#like those first two movies were from the 80s. absolutely insane

[wp100]

watched the most recent ghostbusters movie (frozen empire?)

It was alright. I preferred afterlife, but still really enjoyed this one. lots of character development and good humour

[beenbaanbuun]

cock warming w/jongho

words - 🫣

genre - fluff, nsfw

warnings - cockwarming, dom!jongho, sub!reader, kind of non-sexual intimacy (cockwarming but not necessarily horny), a single spank, praise, guidance, it’s just very cute

you cant convince me that jongho doesn’t absolutely love cockwarming. like there’s just something about the intimacy of it that really gets him going. mix that with the casual dominance of it all - him pinning you down with a strong arm, spanking your thigh if you begin to grow restless, mumbling sweet nothings into your ear as you lay your chest against his in a dizzy haze - and he’s going practically insane.

it’s movie night, just you and him, and for some unknown reason he decided to use that feature of netflix that picks a random film for you

of course, after 4 or 5 tries, it lands on nothing good (because it never does) and the two of you decide to settle for whatever random film it decided on

it starts off with you two making fun of the poor editing and direction of the film, picking at all the plot holes until you were both giggling incessantly

that little game lasted a while, but it didn’t take long for it to become boring and the two of you were plunged into a comfortable silence once more

until, of course, a sex scene!

in the grand scheme of things, it had no relation to the film whatsoever and was quite frankly incredibly poorly made

like you don’t know who those moans were coming from, but they didn’t match up with the mouths of either of the actors

but just as you were about to make fun of it to jongho, you noticed a little something of his lap

well, more like a big something, and you couldn’t help but gasp

“this is making you hard?” you scrutinise, eyes narrowing as you pull them away from the tent in his pants to instead look at his face

you expected him to be embarrassed or ashamed, but he wore a stoic expression as he shushed you

again, you gasped and sat up from the position you were in, leant up against him

“first you get hard to the worst sex scene i’ve ever seen, then you shush me?” you scoffed, “just say you hate me, next time.”

you watched as he rolled his eyes, finally tearing his gaze away from the screen to look at you

“i’ve been hard for the last 20 minutes,” he grumbled, “you just didn’t notice so i didn’t say anything.”

oh… that’s weird

it’s not like you’d been doing anything to try and make him hard, and it’s not like the film had even been remotely sexy in any way shape or form

like you’d understand if you were lay there in lingerie, but you were in what you described as your ‘grannie nightie’, curled up against him like you would be on any other night

you frowned

“well, why are you hard?” you asked

“am i not allowed to be?” he replied

it was a fair response, but you still wanted answers

“well there has to be a reason…” you mumbled

“i’m sorry, why don’t you just call the erection police?” his voice was dripping in sarcasm, “hello? 911? yeah, i was being cute around my boyfriend and now he’s hard. come arrest him please!”

at this point the film was just background noise as the two of you went back and forth bickering about his penis of all things…

“wait, your erection is because of me?” you cock your head to the side in confusion

again, your pyjamas were hardly the sexiest thing in the world, unless you’re an 80 year old man and this is the most thigh you’ve seen in years

but jongho wasn’t 80, and he saw your thighs on a daily basis

fuck, he saw a lot more than thigh on most days

“well who else would’ve caused it?” he glanced between you and the screen, “you can’t seriously believe this shit show made me hard?”

“oh,” you mumbled

“yeah, oh…” he rolled his eyes

and you thought that was it for a moment before his hands were on you and you were being tugged onto his lap like you were nothing more than a rag doll

you squeaked in surprise as his strong arms pinned you to his lap, erection digging into your thigh

you squirmed, but the look he gave you quickly stopped you in your tracks

“you want to know why i’m hard?” he mumbled into your ear, a soft smile gracing his lips

he looked so innocent, and you would’ve believed it if it weren’t for the obvious

you nodded

“you’re just too cute, baby,” he chuckled deeply into your ear, the sound heading immediately south, slicking you up a little, “in your cute little nightie, making your cute little comments. sue me for being attracted to you…”

“but that’s not…” you trailed off, “i’m not being sexy, am i?”

“you don’t have to be, baby,” he cooed, “you don’t have to make yourself sexy for me to want you. i want you just as much now as i would any other day.”

“so you want to fuck me because i’m not sexy?”

he scoffed, “i want to be close to you, baby. it’s not the same.”

it sounded the same to you, but still you nodded as if you understood

“want me to take a seat?” you grounded down once and he groaned

his eyes rolled back into his head in pleasure, but just as you were about to do it again he stopped you

“not if you’re not going to be a good girl and sit still for me,” you barely registered the sound of the slap until the stinging sensation spread though your thigh a moment later, “i said i didn’t want to fuck you, and here you are grinding on my dick like you can’t understand basic instructions!”

you stilled at his comment, a frown forming on your face

now you really didn’t get it…

he seemed to notice your sudden change in demeanour and sighed

“i don’t want to fuck you, but that doesn’t mean i don’t want to be inside of you,” he explained slowly, desperate to make you understand, “i just want you to be around me, sweetheart. no expectations, i just want to be close to you.”

