Okay, she was clearly not in a state to discuss it, maybe once she had warmed up and was in a safe place and dry clothes he, or maybe a therapist, could get her to talk about what had happened. Billy didn’t like the idea of that, he was bad at giving emotional support and would much rather hurt whoever hurt his friend. To be honest, he didn’t have any experience fighting someone physically, but he was very big and muscular and thought he had pretty good odds beating up someone if he had to. After all, he was motivated, and more importantly, he was eighteen, and eighteen year olds have an inflated concept of their ability to come out on top in a fight.

Someone had hurt his best friend and he needed her well enough to tell him who it was before he beat the tar out of them. That meant getting her inside immediately. She probably already had hypothermia, based on the fact it was late December and she was dripping wet.

“Let’s get you inside.” said Billy, taking a cautious step towards Zoë. She drew further back, stepping over a fallen branch without taking her eyes off of Billy. He put up his hands as unthreateningly as possible.

“You’re going to be okay.” he insisted, moving closer. Zoë shook her head, she looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, but god what was wrong with her eyes? Every time Billy tried to make eye contact with her, he felt something deep inside himself forcing him to look away before he figured out what he was looking away from.

“Leave the reindeer alone.” Zoë repeated, her voice low and urgent. Billy lifted his hand, and much quicker than he would have expected, she spun around and walked briskly back into the woods. He broke off into a run after her. Cross-country it was. While it seemed that every branch in the forest was trying to high-five his face, Zoë moved forward quickly without appearing to be impeded by the woods at in the least. Branches cracked loudly as he pushed by them, snow crunched beneath his soaking wet sneakers, his breath came in long ragged gasps as he ran. Strangely, it seemed like the only noises in the forest were the ones Billy was making himself.

“Zoë!” Billy cried out, not expecting her to react but desperately wanting a noise to blot out the awful silence around him. She didn’t appear to hear him at all, and she certainly didn’t call back. Zoë made no sound. Not even the woods made a sound, no birds chirping or squirrels chittering threats to animals fifty times their size, no distant sounds of other students waking up in the campus just beyond the trees.

Billy had no idea how she managed to walk that fast, but at least it meant she was doing better than she looked like, he wouldn’t have expected someone who looked as bad as she did to be able to walk at all. He should have caught up to her by now, Billy thought, pressing on with a fresh gust of effort, but she seemed to only get further away the more he ran. He ignored the pain and the wet and the branches lashing out at him, not daring to take his eyes off of Zoë least he lose sight of her. She was getting harder to follow, her wet gray sweatshirt blending into the shadows between the trees. She moved silently behind a tree and failed to emerge from the other side. Billy blinked furiously and forced himself forward a few more yards, as his mind argued between the two ideas that if she stopped behind that tree, he could catch up, and the fact that tree was too young and thin to hide a toaster behind it, much less a teenage girl. He grabbed onto the tree when he reached it, more to stop himself from falling facelong into the snow than anything else.

Bent over double, face red as plastic holly, Billy gave up on catching Zoë and tried to catch his breath instead. He was fast enough on the sports field, but he knew that in a footrace Zoë could overtake him nine times out of ten. The tenth time Billy wasn’t sure if Zoë was just sick of being asked to a rematch and let him win one. She was shorter, but had much longer strides than he did. Billy pressed his eyes closed and cursed himself internally for not thinking of this sooner. No one went off the trail in these woods, she could run as fast as she could, but her footprints would still lead Billy to wherever she stopped.

He opened his eyes but didn’t straighten up. He looked at the snow. Billy wasn’t much of a tracker, but he could tell the difference between four inches of untouched snow and snow someone had just walked through. He was so sure she had been standing just here when he lost sight of her, that this was the tree she had darted behind. He glared at the tree accusingly, as if it were the tree’s fault that he lost track of her. Taking a deep breath, Billy drew up to his full height and looked around. Behind him, there was a distinct path he had been crashing along as he chased her, but aside from that Billy had no indication of where he was. He inhaled deeply, and the cold air was like daggers on his heaving lungs. How could he had been enjoying the weather less than half an hour ago? It was less than half an hour, wasn’t it? How long had he been running through the woods? He might not have been used to running between trees but he was still exhausted. He even didn’t feel this tired at the end of a football match, so how long had he been in the woods? He looked around, trying to remember which way the shadows were falling when he started his run, less to guess at how long he’d been out there and more to see if he’d gotten turned around. He must have done, Billy reasoned, as the woods weren’t that deep. It was just a strip of young trees between the quad and the river, wasn’t it? He should have been able to see at least one of them from any point in the woods.

Finally, Billy’s eyes fell on something other than glittering white snow and twisted branches. In the snow, not far from him, the trees thinned enough that there was what should have been another stretch of unbroken snow. But this snow had fresh tracks left in it. Sadly, he could tell in a moment that these were the tracks of an animal, not Zoë, but they were so odd that for a moment, Zoë flew from his mind. They were large, but delicate and round, cleft in the middle like a deer but with two dots behind them. Part of Billy thought that they looked a little like rabbit ears with little round eyes under them, but he had as little experience with rabbits as with deer.

The strange thing about the prints is that they started in the very center of the clearing and moved out into the deeper woods, like some giant hand had placed the animal delicately in the center of the clearing and let it wander away. Billy put that thought out of his mind, because it was ridiculous, it was creeping him out, and if the animal had held still while the snow started to fall that could have covered its tracks. Probably. Not that it had snowed in the past week, but Billy put this out of his mind and moved closer to the tracks.

These tracks were broad and easy to follow, even with him churning up the snow beside them as he traced their path. He asked himself why he was following these tracks when Zoë was clearly in danger of something, but he found himself reluctant to give up on them and look for signs of someone who hadn’t left any tracks he could follow until this point. There was a movement at the edge of his vision, and Billy began moving towards it before he fully looked up. Maybe these tracks had lead him to Zoë after all. There was something grey moving between the trees, and his heart shot up in his chest with hope, failing to quiet down appropriately when he saw whatever it was it was far too large to be Zoë. And whatever it was, it was moving towards him.

Billy held still for a moment, not daring to move lest whatever it was spook as easily as Zoë did. Maybe it was her, after all, and she was just much closer than he thought she was. No. It was coming out of the trees now, it was looking at him, and it was clearly what left the hoofmarks.

As he had been conscious the past few years, Billy was aware of the movie Frozen and was able to think “Yeah, I guess that looks like the reindeer owned by dude who people keep saying I look like, so I guess that’s what reindeer look like.” despite the fact a small part of him had until this point always pictured reindeer as looking more like Bambi than Sven. Whatever it was, it was wearing a bright red bridle so it was clearly tame. Also, he rationalized, a wild animal wouldn’t be happily trotting up to a human it had never seen before.

“Hey.” said Billy weakly, holding up his hand and immediately feeling stupid for doing so. The reindeer cocked its head and trotted forward a few more steps.

“I, uh, don’t have anything…” Billy said quickly, patting down his pockets. A reindeer with a bridle walking up to a random human was definitely something that had broken out of a petting zoo. That would account for why the red bridle covered in round brass bells.

“I know.”

Billy blinked hard and cocked his head. The reindeer looked down at him. Billy had really not expected reindeers to be this big, but that didn’t account for where the voice came from.

“Who’s there?” asked Billy, looking around.

“I am.” said the reindeer. Billy hadn’t caught its mouth moving but that was definitely where the sound was coming from. He took in the bizarre appearance of the enormous creature. It’s antlers seemed to branch up forever into the trees, its thick creamy-white mane shook gently with every breath. Thick white and brown fur covered powerful muscles and the smell coming off of it was like nothing Billy had ever experienced. Because he was watching it so closely, he could see the dark, furry lips form the words, “You’ve lost your friend.”

It wasn’t a question.

Mind racing, Billy desperately tried to figure out what the appropriate thing to do in this situation was. Either he was losing his mind, in which case what he did next didn’t really matter, or a reindeer was talking to him.

“Do you know where Zoë is?” Billy asked carefully. The animal smiled. It’s mouth wasn’t suited for it, and there was something very odd about the teeth.

“I can take you to her.” the reindeer replied.

This was weird. There was no getting around that. He had just found a talking reindeer in woods that were much, much bigger than they were on the outside, but the important thing was that Zoë was still missing.

“I promise,” the reindeer said slowly, with a warm and husky voice. Billy couldn’t quite understand how the animal’s lips were forming English sentences, but they were definitely moving in time with the speech. Tentatively, Billy reached forward and touched the animal’s head. Warmth immediately flooded into his hand, and the reindeer rubbed against it affectionately. It reminded Billy how cold he was, and suddenly all he wanted was to bury himself in the animal’s fur and start feeling his fingers again.

“I promise to bring you to Zoë.” the reindeer repeated. Billy flexed his cold fingers. If he was this cold, then Zoë, soaking wet and turning blue, needed help now. The last doubt out of his mind, Billy moved to the reindeer’s side and tried to figure out the fastest way to get up it. Steeling himself, he took a firm hold of the red bridle and swung his weight up on the animal’s back with all his might. He got a leg over and pulled himself into a balance, and it seemed to him that the reindeer flexed its muscles to settle him more firmly astride itself. Warmth flooded up into Billy from the thick, shaggy fur.

For a moment, there was nothing but the stillness of the woods and the ragged warm fur beneath Billy’s hands. Neither of them moved. Then, he heard the animal’s voice again.

“Dear god, you are stupid.” said the reindeer.

Before Billy had fully registered what the reindeer had said, the thick, warm fur wriggled around his hands like maggots eating a corpse and tightened onto every part of him it could grab. Like thick cords, the fur wrapped itself around his fingers, his wrists, and up his arms. A sickening thought crushed the air out Billy’s lungs: This was not a reindeer. Billy knew almost nothing about reindeer but this was not a reindeer and it never had been one.

The reindeer arched this neck back and laughed, its mouth opening at entirely the wrong angle and showing entirely the wrong set of teeth. It was as if someone had transplanted a wolf’s mouth into a reindeer’s head, but did it wrong so that the mouth could open up to an obtuse angle. A long, horrible tongue rolled past the fangs and writhed in the air like a dying snake as the creature snarled out a sickening noise that was slightly an agonised screech but mostly a cruel laugh.

Billy became aware of the fact he was screaming and probably had been since the fur moved. The creature’s laughter rang through the icy woods, echoing and shattering icicles off the trees. The animal reared, and Billy hoped for a moment it would throw him off but the fur moved like snakes, rooting him firmly to the spot.

Then it ran.

Ice-encased branches whipped across his face, but could not dislodge him even when he pulled with the force. The forest was still morning-bright, the sunlight cracking through the branches and casting a thousand periwinkle-blue shadows dancing around the snow like dying spiders. The not-a-deer’s hooves passed over the landscape, sending a flurry of snow in its wake.

Before them, the woods appeared to finally thin. They were reaching the edge of the woods, and a last gasp of hope awoke in Billy’s chest. If they got out of the woods, would the not-a-deer let him go? Was that it’s plan all along? Sunlight danced on the ice, and Billy’s breath caught in his throat. He knew what the thing’s destination was. He threw himself as hard to the left as he could, but something… momentum? The twisting fur? The sheer will of the creature? Righted him again. There was nothing Billy could do.