oh…

you supposed that made a little sense

with a slightly less confused look, you nodded

you didn’t move though

you misunderstood him before, now you wanted him to guide you through it so you didn’t get it wrong again

luckily for you, jongho took more than a little pride in telling you what to do

it boosted his ego, and he couldn’t deny how sweet you looked when you followed his every instruction

so he gave you a sweet smile before setting his hands on your waist

“straddle me, baby.”

his hands never left your sides as you followed his directions

“good girl,” he praised, making you puff your chest out a little with pride, “now i need you to pull my bottoms down, hm?”

and you did it, because jongho was right - you were his good girl!

you reached your hands down and shuffled back a little to give his dick enough room to spring free

and when it did spring free, you couldn’t help but sit in awe of how pretty it was

you’d seen it before, but you were still shocked at how perfect it was every time you saw it

a decent size lengthwise, but thicker than most

a pretty pink tip that leaked pearlescent precum in little droplets

jongho chuckled

“you done staring, or do you want to take a picture?” your eyes widened and your gaze shot up to his face again.

he wore a wide smirk as you mumbled an apology

“it’s okay, sweetheart,” his thumbs rubbed circles over your sides, “now, can you slip your panties to the side for me? i want you to sit on me…”

and again, you did as he asked because you were good and you wanted to behave for him

so your fingers slid south and pushed the thin cotton to the side (ignoring the way you had to peel them away from your gooey wetness) and you shuffled forwards until your core was hovering above his cock

you slid down slowly, the stretch almost painful but not quite

it took a moment for you to bottom out, his tip snug against your cervix and your thighs resting against his own

the temptation to start bouncing was certainly there, but at the risk of no longer being his good girl, you decided not to

not that you could anyway, not when he brought his arms around you, pinning you to his chest and holding you there like it was just any regular cuddle on any regular day

like his dick wasn’t resting heavily inside of you

like you weren’t so close to disobeying and seeking out your own pleasure

a big hand came up to the back of your head to hold it against his shoulder, fingers lacing themselves in your hair and giving it gentle, rhythmic tugs like he always did when you needed to chill a little

his fingernails scratched against your scalp in a way that was so soothing, it seemed to turn your whole body to jelly

and suddenly, the horny tension that laced itself up within you dissipated like it was never there

well, it wasn’t completely gone - you still had your boyfriends dick in you, after all - but it was duller, more manageable

you moaned as you relaxed into his warmth that surrounded you from every angle possible, and he couldn’t help but let out a chuckle

“do you get it now, honey?” he whispered into your ear, “do you understand what i mean when i say i want you close?”

you just nod

“oh, you’re so precious, baby,” he gave you a particularly tight squeeze with his thick arms, “so good for me, hm? letting me hold you close like this. i expected it to take you longer to settle down, but you’re such a good girl, right? shouldn’t have doubted you, baby…”

his words made your mind cloud over as you sank into the praise that he spoon fed to you

you just lay there with your head on his shoulder, staring up at him like he was your entire universe, eating up every single word he said to you

“love you, bear,” you mumble into his neck

he chuckled

“love you too, honey.”

[superpeeboy]

Evil thoughts and headcanons about benny and gcbc below

Benny is mad-scientist-adjacent in my mind. He’s almost one of those but hes an engineer instead. Still a freak.

Benny has facial hair. its in the storyboards and I cling to it like a koala to a tree during a forest fire

Benny IS short but he floats to peoples height so most don’t even notice

Old ass men. Benny would be born sometime before the 80s so he could actually grow up during that time! 1970 something.

For that matter, GCBC is also old as hell. Similar age to benny but he did not age anywhere near as well 😭😭 UGLY!

Benny and GCBC play fight like dogs.

Benny is NOT SKINNY!! this man eats ice cream every day he would not be skinny! no!

And for that matter, GCBC isn’t skinny either. Fat GCBC or death!

Hard of hearing benny. He works with spaceships those things are loud!

I dont think benny would care about pronouns. I usually use he/him for benny but i really dont think hed have a preference like everyone calls him he/him so he just goes with it.

On the other clawhand, GCBC is WOKE!!! He/it good cop he/she bad cop, collectively he/they because they are literally TWO GUYS!!!

More lgbt stuff. I think Gay Cop Bisexual Cop is funny to say so i go with it for that reason. Benny is probably also gay HE LOOKS GAY!

Good cop probably likes to go to the library. He just looks like he does. Round glasses. NERD!!

Benny is more evil than GCBC. The girls that get it get it and the girls that dont dont.