They were heading right for the river.

With a leap, the not-a-deer broke out of the woods, hanging in the air for a moment, the icy surface of the river sparkling beneath them like a delicate spun glass sheet.

“The ice!” Billy screamed. “It won’t hold us!” But even as he wailed these words, Billy knew that was exactly the idea. The crash of hooves meeting ice was enormous, but even that was drowned out by the sickly crack of the ice’s surface giving way. Billy’s last scream was cut off as the water hit him; he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, all he felt was the water shredding icy cold through his whole body, it felt like even his heart forgot to beat.

Billy knew he was going to die. He would probably drown before he froze to death, and all that was left to do was decide if he was going to die with his eyes closed or not. It was the only choice he had left in this world. Billy forced his eyes open against the icy water. At what he saw, he almost wished he hadn’t.

Zoë’s body floated unfettered mere yards away from him. Her eyes were closed, her skin was discolored, and her hair floated around her face like smoke. Blood cut red streamers in the water from where something with a large mouth and sharp teeth had removed a chunk of her leg. But still, he could see it was just a taste missing. This was where the thing took it’s meals. This was not a dinner table, this was a larder. This was were the thing brought it’s meat to eat slowly over the long, cold winter.

There was something else in the water, something small and moving towards him. It didn’t swim, it didn’t float, it merely stood upright in the water, pulled ever closer to Billy by some unseen force. It was also Zoë. But it was Zoë as he saw her in the woods before this all started. She was underwater with him, but water dripped off her heavily, tears rolled down her cheeks from her sunken, lifeless eyes. Billy knew no sound could carry through water, so when he heard Zoë speak, he knew she wasn’t using her mouth to do it.

“I told you.” said Zoë’s ghost, her voice trembling. “I told you.”

Billy couldn’t respond, his lungs full of water, but his last thought as the cold and the water and the shock drained what little life was left in him, was this:

I found Zoë after all. I found her.

Above the surface, the ice rocked gently and slowed in its movements. The world was quiet, but after a few moments, one finch let out a tentative twitter. The silence of the wood was broken. The thing had fed once again. A few more animals dared to start moving. What appeared to be a small clump of leaves stood up and stretched its back. Timmers shook snow out of his fluffy mane and trotted delicately to the edge of the river. Humans were so horribly predictable: they see an animal and automatically assume it’s there for their benefit. Timmers had long since stopped trying to warn the students about the pooka himself, no amount of purring around their ankles or hissing and charging from the woods or growling ominously at the river seemed to do any good. Every human who had gone to the river had met the pooka and every human who met the pooka were drowned by it.

Timmers thought that this time, leading a real human with a real voice, even if they were a ghost at the moment, to the next victim would have some effect. The plan had almost worked perfectly: the ghost had spoken to her friend, the human was warned, and he still jumped on the reindeer the first chance he got. Timmers stretched out his body in the feline equivalent of a sigh of resignation and turned back to the caretaker’s cottage, where a tin of good wet food and an army blanket twisted into a turban-like affair waited for him in front of the electric heater, Timmers’ salary for his important work on campus, even if no one bothered to listen to him.

There was just no helping humans.

#Billy and Zoë #stuff Kittywitch wrote #holidays #horror

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aquaburst3 · 5 years ago

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Well, I bought another book after work in two months. This time it was The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. Reason why I did was because I saw some posts saying that Jude was a badass and painted the novel as if it was some Game of Thrones revenge fantasy with fae. Was it worth it? Honestly, no.

Like my other review, gonna divide this up into the good and the bad.

Bad

-The pacing in this novel felt extremely off. In my anime fandoms, I joke around with my friends that some animes have what I like to call “Second Half Syndrome”. This is where the first 12 episodes of 24 series are amazing, but it loses some of that luster in the second half. This novel, strangely enough, has that in reverse. The first half is extremely dull. Nothing happens outside of high school mean girl antics and petty fae drama. Around half way through the book things picked up a lot more and I was pretty into it.

--While Jude was a decent enough as a lead, and I liked her in the second half a lot since she reminded me of a Game of Thrones character there, her character felt inconsistent and poorly constructed to me.

The development she undergoes here is odd. In the first half, she was an average, timid girl. Out of nowhere, she became a badass spy, who wasn’t afraid to murder and kidnap people. That was jarring to me. To use Game of Thrones comparisons, it’s like if Arya went from being a timid girl like she was like before Ned Stark died to being a badass assassin spy who baked her enemies into a pie like how she was in the later seasons in the matter of a quarter of an episode. People don’t change that directly in that short of a time span unless something super traumatic happens to them, so seeing that happen in that little time made no sense. (I feel like I needed to either seen this transformation happen over the course of the whole series instead of one book or just had her start off as this fae spy girl from the very start and scrapped the first half completely.)

Some of choices she made were rather odd and came out of nowhere. At one point, Jude randomly decides to save a human girl, despite being indifferent to humans in the fae realm beforehand. This sort of thing often happens throughout the book.

-- This plays into the previous point, but I found Jude’s backstory just bizarre. Her parents were murdered by a fae noble, and she and her sisters were taken in by him. Initially, I thought the novel would be a Game of Thrones/Kill Bill style revenge story where Jude and her sisters would kill off those who wronged them and rip the fae realm apart for what they did to her parents and how they treat humanity. But, nope. Instead of any of that, she figures that she must try to love the man that murdered her mother. Despite being treated like dogshit, she loves the fae realm and wants to become a fae herself. She excuses it by saying that she was small child at the time and is just more used to that world, but according to the wiki page, she would’ve been seven or eight when that happened. Jude should’ve had some pretty vivid memories of the mortal world and PTSD of what happened that night. So why is she so indifferent to any of this? How does that make any sense?! (Honestly, I think this whole backstory should’ve been scrapped and she was just a changeling or something. Again, that’s just me.)

-- Cardan’s reasoning for how he treated Jude felt pretty weak. He says that the reason why he bullied her was because he had a crush on her. (Abridging that, obviously, but still...) But that sounds like something that a small child would say about their first crush instead of someone in their late teens.

--Parts of the world building were rather confusing to me. For instance, Jude and her sisters go to the mortal world a few times like it was in another place. Another time she talked about the fae realm as if it was alongside the mortal realm like in Harry Potter. So I was like, “Okay, is this in another dimension? Our world behind a vale? Or what?” The novel never really explained any of that, or at least in a way that was very clear.

Good

-- Finally, some fae that stay true to folklore! But seriously, if you know me well, you know that I love mythology and fae folklore. I found that type of stuff fascinating since I was a kid. A lot of time, at least in the fiction I’ve read, they either come across as sexy humans with a layer of body glitter and a pair of butterfly wings that you would find in a Halloween store (looking at you ACOTAR) or innocent Tinkerbell sort. Both of these are far from the truth. Fae can come in all shapes and sizes. While there are some helpful and kind fae, some of them can be dark, ruthless and outright terrifying. There were even some more obscure ones like the Red Caps and Selkies that made an appearance, which was a welcome addition in my book.

--The second half was an entertaining read. It felt more like I was reading a manuscript to a Game of Thrones episodes before that series dipped in the second half. I liked the betrayals and politics in The High Court. All the bloodshed, arguments, and the fight for the crown was pretty cool.

--I enjoyed her depiction of the fae and their world - wicked, magical, and dangerous.

--Her twin Taryn was great in a love to hate her sort of way.

-- Liked Cardan. He reminded me of Gen from Dr Stone in terms of personality for some reason. I felt sorry for him due his past.

--The complicated family dynamic that Jude has with her family was interesting, even if parts of it made no sense.

--Vivi was a cool character. She was the most grounded and believable character in this book. Instead of being completely indifferent to what happened, she wants to get out of the fae realm and feels bad for what has happened. (To be honest, I wish that she was the protagonist instead of Jude.) She’s also bisexual, and has a girlfriend, which is awesome.

Over all

I was rather disappointed with this. The second half was great, but the first half, the bad pacing and poor writing decisions brought this down for me. I’ll probably read Wicked King and Queen of Nothing if I check them out from the library if I’m bored or something. Too much missed potential.

#aqua rambles

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chuckling-chemist · 6 years ago

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A Study In Novels

((The second piece I wrote for the @fantrollszine! This one a little more comedic than the other piece I wrote. And don’t forget, if you like it consider buying me a coffee or checking out my AO3 -- where both of these short stories will be going eventually))

Dontoc wasn’t one for reading romance novels.

Maybe it just wasn’t for him. Dontoc much preferred subversive fantasy steeped in lore and original wiggler’s tales from before the Empire found and censored them. Books that praised the Empire or grounded themselves too close to reality weren’t likely to catch his eye. That’s not to say a romance novel couldn’t be subversive or fantastical -- Dontoc’s sure they existed somewhere -- but his experience in the genre was limited to whatever books he acquired secondhand from either his moirail or his hivemate. Which, to be fair, Dontoc held as little interest in books describing in excruciating detail the ins and outs of traditional interstellar subjuggalator pailing that his moirail found morbidly interesting as he did the godawful romance self-published stories his hivemate regularly printed off from some blog and left sitting around on tables when she got stuck on something in the lab.

Then again this current one he attempted to slog through, recommended by his matesprit to give him a good example of the genre, wasn’t any better. It felt less like a novel and more like a subpar lecture on the importance of keeping quadrants filled and separated, combined with a bizarrely saccharine tone out of place for a novel that critics heralded as “diving into the dark, twisted secrets of forbidden flush love between two castes”. It was no more than yet another creepy realistic-fiction that tried to play off the caste difference as something inherently disturbing.

His so-called matesprit, to give the kindest words to a troll forcing their relationship on life support through thinly veiled threats against his friends, lamented his apparent lack of interest in romance novels indicated a lack of romanticism. Had Dontoc not had sufficient evidence to the contrary, he might have believed her.

I reach across the desk, over to the looming seadweller on the other side and he snatches it out of the air. I flush, face turning impossibly teal under his watchful gaze. How did he know I would try to grab it?

“Okay, that is enough of that for tonight,” he said with a groan.

“Enough of what?”

Even knowing the voice instantly to be the chirpy lilt of his hivemate, Pallia, her sudden entrance into the mainblock still made his heart skip a beat. She plopped down on the seat next to him of the black couch, peering over half-moon glasses to grimace at the book in his hand. She didn’t have to say anything to exude the level of judgement he felt from her.

“You, lover of subjuggalator documentaries, cannot possibly be judging me for reading something bad,” he said lightly.

“Oh come on, Dontoc there’s bad and then there’s this.” She glanced down at the book again. “What’s it even about anyway?”

He shook his head with a sigh, letting the finger holding his spot slip out of the book. “Certainly you could wager a guess.”

“Oh a puzzle?” Pallia shifted around in her seat, turning to face him with crossed legs. She was dressed for ultimate relaxation in a pair of sweats and loose sweatshirt, with her hair pulled up in an unusually well-kept bun thanks to a few well-placed pencils. She contrasted him, tall and fully dressed in a three piece suit with his perpetually unkempt short hair, quite perfectly. Her teal eyes sparkled with mirth from behind the glasses. “Do I get any hints?”