…I LOVE EVIL BENNY! i must continue. I feel like in the drafts for the lego movie benny was just absolutely deranged and they had to tone it down a bit for the final film but i love that he was such a freak! like what was his issue. all the removed stuff ive seen with benny was just him absolutely tweaking. AND HE KILLED GCBC he did that in the draft script and it was so awesome and he didnt even feel bad i love it!!

outside of like actual stuff from tlm i also think people infantilize benny a lot and its fun to just make him absolutely horrible to spite that.

also! Benny has brain damage the evil way… I project a lot for this cuz GIRL ME TOO! he has poor control over his own limbs and cant hold a train of thought very well and i dont want to continue cuz i takea lot of this specifically from my own experiences but those are just a couple things 🤔

I feel insane talking about this but i swear bad cop has an interest in cowboys. when emmet and lucy escape it seems like the first place she checks is the old west (i know its jsut movie logic… BUT STILL!), the folks in the old west recognize her theyre literally shaking cuz shes SCARY!! and she knows her way around the place pretty well which both of those are probably from her job but IDC!! now when she said “get off my train” WHAT IF what if she just felt protective over old west propertyy also in the behind the bricks video she mentions cowboys even though they were NOT that big of a part of the movie!! evil speculating on a fictional characters interests 😭😭😭

if they were birds gcbc would be an owl and benny would be a blue footed booby. also not about my main slop characters but related to bird legos, metalbeard would be an albatross.

continuing with owl cop, hes an owl because owls have large circular eyes, yet their eyes can also be very reflective, and they can twist their heads about.

if they were cats gcbc would be a tiger just so they could say “you bit the wrong tigers tail” and benny would be a serval

if they were dogs gcbc would be a german shepherd, obvious choice, and benny would be a schnauzer

if they were fish gcbc would be good cod bad cod just for the name and benny would be a pleco

when picking good cop up he would curl up like a happy kitty hed really like being picked up and when picking bad cop up he would scramble and claw at you in fear of falling (she is a frightened animal)

Good cop would watch kids cartoons in his free time, if he had any 💀

Good cop the type of guy to say “geeze louise”

Good cop the type of guy say “you wouldnt hit a guy with glasses would ya?”

Good cop the type of guy to say “ohh butterfingers” after dropping something

Good cop the type of guy to look for his tv remote and say “if i were the tv remote where would i be?”

Good cop the type of guy to close the fridge door with his hips

Good cop definitely has the urge to just collect trinkets but not the time nor money, maybe on weekends hed visit thrift shops just to get random stuff

Good cop and benny both seem like they chew on things when nervous

Both good cop and bad cop like the color pink but bad cop would be a bit more embarassed to share that. at home they definitely have pink blankets and pillows and all sorts of pink

Everyone is autistic if you think hard enough.

I love how everyone agrees that bad cop takes after his mother and good cop his father. Unanimous agreement ive never seen anyone headcanon it the other way

I say this as a joke but i dont have any way that i think gcbc wouldve come to be so its basically my headcanon even if its a joke. Good cop ate bad cop in the womb. Thats why theyre like that. And ma cop was terrified because she was set to have twins and only had one baby. 💀💀

Benny has definitely been hit with the “Hes smart but he doesnt apply himself” thing in the past.

GCBC is not a pale white man. Not happening. He would not do that!

If they participated in a chicken fight, gcbc would be on benny’s shoulders (as the cops cannot swim)

Good cop’s eyes are so big they squash his brain

[cha-ra-nui]

2024 Retrospective

Part 5: Western media with one anime chameo

And I might as well talk about “Arcane” first, since that's the most recent one. Going into season one, no one expected this to be one of the best seasons of television ever made. And the problem season two had was that it now had to live up to that. It didn’t. If season one is a 10/10 season, then this was 9.5. Its pacing is too fast, but that is really its only issue. The storylines themselves are great, they just needed a bit more time to breathe. It’s only a slight fumble, and if season one hadn’t set the expectations unreasonably high, I doubt people would mind as much. Fortiche also seems perfectly aware of that, and considering this is their first show I’m expecting their future work not to have this issue anymore. It also helped that the animation quality was utterly insane. This is one of the best-looking animated works I’ve ever seen, feature films included, and I can’t praise the artists working on this enough.

Also yeah, the entire Arcane soundtrack goes way too hard, what else is new?

In other news, Riot Games still makes absolutely kick ass music videos. I would’ve preferred a more interesting art style for “Still Here”, but the season trailers seem bound to that pseudo-realistic videogame cutscene CGI. At least this is about as good as a cutscene can look, and it gets stronger with every segment. Besides, the song and animation work beautifully together, we get to see Kindred in a cinematic, and both her and wolf are absolutely gorgeous. They even gave Ashe some fucking clothes. Their worlds song “Heavy is the Crown” is also pretty good. The animation looks great, only problem being that so much focus is put on the band and not the players these videos are supposed to be about. I get it, you got Linkin Park to make an animated video for, but man, give T1 their flowers. Faker might not need them anymore, but the other members sure deserved their moment too. And why pick those champions to represent them, I’m sure there were more iconic picks for Keria than Thresh? We also got the entire back half of Helluva Boss’ second season this year, and I’m mostly happy with what we got. “Full Moon” could’ve used a more significant A-plot; the episode is 80% filler followed by the most significant scene in the entire season, that’s just not great structuring. And I’m not a fan of how needlessly contrived and rushed “Mastermind” was. But overall, I still enjoyed this season. It hits higher highs and lower lows than season one, but as long as the highs it hits are “2 Minutes Notice” I can live with that. And I despise the hatedom this show attracts. Hazbin Hotel too for that matter. The KPop fandom is less toxic than whatever is happening in these show’s tags.

There were a couple of good movies this year too.

The Mononoke movie was finally available on streaming just before the year ended, and its utterly gorgeous. It’s a real shame that no theatre in my area showed it.