He smirked playfully. “You have not somehow ingested enough bad media to hazard a proper guess?”

“Not for romance.” Pallia crossed her arms and huffed. “God Dontoc, I only have one quadrant. Do I really strike you as the romantic type?”

Did Pallia strike him as the romantic type? Dontoc wasn’t actually sure. With her only having one quadrant, he couldn’t accurately say for sure if such were true, or if he simply never had the chance to see her interact with a quadrant proper. She might not be the same affectionate, teasing troll who went out of her way to make sure he felt included around a quadrant. His doubt might just be his own long-time, latent flush crush on her causing him to project.

After all, he did have a flush crush on her. That much was certain. A sweep or two ago, he might have tried to deny to himself, but by now there was no other way to explain the way being around her made his whole body feel ten pounds lighter and pointlessly giddy at any little thing. His other friendships, even his actual matespritship, failed to elicit similar reactions. The closest was his moirail, Valeba, who always always brought serenity with her presence, but even that wasn’t this bizarre effervescence that floated him away from his anxieties. Not that he’d ever tell Pallia any of this. Managing to get a best friend whom he adored, despite their caste difference, was more than acceptable. To ask anything more was selfish.

“You simply strike me as the type to have read enough bad media, regardless of genre, to take some sort of guess,” he said. “Or have I somehow misread that one and you happen to unironically enjoy ‘Subjuggalating Mentor to Highbloods is Put Under Great Scrutiny after Explaining to Bluebloods the Importance of the Mirthful Messiahs Upon Inquisition. When the Bigoted Seadwelling Upper Staff Wish to Cull Her, She Goes to the Courtblock to Defend Faith In Schoolfeeding, Alongside a Plucky Tealblood Looking for His Big Break’?”

She snorted. “Please. I don’t think a single person unironically enjoys that. How can anything fall face first into every stereotype while acting like it doesn’t? There’s never been a more--” she paused to slap her forehead with an amused groan “--oh of course! The book’s hemoist isn’t it?”

Dontoc grinned. How could he not? “Oh, extremely. The highblood is the dominant one in the relationship, and he is honestly worse than you would expect.”

“Tall, well dressed and…” she tapped her finger on her arm in thought… “indigo? That strength is attractive to a lot of trolls.”

“You are not far off. Think higher.” He gestured upward toward his own twitching fins. “Much higher.”

“Violet? Really?” She looked at the cover again doubtfully. “But this looks like some kind of rich businessman type of story. I thought the violet caste normally keeps to themselves.”

“Oh they do. This book bypassed such a problem by saying he simply moved onto land when he was very young, shortly after his lusus was culled by extreme hemorebels, to get ‘more out of life’. Or perhaps it was not. Honestly, the backstory was brushed aside in favor of having the two stare blankly at each other.”

Pallia raised her eyebrows. “Is the protagonist’s backstory any clearer or is it just as bad?”

Dontoc shrugged helplessly. “If I tell you her backstory, I assure you it will give away her caste immediat--”

“Oh, so she’s a tealblood. Probably ten sweeps old, if they’re playing off twenty sweeps as young somehow. Tiny waif of a troll too, I bet.”

Well. That happened. Dontoc blinked owlishly at her assessment. Every single piece was completely true, down to the size of the tealblood. There’s no way she read the book. He would’ve seen it somewhere. “Um...how...how did…”

“You said if you tell me the caste, it gives it away. Teals and jades are the most rigid in jobs, but jadeblood romance is mostly always two women, while this love interest is male.” It was her turn to smirk, pointy fangs poking out from underneath her lips. “Despite your best efforts, you still gave away way too much.”

“You asked for a hint,” he pointed out.

“You said you weren’t giving it to me.”

He hummed, running a hand through his hair. “I suppose I did. My mistake then. Perhaps we can try this again the next time Careen insists I do some reading.”

Pallia’s amiable expression dropped into a far more worried one. “She insisted? Really? That’sss abssolutely…” she trailed off with a shake of her head. “Ignore me. That’sss not my place.”

Dontoc set the book down on the floor, shifting so he could face Pallia better. She must’ve scooted closer at some point. Or maybe he just hadn’t noticed how close they were? It was only a loveseat after all. “Are you certain? After all dear, I--”

“It’sss fine. Ssserioussssly.” She gave him a reassuring smile. It looked somewhat forced, but it was clear she didn’t want to talk about it. Better to just move on. “So, anything else to guess about the book?”

“Hm? Oh, yes right. Let me just, ah...” He reached toward the empty space in his lap for the book, but Pallia got to him first, stopping him with a soft hand. He looked at her with a puzzled expression, a stark counter to her amused one.

“Dontoc you put the book on the floor,” she said with a chuckle.

He glanced down at the floor, realizing with growing horror he most definitely did put it down on the floor. Heat pricked up his neck, causing his lips to twist into a sheepish grin. He wiggled his hand out of Pallia’s to run through his hair instead. If nothing else, the action helped calm his nerves. “So...so I did. My apologies,” he said finally.

She shrugged. “None needed. Do you even need the thing, or is the book that forgettable?”

“I ah...well, poorly constructed story or no, it is comforting to some degree to hold it. After living in what may as well have been a library alone I suppose it just...it just happened.” He sighed, a mixture of bittersweet and wistful. Memories of his childhood flooded back in waves. The lonesome library ran by a kindly jadeblood. Her impeccable ability to find whatever he should read next. The other kids trying to steal and damage them. His instructor taking his copy of The Grimdark Narrator’s wigglers tales and insisting it was inappropriate for him to read it.

Thank God Pallia was there to keep the focus, or else who knows how long he’d reminisce on the parts of his life he’d rather forget. “So you said it’s a violetblood right? And a tealblood? Not any other mid-caste.”

“Erm...yes.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Though I am not sure why that is important. It is just a caste gap. From what I understand, those are quite common in romance.”

“Oh they are. Totally common. Which is funny, considering it happens anywhere else and people can’t take it.” She pointed down at the book on the floor, the cover of which showed a lone desk covered in papers. “But that’s beside the point. So the teal is probably some personal assistant to him?”

Dontoc nodded slowly. That much was hardly a guess. While in reality tealbloods got well-to-do, white collar jobs, it seems any time a tealblood actually showed up in media, they were subservient to some higher caste. Not the same way the lowbloods were, how many of them were maids or butlers at best, but the paid equivalent of such didn’t feel like much of an improvement to him. “Of course. Did you not know that teals are little more than suck-ups to the Empire? Constantly following around the Empress to compliment her and give her the newest gossip on the common folk. After they round up all the little bad trolls, of course.”

Pallia crossed her arms, smirk playing at the corners of her lips. “Did Careen let you in on that hot tip?”

“Oh no, someone far more reasonable in such a regard. Someone with a good head on their shoulders, you see.” Pallia seemed to sag in disappointment until he added, “It was Pothos.”

“Oh my God!” she squealed. Her whole body convulsed with laughter as she fell back into the couch. “You are not allowed to do that again!”

“...Make you laugh?” he asked cautiously. He didn’t think she was upset, but at the same time her worried look when mentioning Careen earlier had him on edge. “You are ah...you are--”

She heaved herself up and nodded, bun askew and grin plastered on her face. “Oh I’m great. I cannot believe you got me to think about that bumbling idiot. Did Careen tell you about when she thought we’d work as a quadrant?”

Dontoc shook his head: she hadn’t. While Careen was always eager to do nothing but complain about Pallia, and had been downright enthusiastic to tell Dontoc all about when his hivemate supposedly expressed flush interest in Pothos that he didn’t return, she never gave any more details. The whole story felt off in a way he couldn’t fully explain (in fact, it was another one he was willing to brush off as him projecting his crush -- sure, he can’t imagine Pallia wanting to be with a troll who truly thought skull shape indicated intelligence but maybe it was only wishful thinking), but he never told Careen such. It was good to know he had every right to be suspicious.

“How did it go?”

Pallia snorted. “About as bad as you’d expect. He learns I have a hint of an interest in something, and just starts talking over me like he’s suddenly the expert. He knows the chemical formula for table salt. That’s it. Wouldn’t know a stem cell from the stem of a plant.” She paused, eyes suddenly going wide. She wasn’t looking at him, not anymore. Her gaze was pointedly focused on that book. “Wait a second. This is her book right? Does Careen have some kind of thing for violets and teals?”

Dontoc rolled his eyes. “I doubt it. She has an odd hatred for teals. Jades too, to a lesser degree. She will not voice it, but it is present. Besides, if she really wanted you to be paired up with a violetblood to conform to her romance tropes, there are far better options.”

Pallia chuckled. “Yeah, at least if it’s like...us, it subverts that ‘teal employed by violet’ thing.”

Whatever train of thought he had immediately crashed. His face burned, and fins fluttering in embarrassment or not, there was no cooling it down in time to reduce the flush. “Ah….uh…” he swallowed harshly, realizing as he spoke his mouth was suddenly dry as sandpaper, “excuse me dear, what?”

“Oh you know. Technically speaking, you’re my research assistant. Not the other way around.” She paused, closing her eyes with a sigh. If she recognized how flustered he was right now, she wasn’t saying anything. “Then again though, considering the whole Preypal thing...maybe that doesn’t count? But sponsorships don’t count as employment. This might be more complicated than I thought.”

“You’ve thought about this before?”

“Well yeah. I mean…” They locked eyes, and he only just noticed the blush creeping on her own face. “I get bored waiting for the ion spectroscopy to finish. The logistics of how our lives would function within a work of fiction is far from the weirdest thought experiment I’ve had. I think that one started with a conversation I had with Aisral? I dunno.”

“But you have thought at length about the logistics of us...uh…”

“Ssssort of? In the same way I’ve thought about like...I dunno, me and Aisral or something. Purely hypothetical. Don’t worry. I realize you’re with Careen and talking about it’s probably strange to think about dating your hivemate...” Pallia trailed off, letting out a quiet, awkward laugh as she rubbed her neck.

“Oh impossibly so, but continue.”

“But seriously, it’s not the most unlikely thing I’ve heard. More likely than anything in that book, anyway. If that makes any sense. Sssorry for worrying you.”

“Think nothing of it.” Okay. So it’s only that they’d make a better story than whatever dribble Dontoc was reading. That’s probably true. While not the worst novel he’s come across, there weren’t many worse. His fluttering pulse calmed down enough that he actually felt he could breathe again. “If it helps, I would much rather read about us than this couple.”

Pallia smirked. “Even the pailing scenes?”

Dontoc’s face fell. He erased those from his memory, too. “Okay, we’re finished here.”

#fantroll #homestuck #hiveswap #fanfiction #fantrolls #ft #fantrollszine #homestuck zine #my writing #dontoc #pallia

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nomattertheoceans · 6 years ago

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My thoughts on King of Scars

Ok so first of all, obviously, spoiler alert, do NOT read further if you haven’t read the book (I wanted to put a cut but I don’t have the option on mobile, sorry...)

So yeah I think I need some mindless screaming into the void before I can be constructive, so... OMGVRDCNIUBCHIRUFHEJKDFKLUHOSJDXW THIS BOOK WAS SO SO SO GOOD I WISH I COULD FORGET I READ IT JUST SO I COULD READ IT AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!!!! IT WAS SO AMAZING AND SO HEARTBREAKING AND SO FUNNY AND WITTY AND PERFECT UGH

Okay, I feel better now.

So... King of Scars. Where do I start?

Bardugo’s style improved so much since the Grisha Trilogy. It was obvious in the SoC duology, but it’s even more obvious now that she’s writing in the same setting, with some of the same characters. Her writing in this book is so good!

This book actually redeemed her in my eyes for the only thing I hated in SoC: Matthias’ death, that I found pointless and not very well handled. But man, did this book improve on it. Nina hearing his voice, her thinking of him when she talks about being a widow for her cover. The whole burying scene had me crying the entire time, it was so well written and so full of emotions, you could actually feel Nina get some form of closure from it, and it helped me accept his death too. So well done.

The prologue was great! I loved these in SoC and I’m glad she kept going with the idea, because introducing Nikolai and Zoya that way was a really good way to get the feeling of the current situation (and the POV of a random stranger works as well as it did in the duology).

NINA THINKING ABOUT THE CROWS ugh I’m dead, it was so amazing to read about how she wanted Inej to be with her to bury Matthias, how she used Kaz’s advice to craft her plan, how she thought about having inherited Jesper’s gift for bad decisions (I actually laughed out loud at that one XD). The whole idea that her year in Ketterdam really changed her and helped her grow into a better defender of the Grisha (even though she’s not as good at following orders ;) ), this was great. I miss the Crows so much.... OH AND NIKOLAI LEARNED TO PICK LOCKS WITH KAZ AND HE THINKS ABOUT HIM THAT WAS A GREAT REFERENCE TOO! Also, the fact that Leoni was the little girl saved by Jesper’s mom, that was such a great coincidence, I hope at some point they might meet and realize the connection, I don’t know how but it was a great detail to include, Leoni saving people thanks to Jesper’s mom’s sacrifice. (Yes, any reference to the Crows had me giggling to my book, I admit it)

So, I know a lot of people are going to be mad at me about this one because a lot of people hold the Darkling in high esteem, but the fact that he was framed as the main villain throughout the Nikolai/Zoya storyline felt really good to me. I honestly never understood how people could see him as a good person after everything that happened and that we learned in the Trilogy, and the fact that Bardugo focused mainly on him as the villain in Zoya’s story was a very good choice. Zoya feels angry and ashamed at how much she adored him and how he manipulated her and everyone around him. She cannot imagine people seeing him as a Saint because she witnessed his actions first hand and was also a victim of it, so she’s angry that even after all this, people can still ignore what he did. She’s mainly angry at herself about all this I think, but it was interesting to see this in her point of view. Continuing on the subject of The Darkling... OMG him being back at the end, I was so angry that he just wouldn’t STAY DEAD!! But I’m glad he’s back because I think his character in Bardugo’s improved style is going to be awesome (and I low-key want people to finally see him as the villain he is, but again, don’t be too angry at me, please!)

David and Genya are married now!! So are Nadia and Tamar!! And Tolya and his poetry XD and Adrik! It felt so good getting to reunite with all the Grisha characters, to see them evolve (again, thanks to Bardugo’s evolution in her writing) and become even greater than they were.

The secret laboratory was such a great addition, I can’t wait to see more of it!!! Also, Nikolai building a secret laboratory under a place of debauchery is SUCH a Nikolai thing to do XD

Nina in Fjerda is... so many emotions all along her storyline, it felt great. Knowing that she mostly managed to get over her addiction made me happy, she’s still an addict of course (kudos to Bardugo for including the fact that you never truly get over an addiction and that sobriety is a work of every day) but she managed to move past it and that’s great. Her new power is amazing but at the same time you can feel her nostalgia when she teaches Hanne, the fact that she stills misses her old powers. The experiments on the pregnant women were terrible, and so well-written, every scene with them killed me a little bit.

Hanne’s character is so good! I really love all of her evolution throughout the book, the way she’s willing to rebel at first but in small ways, and that she ends up actually rebelling with Nina. Also, even though I want it to be slow because I don’t think Nina is over Matthias yet, but UGH the way Nina describes her as so beautiful, I can’t wait for them to grow closer and maybe have a love story! Hanne’s being Brum’s daughter surprised me but in a good way, I love the irony that this monster would have a Grisha daughter (I hope he’ll find out at some point), and I love the way this laid out the plot line for the next book! Nina at the Ice Court!!!!! This is such an exciting thing to look forward to!

The whole Isaak storyline was great and ugh I was so NOT expecting this ending for it, I guess I’m a hopeless romantic because I wanted him to end up with the princess haha (but then I guess that’s what Leigh wanted us to think so good job ^^) and I really didn’t see the assassination coming! I had some doubts about the princess and the guard being interchanged but I had no idea what would be the point of that, so I guess I was seeing only half of the picture.

The fact that Nikolai was officially described as having some form of ADHD, this was a great scene, all of his childhood difficulties, and his friendship with Dominik, too. I loved all of this. I already loved Nikolai before (I mean... who didn’t?) but I love him so much more now! His struggle as King and doing what’s best for his country, knowing that letting his heart talk for him would be a mistake, preparing replacements for him in case something happens... I love him so much!!

Zoya... Zoya Zoya Zoya. She’s a great character, and she’s so interesting and complex and I’m so glad Leigh expanded on her character because it’s not often that women get to be strong and ruthless and beautiful and cold and not the villain of the story. So yeah, I love Zoya, she is amazing and all of her struggle over her past with The Darkling made her even more interesting than she used to be.

Finally, I think I’m going to end with Nikolai/Zoya relationship. I wasn’t completely sold at first, but then Nikolai had to go and think that:

“He’d come to recognize the bizarre phenomenon of Zoya’s beauty, the way men loved to create stories around it. They said she was cruel because she’d been harmed in the past. They claimed she was cold because she just hadn’t met the right fellow to warm her. Anything to soften her edges and sweeten her disposition - and what was the fun in that? Zoya’s company was like strong drink. Bracing - and best to abstain if you couldn’t handle the kick.”

And I was completely on board, never to leave again. Seriously. This quote is so perfect. Nikolai gets her, he loves being with her and how challenging she is to him, and he likes her just like she is, he doesn’t want her to change. And that’s great. Anyway, I really love their relationship throughout the book, its a challenging one but you can feel how much they like to work together and spend time together. The whole exchange when Zoya shows him the scars and he’s the first man she’d told the truth to... That was perfect. But omg, I knew there was going to be some sort of engagement for Nikolai (he’s a king after all), and during the entire book, him and Zoya both repeat more than once that they know it could never work if they let themself feel something for the other, but man I was NOT ready for Nikolai to get engaged to the Shu princess in the end.... Anyway, yes, I love them apart, and I love them together, and I can’t wait to read what happens next.

So overall, another amazing book to strengthen my complete obsession with the Grishaverse!! I will probably post a lot more about it in the coming days/weeks, and probably reread it! If you want to talk about it, don’t hesitate!!!

#grishaverse #king of scars #king of scars spoilers #king of scars spoiler #kos spoilers #kos spoiler #leigh bardugo #nina zenik #nikolai lantsov #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai duology #my thoughts on stuff

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ladyloveandjustice · 6 years ago

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Summer 2018 Anime Overview: Revue Starlight

(Also known as Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight).

Karen Aijou is training at her school to put on the annual Takarazuka play, “Starlight”. She’s shocked when her childhood friend, Hikari, suddenly appears. She follows Hikari into mysterious elevator and finds her engaged in an even more mysterious sword fight with another student that’s preceded over by a talking giraffe for some reason. She’s told that this is a competition between “Stage Girls” for the title of “Top Star”. Karen sees that Hikari is in trouble, and quickly dives to her rescue, remembering the promise she and Hikari made to become stars together. Now Karen is involved in a truly strange competition...

I was super sold on Revue Starlight from the first episode. Girls fighting with swords? Takarazuka? A random giraffe? Utena references? Nice animation? This show was made for me, clearly.

And I came out of it satisfied. It was pretty surreal and pretty gay and that’s what I’m here for. It’s hard to explain exactly what the series is about without giving away some major plot twists, I’ll put it like this- it’s very much about two girls trying to upend the vicious, cyclic system they are caught in and there are definite themes of adolescence and identity. And some characters are not what they seem. I’m always down for that.

After all, the “Top Star” system only lets one person be at the top, while the others get their dreams crushed- but Karen wants to stand together with someone. There’s a lot of light critical examination of how Takarazuka in particular is structured here- I’d really suggest checking out these posts by Atelier Emily which dig deep into the subject. Basically, there’s this understanding in Takarazuka that the “otokoyaku” (the woman who the male roles) will be top star and its the “musmeyaku” (the woman playing the female roles) must support her and consign herself to secondary status.

As Emily puts it “ [The musumeyaku must be] the perfect feminine foil so the otokoyaku’s masculine performance would stand out more in relief, [...], all while taking care not to skew too much into a romantic interest, so that young women in the audience can still imagine themselves in the arms of their favorite otokoyaku top star. Furthermore, they cannot achieve top star themselves, and must ensure that their talents do not outshine those of their otokoyaku partner.”

This whole dynamic plays heavily into the show- Claudine and Maya are the top otokoyaku/musumeyaku pairing in the school, yet it is Maya who gets all the attention while Claudine feels frustrated and like she’s second best. She wants to outshine Maya, but it seems like she just can’t. Meanwhile, Karen has this idea she and Hikari can be a couple who share the stage equally, which threatens to destabilize the entire system.

The series does not just examine Takarazuka but the nature of theater in general though, with the last episode in particular digging a little into the role the audience plays. It’s also touches on adolescent anxieties- we see characters coping with fear of the future and growing up, we see Mahiru struggling with her unrequited crush on Karen and her jealousy of Hikari and childhood friends finding their bond straining...of course, as expected of a series where a giraffe watches girls engage in sword fights while singing, these conflicts are expressed in a fantastical way much of the time.

Before I go further, I should mention some cool things the series did that I really need to go back and examine- there’s a lot about the show I feel I haven’t grasped yet, and I feel I need to rewatch it before I’m able to grasp it completely. BUT I GOTTA GET THESE REVIEWS OUT BEFORE I DIVE INTO THE NEW SEASON, so this is what you get.

One thing I missed out on is that the songs the girls sing while fighting are really connected to themes of the episode- unfortunately the release I watched did not translate them, so that was lost on me. The credits sequence was also an evolving one, the lyrics would change and it would focus on a different girl or pair of girls each time- but again, not translated, so I feel like I watched an incomplete version of the show. But I will get the whole package someday because I think it’s really cool the show did that.

I was correct in guessing from the beginning that this series takes a ton of inspiration from Utena and also from Yuri Kuma Arashi (the director actually worked on that show) but this is very much its own thing. There are scenes in the first half that seem like they’d fit in with Love Live! or some other idol show, with girls just goofing around and ~following their dreams~, but the back half leaned way farther into the plot and metaphorical significance of the bizarre stuff that was happening.