But I did catch five films in cinemas this year and liked all of them.

“Deadpool & Wolverine” was a lot more fun than I expected it to be, and it was nice to watch a superhero movie on the big screen in 2024 and actually enjoy it. The last time I watched a MCU movie was also the first time I wanted to walk out of a cinema, so hey, it’s nice that at least Deadpool is still capable of being entertaining.

Then there was Dreamworks’ “The Wild Robot”, a movie I couldn’t wait to see from the day the first trailer dropped. And I’m glad to report that it is good. Visually stunning for sure, and emotionally impactful the way all the best Dreamworks movies are. It’s not as great as I wanted it to be, but I still loved every second of it and have high hopes for the sequel. Maybe Dreamworks is actually back, and “Puss In Boots” wasn’t just a fluke hit.

“Arthur The Great” was the first of two movies I went to see with my family, and it’s a sweet, heartwarming, little film about a dog crossing a jungle to find a home. It’s not trying to reinvent the wheel, but it’s well made for what it is. It’s also based on the type of true story that sounds too outlandish to be real but somehow is. Would recommend to anyone who likes dogs and is looking for an easy watch to kill an afternoon.

The other movie meanwhile is trying to reinvent the wheel, and it’s neither sweet nor heartwarming nor entertaining nor an easy watch. “The Zone Of Interest” is a case study in how effective sound design can be, and it’s utterly haunting and incredibly hard to stomach. I forced myself through it because I was interested in its sound design specifically, and because I feel like remembering this specific chapter of history is my duty as a German citizen. I felt sick during its entire runtime. This is the type of movie I think everyone should know because it’s important, but not one that is easy to recommend because it is such a hard watch.

And then of course there was “Dune Part 2”. I stopped reading the books somewhere two thirds through “God Emperor Of Dune” because it was just getting uncomfortably weird and convoluted, but even so, and even as a dedicated fantasy fan who never liked sci-fi, I’d list “Dune” and “Dune Messiah” among my favorite books of all time. They are incredible. There were some changes made to the last third of the first book in Denis Villeneuve’s second “Dune” film, but none of them detracted from the experience. This team knew exactly what needed to change to make this behemoth of a nerd bible work on screen, and the movie is excellent. This is what it must have felt like to watch “The Lord Of The Rings” in cinema, a monumental achievement for its genre that will not be measured up to anytime soon, if ever again. The one thing that worries me though is that the changes they made will affect the story of “Dune Messiah”, an adaption of which they’re already working on as of writing. Because I loved this book for many reasons that would not translate well to film. It’s a book were barely anything actually happens, but where a sense of looming doom permeates every page, it’s a brilliant exercise in paranoia. “Dune Messiah” is a character study presented as a tragedy, and I sincerely hope Hollywood allows it to stay that way. Because the ending of this book is probably my favorite part of this entire series, and I would hate to see it changed to appease a movie going public.

[goodluckclove]

Hi if you're looking for reviews on all of these here are mine from what I've seen, as short as possible and in order as they appear on the list.

possibly in michigan: Fun, super campy and low-budget, the source of some tiktok sounds you've definitely heard before. it's 12 minutes who cares give it a watch.

hellraiser 1: I fucking love Hellraiser. Clive Barker (Queer, kinky, horror darling) wrote the book and then directed the movie adaptation. Horror, if there are jumpscares they are not well executed, it's decently gory but it's like schlocky 80's gore that is at times wonderfully cheesy. Pretty cool practical effects.

hellraiser 2: They made like 11 Hellraiser movies and I have seen all of them. Clive Barker I think only wrote and directed the first one, so I'd say that's the only one in the series that's objectively pretty great. The second one is unremarkable, the fourth takes place in space, and the one from 2011 is a found footage film where Pinhead is inexplicably CGI. This series and Final Destination are, in my mind, the most enjoyable near-endless horror film franchises.

kill bill 1: It's Tarantino, it's pretty good. I never had an interest to watch it again.

kill bill 2: I've seen this too, I imagine it's also fine. Quentin Tarantino is a film director and people like to talk about him. I am not one of those people.

it's a wonderful life: Black and white Christmas movie. I am a pretty big fan of James Stewart and found that he evokes a softness in his masculinity that I like seeing in actors, especially of that era. If you want to see him sans Christmas-induced suicidaility, The Shop Around the Corner and Rear Window are also great.

evil dead 1: Bruce Campbell is a treasure and one of my idols. Warning in advance though this is a Sam Rami movie and he's known for some pretty wild creative moves in horror. In almost all of his work there's some cartoonish levels of gore (Not realistic, but certainly fucking weird). In this movie specifically, though, there is an infamous scene where a woman is possessed by a demon through SA by a tree monster. It's short, not entirely explicit, but it's absolutely unnecessary and Rami has stated he regrets this specific choice. He went on to remove the agressive sexual overtones in the sequel which is partially a remake of this movie.

evil dead 2: I would tell most people to treat this trilogy like a duology. Evil Dead 2 is the first Evil Dead as far as I'm concerned - and frankly, I think Sam Rami would agree with me. He got to do all the shit from the first movie in this too - only bigger, better, gorier, more insane, and just so much fucking fun. Bruce Campbell cuts off his hand and replaces it with a chainsaw. He is more annoyed with this because he is the most handsome, coolest guy in the world. He is my Batman and he works in his universe's equivalent of Walmart.

army of darkness: After having a terrible night, Ash Williams is out one hand and a girlfriend. Before he can take a goddamned shower he is thrown into a portal and sent back to the Middle Ages, where there's more goddamned deadites and he resigns himself this somehow being his problem. These two movies are incredible. I own them on DVD.

hell house llc 1: It's fine. Found footage horror so I had to see it. Most of them are unwatchable to okay, this was okay.

hell house llc 2: I forgot there were sequels, looked up the synopsis of this one and realized that I did watch this one too. It was not good. They made four of these apparently and they're releasing a fifth one next year. That is new information. I will probably try and watch the third one.

perfect blue: Satoshi Kon is brilliant and this movie is incredible. It's a beautifully-animated psychological horror about a woman trying to forge a a new path outside of her previous idol career and her subsequent breakdown. There's another rape scene (Simulated, she's an actor and it's during a shooting), but I would say this has a far more earned cultural and narrative context compared to idiot 22 year old Sam Rami. Still, if that's rough, I'd skip this. But if that's not a dealbreaker this is the subbed version - which is crucial, because the dub fucked up and ruined the super subtle and devastating twist ending.

stepford wives: I'm a fan of the original over the remake. Pretty grim societal messages, ending was a lot darker than I remember when I first watched it. Solid film, I'd say worth a watch.

texas chainsaw massacre (1974): This is an insane collection of movies, by the way. The original Texas Chainsaw is a pretty interesting piece of horror history in that it's deeply disturbing while also not really anything in terms of on-screen gore (Or nudity, really). It's also arguably a landmark in disability rep for genre movies - as the wheelchair-user in the central cast is written to be fairly unlikable, so is everyone else, and even then he's not the first to die. It's not progressive in that way, but it is interesting to watch and see where things have evolved.

carrie (1976): This movie really freaked me out when I was younger. There was a desperation in the face of a young Sissy Spacek that, when paired with Brian De Palma's frantic directing, was really disturbing to me. It's good, though. Great watch. Better adaptation than the new one.

the thing (1982): Good! Fun! Bleak as fuck! I consistently mistake this as being a Cronenberg movie but I do kind of think that's justified.

crash (1996): See this is a Cronenberg movie. It's also what I personally consider to be one of his least interesting. Scanners is cool. Videodrome is cool. This is - like, fine? But it's dialogue-heavy and lacking in campy flesh theatrics, and Cronenberg is like. Not great with dialogue.

get out: It's the Jordan Peele movie. It's fantastic. People weren't lying when it came out and we all collectively said it was fantastic.

the watermelon woman: Late 90's independent lesbian romantic dramady written and directed by a black lesbian filmmaker. New Queer Cinema is awesome and so valuable to learn about for both what it did and what it was lacking in. People have said the dialogue can be lacking, but it's pretty on-par to the genre of what I remember considering a solid contender for the proto-mumblecore genre of films.

eraserhead: It's David Lynch. It's his first feature film. He insists it wasn't a way for him to process his fears around becoming a father despite the fact that the movie was released shortly after the birth of his first child and it stars a man who just straight up looks exactly how David Lynch looks.

free movies

nowhere

the living end

the doom generation

mysterious skin

chopping mall

black christmas

beneath the skin

possibly in michigan

hellraiser 1

hellraiser 2

kill bill 1

kill bill 2

leave her to heaven

it's a wonderful life

bram stoker's dracula

evil dead 1

evil dead 2

army of darkness

hell house llc 1

hell house llc 2

hell house llc 3

aliens

vampire hunter d (1985)

vampire hunter d: bloodlust

mikey and nicky

perfect blue

ganja and hess

nosferatu (1922)

carnival of souls

stepford wives

texas chainsaw massacre (1974)

gentlemen prefer blondes

fight club

carrie (1976)

the thing (1982)

the lost boys

butch cassidy and the sundance kid

phantom of the paradise

velvet goldmine

the devils (1971)

possession (1981)

crash (1996)

get out

paris is burning

the watermelon woman

eraserhead

an american werewolf in london

whatever happened to baby jane?

all about eve

southern comfort

[jupitermelichios]

ive never seen riverdale but im here from ur post and listening... can u explain how the characters use "old-timey tech" or what that means

short answer: imagine if people in 300 years time threw a '20th century' themed party, and you've got 20s flappers standing next to 70s punks next to someone cosplaying paris hilton. that's riverdale.

long answer: despite appearing to be pretty much just another vampire diaries, or pretty little liars, or even smallville (seriously, this show wants to be smallville so bad), riverdale is made with a kind of aesthetic verve usually only found in Wes Anderson movies. Whole sets are perpetually bathed in neon light, camera work is suprisingly inventive, characters are very carefully colour coded, its a visually pretty interesting show

and a part of that is the tech. the show-runners were going for a kind of timeless americana vibe, and one of the main ways that mannifests itself is that (after season 1, which is fairly normal) technologies from 1901 to 2021 all exist simultaneously in the town, and the general rule seems to be to only ever go as modern as you absolutely have to.