I think the main thing Revue Starlight has going against it is character- Karen doesn’t really change much over the course of the show. She matures and is challenged a bit yes, but not in a significant way. The Karen of episode 12 makes the same decisions and has the same goals as the Karen of episode 2 essentially did. There’s not that much to her other than her determination to become the top star with Hikari, as well as her very broad “cheerful, ditzy and persistent” I’m-the-main-character-of-an-anime deal.

Hikari is a bit more complex, with some backstory and reveals about her character in store, but she also isn’t anything we haven’t seen before in a lot of ways. It was hard for me to get as invested in their relationship as I wanted- they’re just fine as characters, and they serve the themes of the show fine, but they’re so broadly sketched and kind of nebulous the emotional connection is not quite there for me.

Which is too bad, because they are EXTREMELY Gay. Don’t expect any kissing or anything ground-breaking, but the stuff they say about each other is like you know. “I only want you by my side/be with my forever/YOU’RE MINE, EVVVVERYTHINNG 222222 MEEEE THE REASSSSON I LIIIIVE IS FOR US” that sort of stuff that leaves little doubt.

The gay doesn’t stop with that.There’s also the fact that Mahiru’s is as blatant as she can be about her huge crush on Karen (she uh. goes looking for an indirect kiss at one point) and she sees Hikari as her rival, and is pretty much clearly correct. All of the other girls are clearly paired up and you’ll have them referring to each other as “my [insert name here]” or saying other stuff that barely qualifies as subtext and suggestively dancing with each other.

Like I said, nothing ground breaking, but it’s good as far as “It’s-not-as-text-as-I’d-like- but-really-barely-subtext” gay stuff goes.

Most of our background lesbians are just a lot more interesting than the main ones, but we’re not given enough time to connect with them as much as I’d like either. Their arcs could have been more fleshed out, especially the arc of one surprising major player. I think a series with so much going on and such a big cast to explore maybe should have been a twenty-six episode deal so it could dig a little deeper with the characters and build up to things a little more.

So yeah, if I’d talk about the quality of my emotional connection and the strength of the characters and narrative and in how incisive it is, it’s not nearly as good as Utena (which I wasn’t expecting it to be, THAT��S A TALL ORDER) and more on the level of its other major influence, Yuri Kuma Arashi. It is a lot more thematically cohesive than YKA and without the deeply uncomfortable aspects, thankfully. The series may have moe character designs, but it remains classy and never indulges in blatant fanservice that I can remember.

There’s plenty of other things to touch on- there’s what seems to be light examination of the ‘bury your gays’ trope, as we find out the play “Starlight” is about a pair of HEAVILY-queer-coded-girls whose story ends with them tragically cut down and separated, and the series engages with what that show means for these girls acting it out and whether they’ll have to meet the same fate.

Honestly, it’s the kind of series you could write loads and loads of analysis for, so if you like stories you can interpret a lot and read a lot of things into, this is probably your jam. I’ve loved the discussion this series has encouraged- I advise checking out the Afictionado’s posts on the show! I can’t wait to read more about everyone’s perspectives on the show as I revisit it!

So yes, my final verdict? it’s a good show, and if you’re like me and you love stuff that centers around the relationships between girls, if you love stuff that’s full of symbolism and action and weirdness that looks at the construction of fiction and fighting unfair systems and if you think Takarazuka and musicals are cool as hell- definitely check this one out. I recommend it and there’s really nothing offputting about it I can think of. One of the “Top Stars” of the season for sure.

I’m excited to give it a rewatch and pick up all the things I missed the first time. Right now, It’s not in my top ten or anything and I can’t say it moved me deeply. it was just a bit to nebulous in a lot of ways- but its definitely a worthy addition to the “lesbians with swords” genre, and in the end, what better compliment can there be than that?

#revue starlight #shojo kageki revue starlight #karen aijou #aijou karen #karen aijo #hikari kagura #kagura hikari #maya tendou #tendou maya #claudine saijou #Mahiru Tsuyuzaki #anime overview #summer 2018 anime

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dictionarywrites · 6 years ago

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Know Your Jeffs: A Guide To Goldblum’s Characters

This isn’t an exhaustive list, and I will be updating it as I watch more Goldblum movies, adding in the characters as I pick them up! Everything is below the cut so that I can just update as I take more stuff in.

The descriptions of movies and characters are very much not impartial, but they should give you an idea of what you’re in for if you want to look the film up. I’m only including stuff I’ve already seen, plus Raines, which I feel like I’m never gonna be able to get hold of, and am heartbroken about.

Movies are listed in CHRONOLOGICAL order, but if you CTRL+F, you can search for a particular character name, date, or movie/TV title. This is very much under construction. There are currently 40 Jeffs on the list.

1978 - Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, dir. Philip Kaufman - IMDb

Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers is a film about a kind of alien who comes to Earth and steals people’s bodies - effectively, they make up their own pod-versions of them, and then turn the original to dust.

Jack Bellicec is a poet in New York City, who owns a bathhouse with his wife, Nancy. This film is a sci-fi horror, and Jack is earnest but antsy throughout - he’s a real cutie, and every much a good guy. He’s just the sweetest, and is generally in a state of complete and utter terror, whilst still trying to keep grounded and keep thinking forward.

1980 - The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, dir. Henning Schellerup, IMDb

Okay, so, for a stupid TV movie from the 80s, this is actually really cute It loosely follows the plot of the short story, but generally with a happier ending and a lot more fun antics from Ichabod Crane, and it’s just great fun. A schoolteacher comes to the valley of Sleepy Hollow, and finds himself facing down the silly ghost stories continuously thrown forward by the locals.

Ichabod Crane is the cutest - he’s soft and sweet with the children, like he is in the short story, on top of being lanky and clumsy and a little stupid; he lacks a lot of his arrogance that he has in the short story, and instead he’s much less of a dick when he criticizes the ghost stories and stuff. He’s lovely, I adore him.

1980 - Tenspeed and Brownshoe, TV Series - IMDb

Tenspeed and Brownshoe is a delight - it’s a detective TV series with a very light-hearted tone, and it’s very comfortable to just settle back and watch casually.

Lionel Whitney is... a trip. A chartered accountant turned gumshoe, Lionel starts his own detective agency in L.A. after breaking up with his fiancée and meeting the charming (and duplicitous) E.L. Turner, a conman and scam artist. E.L. is his partner in the business, and the two combine strengths - Lionel with his idolisation of and knowledge of the 40s pulp fictional detective, Mark Savage, as well as his black belt in karate; E.L. with his thousands of accumulated skills, including being a master of disguise, a smooth-talker, and a winner at sleight of hand.

Lionel is a dote: he’s just the sweetest, and he really gives off Bertie Wooster vibes, but with an air of genuine competence Mr Wooster never had. He’s truly incredible, and all the episodes of Tenspeed and Brownshoe are up on YouTube, so it’s really worth watching!

1981 - Threshold, dir. Richard Pearce - IMDb

Okay, so Threshold... Big old snooze fest. Not a very engaging movie, not an especially good movie - I forgot a good deal of the movie after I finished watching it. It was uninspiring and a bit bland. The concept is basically that a pioneer in mechanical science re: bio-engineering comes up with a heart valve to replace a little girl’s heart - the pioneer being Jeff Goldblum’s character - and a doctor puts it in the little girl, but it’s a very unpopular decision, because it’s not organic. Obviously, in the 80s, that was a much bigger deal than it is now.

Aldo Gehring is just... Adorable. Too earnest, a little bit arrogant, and he’s just far too baby-faced for the age he’s textually said to be to be believable, but like... You know! It’s a dull movie either way, and Aldo isn’t a huge part of it.

1983 - The Big Chill, dir. Lawrence Kasdan - IMDb

The Big Chill is a film about a group of college friends that meet up for the first time in like, a decade after one of their closest friends commits suicide. They all come for the funeral, and spend a few days together in the aftermath.

A lot of people seem to dislike Michael Gold, but like, he’s kind of one of the most tragic of the figures in the movie - a lot of their friends don’t remember him initially, and he really isn’t good at doing anything other than compartmentalising and shoving down his emotions. He’s brittle and a little sharp, and maybe a bit too honest for his own good, but I really love him, and I totally rec him if you can handle the subject matter, which is obviously very grim and very sad.

1984 - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, dir. W.D. Richter - IMDb

Buckaroo Banzai is a guy who’s basically, like, any eight-year-old’s Mary Sue - he’s a cowboy, a neurosurgeon, an expert test pilot, a rockstar, etc... And they play it completely straight. Leading his band of hypercompetent pretty boys, The Hong-Kong Cavaliers, he saves the world, if not the universe, on the regular.

Doctor Sidney Zweibel, a.k.a. New Jersey, is a new addition to the team in The Adventures, and he’s a neurosurgeon who went to med school with Buckaroo. He’s a would-be cowboy, complete with boots, hat and chaps, and he’s just the cutest thing in the world, a sweet and pure boy. 10/10 Goldblums for Sid Zweibel.

1985 - Silverado, dir. Lawrence Kasdan - IMDb

Mmm, Silverado is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and it has little to no plot. Even for a Western, I found it incredibly dry and disjointed, and I can’t in good fatih recommend it to anybody, even though John Cleese is inexplicably a sheriff midway through.

However. Slick (whose actual name is Calvin Stanhope) is really fucking hot, and so you should watch his scenes on YouTube, even if you don’t watch the movie (which you shouldn’t). Slick’s screentime tocks up to around 15-20 minutes, out of a movie that’s genuinely like, two and a half hours long.

Slick is like, a casino man with a knife in his boot; he wears furs; he’s terrible. He’s so great, I adore him.

1985 - Into The Night, dir. John Landis - IMDb

Into The Night is... a little hard to describe. It’s like, a crime thriller movie with Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, and with a cameo from David Bowie, as well as about 700 other Hollywood lads who Landis knew. I think the plot is... loose, and the film itself isn’t the greatest, but the main characters are pretty great.

Ed Okin is an astrophysicist dissatisfied with his job and his life in general, who abruptly becomes plagued by this inescapable insomnia, and subsequently becomes embroiled in this whole crime plot across from Pfeiffer. I really love Ed - because of the insomnia, he tends to underreact to most of the situations around him, and he’s very likable.

1985 - Transylvania 6-5000, dir. Ruby de Luca - IMDb

Is TR 6-5000 a good movie? No, absolutely not. But should you watch it? Oh, yes.

This is like, a comedy/absurdist horror/pastiche, lots... It’s lots of stuff. Basically, these two reporters who do a Weekly World News style thing go to Transylvania to report on Frankenstein, and also meet some Igors, a werewolf, a vampire, etc.

Jack Harrison is such a great character - he’s pretty much eternally looking after his hapless partner, Gil, but both of them are as ridiculous as the other, each of them stumbling into bizarre situations. Definitely don’t take the movie too seriously, but it really is a fun thing, and it’s certainly worth watching for the goofy trip it is. Jack is a real sweetheart, and he’s so lovable - Gil certainly thinks so. ;)

1986 - The Fly, dir. David Cronenburg - IMDb

So, fair warning, I nearly vomited like, several times watching The Fly, and was on the verge of just turning it off a few times. It’s nearly forty years old, but the body horror of the effects really stands up, and it’s very gory toward the end. Despite its well-earned rep as such a gory film, though, The Fly is actually a heartbreaking tragedy, so definitely don’t expect it to be lacking in the feels department if you can stomach it.