telephones are a good example of that. if a character recieves a phone call while in a physical building, it will come through on a chorded landline. (the only chordless phone exists in betty's bedroom, because they like to have her lie on her bed and talk, ala early 90s teen romcoms.) people will phone the diner and ask to speak to a patron rather than just calling that patron directly. the phones used are often rotary dial ones, rather than push button, and in the case of the high school, a candlestick phone (the ones where the speaker and microphone are two sepperate parts)

but characters have modern cell/mobile phones. if someone needs to make/recieve a phone call when they're in their car or outside, they'll use a mobile phone. (I have a feeling there is one instance of an 80s car phone, but don't quote me on that)

jughead has a laptop, because that was introduced in season 1, but he basically stops using it and starts writing on a typewriter from season 3 onward, and the laptop only comes back when it's needed for a plot point.

the fbi uses paper files and microfiche, and when they tap someone's phone it records onto a cassette tape. the highschool computers are from 1995, people are surprised that a video rental store is still in business but not that it only rents VHS tapes, tvs are almost all 1960s wood pannelled ones except when they're early 80s countertop ones, betty's dad is about 40 but his childhood home movies are reels of film that have to be played on an vintage projector rather than vhs tapes.

for season 3 and 4, all the tech works on this same logic. occaisionally it's a nod to the comics (archie drives a 1915 ford model T tourer, which is a comics reference, but everyone else drives cars from between about 1950 and 1975, which isn't. any modern cars are ones introduced in the first season), mostly it's just the designers having fun.

season 5 does something slightly weirder, where specific sets and characters seem to exist in different timezones, like jughead's flat exists in the 1970s and archie's military service exists in the 1910s. (hospitals have always only existed in the 1950s and the nurses wear those weird white pointy hats that make them look like the flying nun.)

i don't think it works for what they were going for; the diner definitely has a timeless feel, but the rest of it just feels weird, honestly. but that actually works in the show's favour, because the plots get so insane that combined with time not working properly you just have to conclude that this either takes place on an alien planet where everyone is trying and failing to cosplay 20th century humans, or in some kind of time sinkhole where a century of time is all happening simulataneously and also mothman is here. (that's not a joke. mothman is here)

[crazyintheeast]

I loved WW84. It was an amazing movie but what I loved even more was how it really showed how utterly irrelevant Batman has always been in the DC universe. Like we already got some hints in the Batman vs Superman  movie where Batman was not even considered news but seriously. Could you imagine just how crazy the DC universe is? Like the world was pretty normal until the 80′s. Oh there were some urban legends about mythical woman during WW1 but you know how those urban legends tend to be dismissed.

But then in 1984 suddenly every electronic device in the world switches to show you the face of some American dude who was known for running a pyramid scheme and he tells you to make a wish. And it fucking works. Even the people who were skeptical about it suddenly decide to make a wish when they see everything going crazy around them. Complete chaos and insanity ensues and humanity is half an hour away from wiping itself out of existence. Then the gentle feminine voice tells you that you could be a better person and literally talks humanity out of the brink of annihilation

Then things get normal for a while although normal is a relative term when your entire world was flipped  And then a guy dressed as a Bat appears in Gotham. The entire world holds their breath. Is this going to start a  chain reaction and throw everything in chaos the way it did in the 80′s? But nope nothing happens. Guy just turns out to be a dude dressed in a Bat with zero powers. The world completely loses interests in like two days

Then an actual super powered person appears on screen . This time humanity does not loses interests especially after an actual alien invasion happens. Everybody tries to learn more about Superman until he finally relents and gives several interview to help people feel safer. After seeing his expression when asked why he didn’t suggest to his people to simply colonize Mars humanity collectively decides that Superman is a well meaning himbo. Once again nobody outside Gotham actually cares about Batman despite the fact that he is now fighting random clowns and animal themed villains

Then a crazy alien monster attacks. Superman, Batman and a mysterious woman battle it. The entire world is at the edge of the seat and everything is streamed live. Superman dies like the himbo he was. Going on a suicidal charge againt the monsters instead of simply giving the magical spear to the mysterious woman who is clearly a master of melee combat. The Batman is also there and everybody is just wondering what on Earth is he doing there. Then still traumtised from their favorite himbo’s death they hear the voice of the mysterious woman and everybody loses their shit. That’s her. That’s the woman who talked to the entire world in 84. Batman is once again completely forgotten and the few times he is mentioned it’s like meme about how useless he is compared to the others. Gotha city official gleefully dunk on him as well since due to his illegal brutalization of criminals and his constant  disruption of the chain of evidence pretty much any criminal who can afford a half way decent lawyer walks

Then Midway City gets taken over by what looks like to be zombie monsters. The world is once again fascinated and  when literally a big chink of the major military installation on the planet.