Seth Brundle (yeah, poor guy, what a name) is a really impressive engineer and scientist, and he invents a machine that should enable him to teleport objects from one electronic pod to another. Unfortunately, when teleporting himself, he becomes melded with an intruder to the pod - a fly - and begins a horrifying transition into something other than human.

Seth at the start is... He’s a genius, but he’s naive, arrogant, and a little too trusting in how earnest he is. As time goes on, and he begins the change into Brundlefly, he becomes much more erratic, and his personality changes a lot. I totally rec Seth, honestly.

1988 - Vibes, dir. Ken Kwapis - IMDB

Vibes is a fucking trip. It’s a movie about two psychics - Jeff Goldblum’s character, Nick Deezy, who can tell the history of an object by touching it, and Cyndi Lauper’s character, Sylvia Pickel, who is a medium. Yes, you read that right. Cyndi Lauper. It’s incredible.

Vibes is actually a much better movie than I expected - it’s a genuinely funny comedy, it’s ridiculous and cartoonish and stupid, but it’s fun. Cyndi Lauper and Goldblum have a tango scene at one point, and the height differential is so extreme that she’s literally wrapped around his waist and he’s just carrying her around.

Nick Deezy himself is a really interesting character - he’s kinda used to being used and pushed around because of his psychic powers, but he’s a guy with such a lot of courage and genuine empathy for others, and I just think he’s so sweet.

1988 - Earth Girls Are Easy, dir. Julien Temple - IMDb

So... Earth Girls Are Easy is in the same vein as Vibes for me - it’s a fun romp, and so long as you don’t take it too seriously, it’s a really enjoyable movie. It’s about these three furry aliens that drop down to Earth, and are trying to pick up the language and have a good time. It’s good banter, and it’s also a musical, because-- It was 1988, okay?

Mac is like, probably one of the most genuinely sweet characters out of the ones on this list - he’s very caring, and he’s doing his best to do good whilst not really being able to navigate the world around him very easily. He’s wonderful, and I can’t rec Earth Girls enough.

He’s also a big, furry, blue guy in his underwear for the first part of the movie, if that helps.

1989 - The Tall Guy, dir. Mel Smith - IMDb

So, disclaimer. This film is written by Richard Curtis, so like... It’s snappy, it’s clever, but it’s also a little insufferable and kinda misogynistic the whole way through, with the classic Curtis obsession with infidelity, where characters cheat on one another whether it makes sense or not.

That aside, I really enjoyed the first two acts of this movie, and while the third one falls very flat, I still think it’s worth watching. Goldblum’s character, Dexter King, plays the straight man in Rowan Atkinson’s comedy sketch act, but goes on to have a romantic relationship with Emma Thompson, and those links are just... So cute.

I think Dexter is kind of a dick, but by no means does that make him unlikable, and I’d still rec The Tall Guy! I’m not sure how long Goldblum was in the UK for - there’s a nude sex scene with Goldblum and Thompson, and I was really thrown, because he’s super pale in this film, compared to similar nude scenes in like, The Fly. So there’s your fun tidbit for the day lmao.

1990 - Mister Frost, dir. Philippe Setbon - IMDb

This film is... Odd. As a thriller, it’s fine - you know, it’s average. It isn’t so terrible, but it’s not great either. But as like, a film, there are aspects where it’s just inexplicably terrible - some of the lines are dubbed over, for some reason, and the sound quality is so off in random moments; there are odd moments where the camera is just too close to the actors’ faces, even for a close-up; technically, this film just has some bizarre and glaring... errors.

The plot is interesting, though, and I did enjoy it for that aspect - Mister Frost is a serial killer institutionalized in an attempt to cure him of his murderous tendencies, and he then professes to be Lucifer himself.

Mister Frost is a funny guy. He’s snide, clever, self-obsessed and sharp - I really liked him, and I totally think he’s worth a watch.

1992 - Fathers & Sons, dir. Paul Mones - IMDb

[icon to be added if I can ever get a decent fucking picture or screencap or something of this film]

This film was bad. I didn’t care for it. Fathers & Sons is, however, like... Very human, I guess. Max, Goldblum’s character, runs a bookstore on the coast and is having trouble communicating with his son, Ed; there’s a lot of tension between them based off the death of Ed’s mother and Max’s own character flaws, as well as Max’s temper. There’s fucking voiceover in the film, which is used clumsily and just comes across as terrible, but there aren’t any glaring technical issues throughout like there are with Mister Frost.

Max himself is not, in my opinion, a very likable character? He’s certainly relatively sympathetic, and you can see where he’s coming from, but he’s got a terrible temper and the tension with Ed is very much his own doing in a lot of respects - despite my personal dislikes, however, Goldblum is as ever a marvel, and you really do feel that Max is a whole, complete person.

1992 - Shooting Elizabeth, dr. Baz Taylor - IMDb

This film was a fucking trip and a half. The premise is that this guy, Howard, really hates his wife, and decides he hates her so much that he’s gonna kill her, but when she goes missing, he is arrested for her murder even though he never got around to it. It’s a generically confused movie which neither really meets its labelled genres of comedy or thriller, but wouldn’t do well under drama or romance either. It’s odd.

Howard Pigeon, as a character, is deeply unstable. A lot of the moments in the movie that I think are meant to be comedic just end up being tragic, because you can see how upset he is, how freaked out he is, and how disconnected from reality and rational thought he is. He’s also just... A really fucking bad person, but to be honest, so is his wife, so like... Hey. It is what it is, I guess.

1992 - Deep Cover, dir. Bill Duke - IMDb

Deep Cover is fucking incredible. It’s easily one of my favourite movies now, and I just die over it, to be honest. Playing across from Laurence Fishburne (then billed as Larry), David Jason (Elias in the script, and I don’t know why they changed it, maybe to make his name less blatantly Jewish, but I assume none of them had ever heard of Only Fools and Horses) is a low-down cocaine mogul trying to break out on his own from the local boss.

He’s a fascinating character, and I just adore him - the film itself is a very gritty noir that really considers lines of racial intersection and prejudice within both the police force and the drug trade, and David himself is constantly suffering from antisemitism and a lot of very targeted homophobic remarks, and it’s heavily implied he wants to fuck John, Laurence Fishburne’s character. David is erratic, sharp, and extremely brittle with a very short temper: he and John kinda balance each other out, because John’s a much cooler, calmer guy, and I just love their dynamic.

David’s my son. I love him. I will cry over him forever.

1993 - Jurassic Park, dir. Steven Spielberg - IMDB ↪1997 - Jurassic Park: The Lost World, dir. Steven Spielberg - IMDb ↪2018 - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, dir. J.A. Bayona - IMDb

So, like, I’m sure you know the basic concept of Jurassic Park. A crazed Walt Disney parody in white linen with seemingly unlimited money decides to clone a bunch of fucking dinosaurs and put them into a theme park, and it goes horribly wrong. These films are genuinely great sci-fi, raising some wonderful philosophical questions about ownership, ethics, and our place in the universe, and the voice of that philosophy usually belongs to Doctor Ian Malcolm, a mathematician who specialises in chaos theory.

Ian Malcolm... I just adore him, I really do. You know, I’ve read the book of course, as well as the seen all the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies, and Ian is just a delight - he’s bright, he’s sarcastic, but he’s genuinely full of feeling and so eager to talk to other people, to connect with them, etc. I just find him fascinating, and even if sci-fi isn’t your thing, you’ll love Jurassic Park for him alone.

He reprises his role in the latest Jurassic World movie - I can’t, in all good conscience, really recommend the Jurassic World movies, but... He is a silver fox.

1995 - Hideaway, dir. Brett Leonard - IMDb

Hideaway is a supernatural thriller based around the concept of demonic possession, and an antiques dealer - Hatch Harrison - finds he has visions of a local serial killer after being revived from being dead for several minutes. Using those visions to thwart the killer, he and his family realise the cause is supernatural.

Hatch is a really cool dude, and I like him a lot - he’s got the strongest dad energies, and he’s so, so caring. Even grieving and tense, like, he’s just doing his best, and he’s such a good guy, I really adore him.

1995 - Nine Months, dir. Chris Columbus - IMDb

Nine Months is a terrible movie thick with a deeply unsettling ideology re: the whole “everybody really wants kids and must have them”, and I honestly despised it throughout. It’s just a terrible movie, and Columbus always ranges from “this guy is a vaguely bad director” to “this guy is a fucking twat”, and there is nothing vague about the badness of this movie.

That aside, however, Goldblum’s character is kind of a delight. Sean Fletcher is a painter (of paintings, not houses) and like... Layabout? He’s a little erratic, he changes his mind about stuff constantly, but he’s a really sound guy, and he cares a lot about Hugh Grant’s character, who is the protagonist. He’s really fun in a movie that’s just garbage the way through.

1995 - Powder, dir. Victor Salva - IMDb

Powder is a very sad movie, to be honest. It’s about this lad who’s like, an albino with telekinetic powers, and when his parents die, he ends up having to go into the public school system, where he’s bullied an awful lot. It’s extremely brutal about a lot of the bullying stuff, and it does come across very accurately; just as a general warning, there’s... an uncomfortable tone to it, although nothing directly or graphically terrible, especially re: sexuality, which I noticed even before looked Salva up and realised he was that paedophile that did Jeepers Creepers. It’s just something to be aware of.

Jeff’s character is... a delight, however. Donald Ripley is a high school teacher who’s genuinely really passionate about teaching, has no small amount of sympathy for all of his students, and is just-- He’s really sweet, and I love him. Despite the uncomfortable gaze of the film, he retains a paternal air, and I love it.

1996 - Independence Day, dir. Roland Emmerich - IMDb ↪2016 - Independence Day: Resurgence, dir. Roland Emmerich - IMDb

Independence Day, honestly, I expected to be like, bad sci-fi dreck, and it genuinely isn’t. While I think the premise is inherently stupid (the whole evil aliens invade thing), it’s actually executed so well, and I just love it as a flick - Judaism saves the day in many aspects, and it’s so nice to have that positive thing mixed up in it.

David Levinson is such a sweet guy - he’s arrogant and a little bit of an ass, but like, he’s so caring: he constantly worries about his dad, he’s so loyal to his ex-wife without being creepy or weird about it after like, three years; he fucking recycles and uses his bike to get around the city... Like, he’s an underachiever initially, but he’s a genuinely nice guy despite his abrasive personality at times, you know?

I just love him.

And he reprises the role in the new movie, which isn’t as good as the first one, but is still worth a watch for Julius Levinson’s antics, picking up grandchildren as he drives across America.

1998 - Holy Man, dir. Stephen Herek - IMDb

My full review of Holy Man is here.

Holy Man is not a good film. It’s about an exec who runs a TV shopping channel, but is like, really shit at it, and he ends up getting G., a homeless guru played by Eddie Murphy, to sell stuff for him. Nonsensical and odd although the film is, it’s actually surprisingly sweet and wholesome, and I really enjoyed a lot of the humour.

Ricky is a pretty bad guy at the beginning, but he’s slick and fun and good-humoured - he’s mostly just selfish more than outright evil, and he actually ends up becoming a lot less selfish toward the end of the film. He’s a sweetheart, in some respects.

2001 - Cats & Dogs, dir. Lawrence Guterman - IMDb

God, this movie is so bad, and so much more racist than I remembered? There’s this whole racist sequence with some ninja cats, complete with the chopsticks-style music playing in the background, and that’s... Awful.

But Charles Brody is actually really funny, to be honest. Goldblum somehow makes him feel really human - earnest and work-obsessed, but still desperate to be a good father despite not being naturally inclined, and that’s... Honestly, I hate it when he does this. He takes the stupidest character in the stupidest movie and makes them feel like a real person, and I hate him for it.

Brody is cute.

2002 - Igby Goes Down, dir. Burr Steers - IMDb

Igby Goes Down is... Hm. What best to call it? Insipid teenage horseshit. The whole film is just fucking terrible, honestly - it centres around the Culkin that isn’t Kevin in Home Alone, and he’s some unbearable little New York teenager who thinks the world revolves around him and is upset at the prospect that perhaps he should go to school and/or get a job.

Anyway, Goldblum is at his least moral and most hot, he is revolting, and he is so sexy. There’s a weird thing where he’s the family friend of a family that’s pretty anti-semitic, but they play it straight, as if Jeff Goldblum’s face isn’t one of the most Jewish faces anybody’s ever seen, but that aside, he’s really sexy. Sociopathic, abruptly violent, and infrequently undressed, but it’s not worth watching the rest of the film for, to be honest.

2003 - Spinning Boris, dir. Roger Spottiswoode - IMDb

Spinning Boris. What a film.

Here, listen, we just watched this, me and @annethecatdetective, and it was absolutely nothing that I expected,or could expect. It’s a heavily fictionalised “based on a true story” film about three Rpublicans who went to work on the Boris Yeltsin campaign in ‘96. We, apparently, are once again meant to believe Jeff Goldblum as a goyische Republican, which--

I mean, what can I tell you? He does it so well. George Gorton’s fictionalised counterpart is charismatic, charming and funny, but so is most of the movie - the Republican trio are all morons, but that actually lends to their likability in the end, and Gorton is the most lovable of the three, taking the foreground. This movie was like, actually really good.

2004 - The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, dir. Wes Anderson - IMDb

I hated this film, and had to fast-forward a lot of it. I’m not a fan of Anderson at all, much as Goldblum is always singing his praises - I just don’t get it, I guess. Anderson is a master of visual spectacle, but he’s one of the worst writers out there, and pithy lines don’t make up for the complete lack of character that any of his films have.

Alistair Hennessy is no exception. He’s pithy, vaguely (comedically?) sociopathic, and is kinda DTF... And that’s about it. Even Goldblum can’t really add that much depth to this guy, because there’s no depth in other characters for him to play off.

2006 - Man of the Year, dir. Barry Levinson - IMDb

Mmm, so, Man of the Year surprised me.

It’s definitely quite weak, when it comes to plot and writing - the jokes aren’t at their strongest; it can’t really decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a political thriller; some of the jokes and commentary are very off-colour and have not aged well; it seeks to set out a political moral without making any particular targets. Nonetheless, I rather enjoyed it - it doesn’t pretend to be a higher art than it is, and I think it’s still enjoyable. The primary drawback is probably that the premise of a comedian being elected president of the USA is much less hilariously unbelievable in the wake of the Trump campaign, and that colours my perception a little - some of the protag’s comments about immigration or women, the way he responds to other candidates in debate, Hell, even Robin Williams’ wearing of a red baseball cap at one point... All of those elements kinda take the humour out of it a bit because of the Trump election, but hey, it was 2006 - how could they possibly know?

Goldblum’s character in this, Mr Stewart, is the lawyer and primed attack dog of a corrupt company that produces the electronic voting machines responsible for Williams’ character being elected. He isn’t at his most Goldblum-esque in this, I have to say - he’s sharp, nasty, and very business-focused, but he doesn’t get that much time on screen, and his on-screen moments don’t lean very much into his usual charm and humour. Stewart is actually a very dull, run-of-the-mill evil corporate type, and he was a pretty boring character.

2007 - Raines, TV Series - IMDb

I will write whatever you want if you can get me a download link for this, or somewhere where I can just buy the fucking series, from Ireland. I am desperate to watch it, because it looks fucking awful. Michael Raines is a detective who hallucinates that his victims help him solve the crimes.

Doesn’t that sound so bad? I need it.

2009-2010 - Law & Order: Criminal Intent, TV Series - IMDb

So like, you know the shtick with Law & Order. It’s a gory, stupid crime procedural that’s just really stupid. This one, Criminal Intent, is about major crimes, but honestly, I have little to no idea exactly what a major crime is, even having watched the two seasons in which Zach Nichols is a marauding force.

Zach Nichols himself is... Fascinating. So, you know how there’s this fucking trend of just, mean detective who everyone lets be mean because he’s a ~genius~ or whatever, and everyone is always like “ugh, he fucking sucks, but we gotta let him do that”? That is not the case with Zach Nichols. Zach Nichols is nothing short of a genuine sociopath, continuously manipulative, randomly and without provocation is he cruel to victims, witnesses and criminals alike. At no point does anybody call him out for being terrible, or even admitting he’s being terrible. It’s like no one registers the cruelty of his behaviour, or cares.

Honestly, I expect it’s quite accurate as to the New York police system, and in the mean time, it’s really fucking hot. He’s my favourite of all of Goldblum’s characters, and he disgusts me on literally every level.

2010 - Morning Glory, dir. Roger Michell - IMDb

Morning Glory is... It starts out very bland and uninspiring, but it does grow on you more as it goes on. In my opinion, it would have been better if they’d just tried to bill it genuinely, as a comedy-drama, which is what it is - instead, they tried to shoehorn in a very ugly actor I forget the name of as a love interest for Rachel McAdams, I presume in desperate hope of earning that rom-com dollar. Nonetheless, it’s a cute enough concept - TV journalist gets her dream job running a news studio, and has to get bully and asshole anchor Harrison Ford to be fun and wholesome for the morning show. It’s cute, and I do think it’s worth watching despite some of the issues with it.

Jerry is like... He’s so fucking great. Jerry is just an ass. He’s rude, he’s biting, he’s constantly telling McAdams’ character to make stuff that is impossible work, and he very much eats, breathes, and sleeps his job, while packing in time to jog and to fuck an extremely stupid girl, Lisa, he put in the newsroom, who believes in shit like past lives and angels, and is literally the best character in the movie.

Jerry and Lisa are the fucking greatest, everyone else can go home.

According to the IMDb credits, he has a wife who is unnamed, but like... I have no memory of her even being in the movie, honestly. It’s not the greatest of cinematic works.

2010 - The Switch, dir. Josh Gordan & Will Speck - IMDb

The Switch? Bad concept. It’s about Jason Bateman’s character stealing the sperm donation that Jennifer Aniston was going to use to get pregnant, and then replacing it with his own. So like, off the bat, the whole reproductive rape, grievious sexual assault thing, that the movie... Kinda expects you to view as romantic? Somehow? I don’t.... get it. Apparently it’s okay because their characters are “friends”.

Anyway, moving onto the important part, Leonard, Jeff’s character, is great. He’s go the BDE going on; at one point he’s walking on the treadmill while eating a candy bar, and mocks Jason Bateman for not doing the same; he’s sarcastic, eccentric, and a massive THOT that lets women handfeed him; and, inexplicably, despite being Jason Bateman’s boss, him and Bateman are best friends. 10 out of 10 Goldblums for Leonard, who they didn’t bother to give a last name to.

2012 - Zambezia, dir. Wayne Thornley - IMDb

Egh. Like, even for a kid’s movie this one was pretty bland? The actual design and animation is pretty beautiful - I love the designs of all the wildlife, which is the main focus of it, and that’s really well-done throughout; there’s also a star-studded cast of voice actors. The story is pretty dull, and the script ain’t great, but hey. It’s a kid’s movie, and I think it does what it means to do.

Ajax, Goldblum’s character, is pretty cute - he’s like, a busybody, like the fucking... Toucan or whatever he is in the Lion King. He’s the advisor to the bird king or whatever. That’s... I mean, that’s pretty much it. There’s very little to say here.

2013 - Le Week-end, dir. Roger Michell - IMDb

Le Week-end is fucking adorable. It’s about this struggling middle-aged couple who go to Paris for a weekend to try to rekindle their marriage, and they run around committing shenanigans, arguing, and generally being a little bit adorable.

They meet Morgan, who is an old schoolfriend of Jim Broadbent’s character, and is now like, a best-selling writer in economics, and he invites them for a really stupid dinner party full of really impressive people, which makes both of them feel very inadequate. Jim Broadbent spends a lot of the party with Morgan’s weird teenage son, chatting about how Morgan is kind of a dick, but honestly, Morgan is just... Not self-aware. He’s pretty much in love with Jim Broadbent the entire time, and sings everybody’s praises, then comes to rescue them both at the end.

He’s very cute, kinda selfish, kind of disconnected from reality, and I have a lot of affection for him.

2014 - The Grand Budapest Hotel, dir. Wes Anderson - IMDb

The Grand Budapest Hotel is like... It’s a Wes Anderson film. Egh.

Deputy Kovacs is probably the least Goldblum-y character in any Goldblum role. He doesn’t have many of the verbal tics, and to be honest, he doesn’t even move his hands in the typical Goldblum fashion - if you look at the dinner scene, you can see his fingers twitching as he tries to keep his hand still.

Kovacs has some good lines, but like any Anderson character, doesn’t really have a character.

2015 - Mortdecai, dir. David Koepp - IMDb

Mortdecai is a terrible fucking film, and I despised it. It was just awful, it really was, and Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow’s characters were each fucking insufferable. It’s about this posh cunt who sells art, and then lots of people try to kill him because he’s posh, and a cunt.

Jeff’s character, Milton Krampf, is the father of Olivia Munn’s character, and Olivia Munn is a nymphomaniac who wants to fuck Johnny Depp. Milton gets like, 5 minutes of screentime, and is weirdly on board with his daughter banging Johnny Depp, but that’s it. If you ask my opinion, they should have had Milton try to bang Depp, and let Olivia Munn be in charge, but like... It was a bad movie. There was no thinking outside the box.

2017 - Thor: Ragnarok, dir. Taika Waititi - IMDb

I mean, what do I even say?

Thor: Ragnarok is like, my least favourite Thor film, but not because it’s not great. Thor: Ragnarok is so much better than most of the other Marvel films put together - it’s fun, it’s snappy, it’s beautifully shot, it has a vision, etc. etc. Taika Waititi’s humour mostly isn’t my thing, but his comedy is so well-ranging and so well-done that like, even if it isn’t your thing, you still get laughs out of his movies. Ragnarok is a great movie - it’s not my favourite for like, Loki’s characterisation, but... Honestly, when you’re watching it, that stuff just falls away. It’s so entertaining and so well done, even if I don’t agree with some of the characterization and story choices.