Just when humanity is recovering from that there are are apparently insects aliens over the world again and somehow Superman is alive now? And he is back with the Wonder Woman but this time there is also a gorgeous man with a Trident and some weird kid in a red uniform that can move at an incredible speed? Batman is also there but apart from Gotham once again nobody actually cares about him and everyone is focused on the now living Superman , the Wonder Woman and the two new guys

Our gorgeous Trident man once again makes the news when literally entire garbage in the ocean and a big chunk of ships get washed up on every major beach in the world. Nobody knows whats happening but Trident gets caught live on every camera ripping it up in an small Italian city alongside a mysterious red headed woman with water powers. The world is once again fascinated with this new hero

Then in Philly of all places we get a new super powered hero who goes by Shazam. First people assumes he is another Kryptonian but he quickly clarifies that he just got his powers. Then he makes several tween references confusing people even more. Once again Batman is completely ignored by pretty much anybody and there are whole petition to kick him out of the what is dubbed as the Super Squad and replace him with the Philly hero

And then Birds of Prey happens and Harley blows up . And usually she would be a one day wonder about a clown lady who went on a rampage  but then someone uncovers footage from her in Midway City and Harley gets on social media and starts spilling the tea. Amanda Waller, the Suicide Squad, Enchantress...everything. She adored the attention and when she finds out how much people enjoy watching her beat up criminals (she doesn’t kill them on camera because she quickly finds out that a lot of kids are subscribed as well) she begins regularly live streaming it. Batman is not even the most famous weirdo out of Gotham anymore. Harley now has firmly cornered the market. But he doesn’t actually care. He didn’t fight crime to get famous or get attention. In fact he likes being in the shadows and the fact that Harley Quinn targets criminals now and keeps the casualties to a minimum to maintain her likes is a good thing. But then one horrifying day the internet learns that Harley’s hyena is named Bruce and they start shipping her with Bruce Wayne. Harley loves it and encourages it and everybody loses their mind. People write smutty fanfiction about them, the Harley/Bruce win all the internet polls, every time there is an interview he has talk about her. And worst of all one day he opened up his mail to see that someone had sent him the link to incredibly graphic deep fake of a Harley/Bruce/Batman three way.

And that’s when Bruce Wayne decides to spend several dozen billion dollars to construct the Watchtower. Because he absolutely does not want to be on this planet anymore

[creepypocky]

Hello dear! May I have a romantic and Nsfw creepypasta match-up please? Feel free to ignore this if they are closed but if you do choose to do this then thank you so much! I hope you have a great day/night!

Zodiac sign: Leo sun, Aries moon, Leo rising

Personality Type: ENTP

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Straight (For now might be bi but i'm going with straight)

I'm 5'4 and I have a very tiny body frame so i'm extremely petite and pretty small. I'm not very curvy and I literally have the body of a cereal box...lol but its fine because I have nice hips and thighs. I have thick brown hair that goes down to my back and it gets tangled pretty easily but its kinda fluffy. I have brown eyes and tiny freckles all over my face and body. I also have a very strong grunge style, like Flannels, band t-shirts, combat boots, leather jackets etc. But i'd also always enjoy a nice oversized sweatshirt or hoodie with a pair of skinny, ripped jeans and some converses or something along those lines.

For my personality.....this is where things get interesting. At first people find me very intimidating due to my resting bitch face and cold exterior but I promise i'm not like that ALL the time. When you get to know me, i'm a big extrovert, goofy and about everything that comes out of my mouth is sarcasm or some dry humored joke. I'm also that one friend in a group where they literally will do the stupidest shit ever like for an example one time it was super dark outside and my other friend was there, while I was trying to climb a tree and I failed and fell out of the tree, and landed on my back. I got straight up after that somehow it didn't hurt.....like at all? But yeah i'm super reckless and sometimes people have to save me from myself if you get what I mean. I also have a very strong "I don't give a fuck" attitude and I will not hesitate to stick up for myself or my friends....like i'm the type of person where if someone glares at me, i'll glare right back. I can have bad anxiety and I can be very self destructive. This is where my feisty, stubborn, hardheaded side comes in. If I want something then i'll fight for it even if it hurts me and i'll get into a bad cycle of putting myself down and trying to do better even if I did great the first time but I always push myself too far and other people have to stop me because I usually can't see it when its happening. I also cover my emotions up and I have a lot of trouble talking about whats bothering me or what problems i'm having emotionally so I put up a wall and I act tough, or happy and sometimes i'll be the exact opposite but I try to hide it.

Weird things about me: I've grown up in the south all my life so sometimes when I talk a few words they'll come out sounding WAYYY more country and southern then I wanted, I don't have an accent but sometimes my words just come out that way. I also love the smell of cigarette smoke....let me explain. When I was a kid my parents smoked a lot and I was used to smelling it and now it reminds me of home and is sort of comforting.

Things I like: I love swimming (I was on a swim team for about 9 years), I love horror movies, I like rain and the sounds of thunderstorms because its calming to me, I also love the smell of rain, I like cloudy days, cooking, listening to 80's and 90's rock but mainly 90's because 90's is the best, My favorite bands are Bush, Audioslave, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkoln Park, Pearl jam but i'm pretty open to anything. Things I dislike: Spiders.......I will scream if I see a spider.