And the GM, God, he’s... Just terrible. I adore him. You know I adore him, this whole blog is just GM fanfiction. He’s an Eldritch being with unlimited power who forces people to fight in an intergalactic alien arena while shtupping Loki Laufeyson and being too lazy to properly rule a planet. What’s not to love?

2018 - Seth Rogen’s Hilarity for Charity, dir. Ryan Polito - IMDb

Hilarity for Charity was not funny, and was generally very painful to watch. I would recommend you skip through all of the “comedy” except for Tiffany Kaddish and John Mulaney.

At the end of the special, Jeff Goldblum plays the human face of the Netflix Algorithm, and playfully talks about destroying all human life. It’s pretty cute.

2018 - Isle of Dogs, dir. Wes Anderson - IMDb

I fell asleep during this. Like, within a half hour, I fell asleep.

Goldblum is underutilised, but to be honest, so are a lot of the characters - Isle of Dogs is a very weird movie, and I’m a little unclear as to some of the choices Anderson made with it, but visually, it’s a very strong movie, and it’s more enjoyable than most.

I still fell asleep.

Goldblum’s character, Duke, is like, a husky with a cheerful attitude, and he’s constantly gossiping and making shit up. His lines are good fun.

2018 - Hotel Artemis, dir. Drew Pearce - IMDb

Now, Hotel Artemis, not a great movie. The plot is very lacking, the characters mostly cardboard archetypes instead of developed individuals... I think the film has a lot of issues with telling the audience the stuff that could be shown much more artfully, but like, egh.

Despite those issues, Orian Franklin - Niagara - is a very interesting character. He’s in the movie for a very short amount of time (barely twenty-five minutes of screentime, if that) but he’s a really interesting enigma, and I really loved what little they bothered to do with him.

He’s one of those characters that’s much more interesting in fanfic than in the canon.

#as defined by dictionary #jeff goldblum #jgcu #dictionary writes #this is very much under construction lol

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vivace-joyous · 6 years ago

Text

The Umbrella Academy 1x01-03

okay, so I have been watching this new show cause y’all know I love me some group based narratives. And the premise feels very fun with lots of ways they can play around with it. It’s like Sense8 if Sense8 focused more on worldbuilding and constructing an overarching narrative to connect all the characters too. However, I find these two shows to be inverses of each other even though their premises are similar thematically. UA and S8 (how I will abbreviate them) seem to excel and stumble in a complementary fashion. Before I get too deep in what I mean, I should talk more about just the UA itself and my general impressions over the first 3 episodes.

OVERALL, it’s enjoyable. I feel like the world building and the over arching plot are the two main elements propelling me through the series. Which like... GOOD! That’s what is supposed to happen when watching a show. If you don’t like the story, watching the show feels like a task. But I am genuinely intrigued by the mystery of the show and what will happen next. Five: “The world will end in 8 days.” Vanya “I’ll put some coffee on then.” Solid way to end a pilot and leave me wanting more. Not just for the next episode, but that is a great way to kick off the first season. BOOM! The Hargreaves have to band together and stop the world end of the world. I just appreciate this because it gives a solid foundation for all other storylines to center around. It is something your brain can stay conscious of throughout each episode and I feel that is such a strong element and important element for a tv show to posses to be good.

Continuing with the writing, I think so far the pace is decent and the writing is competent from episode to episode. The less important, character-driven storylines are given weight but never take too much focus from the main plot. The dialogue is passable. It doesn’t have a very distinct personality to itself though. If the character is not eccentric themselves, then they probably won’t ever say anything interesting. Which ugh ehh. I just wish the dialogue called more intention to itself because that way the writers could infuse more character moments in fun little quibs. However, it does its job so I can’t complain.

But I will complain about the use of flashback in the show. The flashbacks feel more used to quickly establish something that is happening in the present day storyline than really be anything more than that. Which is.. like technically okay and the POINT of a flashback. But it is so cliche and I believe there are other, more unique ways to deliver information than just cutting to a flashback. Granted, I do love seeing then team as young teens fighting crime. That’s super cool and I wish the show showed more of that. Cause MY GOD does this show need some more ACTION scenes in it.

I feel like my biggest problem in the first 3 episodes is that the action feels second to the drama and that totally needs to be reversed. I’m so sorry, but outside of whatever Five is doing, all the other individual character storylines are so fucking boring. I don’t care what any of them do when it doesn’t relate to the main plot. I think that’s why I like Diego’s character cause his whole thing is ABOUT the main plot. I mean, I feel like the show will deliver in terms of action. It’s clear that more insane elements will get thrown in and the filmmakers do like the demonstrate the special powers in fun ways. So I am excited to see what action scenes will come up. I just think overall the show needs more cause the melodrama kinda sorta makes the episodes drag. Like, why is Diego constantly in his fight clothes but he has only been in 2 fight scenes? And Five has like what 3 or 4 in just the first 3 episodes?

And MY GOD DO I HATE HOW THIS SHOW IS SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!! UGH the cinematography is fucking crap. I hate how it is lit. I hate how the director decided to compose the shots. I hate how there appears to be this like.... haze fliter???? on everything??? Like every scene looks cloudy. It’s like supersaturated. I don’t like it cause 1) I feel it does not help the tone of the show. I feel like we shouldn’t take everything so seriously and have more fun with the premise. But this smoky haze filter makes everything more somber and I think it bumps with most of what actually happens on the show. And 2) it genuinely makes it harder to make out expressions in the actor’s faces. Ugh fire the DP. They are doing a terrible job.

Let’s talk about the individual characters:

1) Luther. Hate him. Boring white man. Why is he “the leader of the family” after the dad has passed? Like he has not a single interesting aspect about himself. I am honestly so bored every time he talks. And it doesn’t help with the fact that the actor’s head is way too small for the illusion they are trying to create for the character. It’s like “Yeah, let’s put a stale ass, tiny ass white man head on this GIANT 7 foot muscle clad body. He just looks bizarre cause his face says “5′11″ and toned” but his body is that of a bodybuilder. I just wish they found an actor who is just massive like that already for the show. The ridiculous costume they have him in honestly takes me out of it for a bit. And it doesn’t help that they actor isn’t really trying to do anything with the character. Luther says lines. Luther is strong. That’s about it. I will say that despite him being “Number 1″ and “the leader of the family” the show hasn’t given him that much screen time and we still don’t know much about him at all. Which I really appreciate cause it is giving a lot of other (more interesting) characters necessary focus and thus makes getting through Luther scenes that much easier. I don’t know need to learn more about it. Just have him be strong in a corner.

2) Diego. MY FUTURE HUSBAND!!!!!! HE IS SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!! I WILL SUCK THE SOUL OUT OF HIS DICK AND ASS HE IS SO FINE OMG yeah badass martial artist who throws knives and has a bit of an anger management problem. I am SMITTEN! I mean eww why the fuck does he have to be straight and keep hitting on that one detective. Honestly, ugh I hate that he is straight. It’s boring and unoriginal. It would have been neat for him to be asexual. He is good looking so people assume that he would be a lady killer. But he is WAY too obsessed with fighitng crime that he literally doesn’t pay attention to his own sexuality. But WAHTEVER! The queer character has to be the eccentric one with the drug problem alkfhadlskfadslkfbdskh ANYWAYS I like hos Diego adds a healthy amount of doubt amongst the group. In terms of constructing group dynamics, he is a lancer AKA the one always playing devil’s advocate. I think he adds a valuable perspective to the team and it will be interesting to see how the family will solve problems with integration of Diego’s help. I don’t like how the show handle showing the relationship between Diego and Mom/ Grace. But I will dive more into that when I talk about the flashbacks.

3) Allison. My god is she boring. But like, in the perspective in how she is an actress, yet doesn’t act like an actress. I mean, yes some actors can act like “normal people” but like... most actors don’t. I say this as someone who lives in LA and knows actors. They have BIG PERSONALITIES. They like to be KNOWN! However, Allison just feels way too subdued and “normal”. Like, okay she must have pursued an acting career of her own violation. So she must be a person who loves attention and strives for their chance to be in the spotlight. Everything needs to revolve around them. But that’s not Allison. She isn’t really anything. She is concerned about her daughter... if feel like that’s the only real thing we have learned about her so far. I wish her narrative had an angle about her being attention seeking. During the scene when all the siblings were reading Vanya’s autobigraphy, the voiceover cut to Allison when the VO mentioned attention seeking. Which, if that is an aspect of Allison’s character, then SHOW it to us. Have her do SOMETHING besides give creepy incest bedroom eyes to Luther.

4) Klaus. Finally, an interesting character! His powers are unique yet have a direct influence on how his personality is shaped. His is a drug addict because dead people are constantly trying to talk to him. Kinda sorta metaphor for the mentally unwell and how they abuse drugs because “It makes the voices go away”. They just have a lot of things they can do with him and the writers know this. They obviously have some extra fun when writing him. I just wish the other characters were a lot more sympathetic towards him. Like.... maybe try and talk to him about his drug problem? Rather than patronize it literally every single time you talk to him. SERIOUSLY every single scene Klaus is in with one of his siblings, they always HAVE to mention his drug problem AND THEN scold him for it. Like............ that’s not very constructive? Like at all! But I guess that’s just how some families are to one another. Also, it is very interesting to see how they are handling Robert Sheehan’s performance in UA compared to Misfits. In Misfits, he has a tendency to devour each scene he was in, to the point where he felt like the central character of that show. But Nathan was such a great character, that often times you didn’t mind how he would steamroll over others because it was done in such an entertaining way. But in the UA, the director’s have chosen to use Robert Sheehan’s signature eccentric style to flavour the scenes, rather than change the tone of the scene altogether (unlike how they used Nathan in Misfits). Anyways, I am most intrigued to see what they will do with his character.

5) Five. I don’t have too much to say about him because I feel like there is a lot more to be discovered about this character. Overall, I like the concept around the character and tbh he gets some of the best scenes in the first 3 episodes. I am truly impressed with the actor portraying this character. I think he is doing quite a great job in giving us the nuances of the character. A 58-year-old trapped in the body of a 13-year-old. Like, I get that. I see that. It works and I am here for it.

6) Ben. WOW so the one Asian one is dead and barely gets any lines. Ugh okay. Really REALLY want to learn more about him. Really intrigued with how he died to begin with. Hopefully the show shares this story element in an interesting way that connects to the main plot in a way other than just thematically.

7) Vanya. I.... I wanna hold my tongue about her. Cause she is obviously the audience perspective character for this world. So there isn’t much to say about her besides her being a tool to help the audience get integrated into the show’s world. I just... I gotta wait cause I feel like they are going to do something cool with her character and I don’t wanna make any.... undeserved assumptions. I just want more from her which like... I guess is a good thing?

#the umbrella academy #Imma try and do reviews for this show #but it probably won't be episode by episode like I did with Sense8 #netflix #review #tv show

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