So for the nsfw part.....I'm very shy and i'd like it if someone guided me. But i'm 100% a Bottom and I love praise and maybe a tiny bit of degradation. I also have a big ownership kink like if someone tells me that i'm their's....then I might die. Also if they told me that they "Needed" me I would also die on the spot...in a good way. I'm also a sucker for marking like lovebites and hickies? Yes please. But please tease me and edge me because I prefer not having control so someone else being in control is just...lovely. Also pet names! Like Sunshine, Babygirl, Doll....AHHhh I might melt. Things I don't like are impact play or the whole "Daddy kink" It kinda just makes me cringe

I also don't think I really have a type but.....I do tend to love people who are brooding, and intimidating on the outside but a big teddy bear on the inside because that's how I am sometimes. I hate people who are fake or just passive aggressive because they are super annoying to deal with and honestly if you have something to say then just say it to my face rather than behind my back.

Hello :)

|| I enjoyed reading through this. I'll definitely work on it now. ||

I match you with ~ Jeff The Killer!

First off, he really likes your size and style, he has a think for small girls that can still be tough and that’s something he loves showing off when you get together lmfao, he’s like, “Yeah, my girls strong. Fuck you gonna do about it?”

Now, Jeff is a really unstable, violent guy. A lot of people (even me) don’t even see him ever being interested in being in a relationship, so when the creeps saw Jeff with his arm around you, they were immediately baffled by it.

The truth is, though, this man totally wants to have someone by his side, someone that accepts him even though he’s a killer. Someone that’s open to his feelings and is willing to look past all of the horrible shit he’s done.

You’re like that to him, it took him a very long time to get used to how he felt for you at first. At first he thought his brain was just being stupid, but Jeff isn’t dumb. He knows what these feelings feel like, and he recognized them almost immediately after that.

Jeff is really insane, and he constantly leans on you for support and depends on you to keep him leveled at times. It can get pressuring, but despite it all he always makes sure to not blame you if he ends up doing something dumb because he knows it’s not your fault.

He finds your clothing style pretty hot, he really loves badass kind of outfits with leather and band names, because as I said, he loves to show off that his girl is “cool” or something.

He thinks your resting bitch-face and cold exterior is really badass too, being around you always gives him so much confidence and its a great change from the usual fake confidence he has around everyone that he keeps up as a defense mechanism when in reality he was always pretty insecure.

I honestly think Jeff is an extrovert too, like he loves being around people and interacting with them (When they’re not normal people and don’t think he’s hideous, that is). I canon this mostly because when hes alone, then he’s also alone with his thoughts and his thoughts always end up wandering to his insecurities and what he hates about himself, but you often catch him during these times and you reassure him that everything will be okay and that you still love him.

He totally relates to being the friend that says stupidest shit, you two will often just go up to one of the creeps and just start spouting random shit. He honestly fucking loves being goofy with you, and you two are always creating awesome memories together when you prank the other creeps and sometimes each other and he honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

When you do stupid shit that gets you in trouble or puts you in danger, he’s always quick to get to you and make sure you’re okay, he would probably panic a lot though. Like, “What the fuck, dumbass?” “How the HELL did you do that???“ as he’s frantically trying to solve the situation. Will most definitely sit there and laugh at you for a good 5-10 minutes once the whole thing is dealt with though.

You being able to stick up for your friends is one of the great qualities about you that he absolutely adores, especially since before he became a killer he would always get bullied and nobody would ever stick up for him, so one day when you defend him against a bunch of assholes it just warms his heart up and makes him feel so loved, but he most likely wont admit that.

He’d let it slip eventually though.

When you’re feeling self-destructive, he is 100% there for you. Although he’s not really the best at giving advice, he’ll still sit there with you and let you talk your heart out and will listen to every single word because he wants to show that same contribution towards you that you’ve shown him. He’ll constantly reassure you that not everything is your fault and that you’re strong, and he’ll make little promises to you.

If it was a person in particular making you feel that way though, he’d definitely make sure to pay a visit to the motherfucker.

He admires your determination to fight for the things you want, but to an extent. He hates it when you overwork yourself or push beyond your limits to the point where it destroys you, and he wants you to know that you’re not alone and you can ask for help, you don’t have to destroy yourself. He’s more than willing to stay right there, by your side.

He understands hiding your true emotions, because well, he’s had to do it a lot around the other creeps and around his family when they were still alive. So he won’t ever push you to talk about somehting if you don’t want to, but he doesn’t want you to pretend to be okay either. He’s more than willing to just lay with you and do whatever you want if it would make you feel better.

He honestly likes how you have a southern accent at times, when he’s feeling upset or like his sanity is draining, your accent really soothes him so sometimes he’ll ask you to lay it on thick because he could honestly listen to you talk to him and listen to your accent all day if he wanted to.

It’s good that you like cigarette smoke because I canon this man smokes very often.

When it storms at night, he’ll always hold you close to him with a blanket and just listen to the storm sounds with you because it soothes him too. This man is really pent up from feeling driven to constantly murder and just sitting with you listening to the rain and thunder is one of the main things that level him.

He’s really not the best.... at cooking.... but, this means you can cook often for him since he won’t for himself. B)

He will just put you in a car and drive for hours to no destination and blast that 80s and 90s music just to see that smile on your face.

This man will 100000000000% destroy any spider within a 10 mile radius of you.

He understands not liking people who are fake because there were a lot of people who talked shit about him when he went to school, and when he has a problem with someone he will always say it to their face and make them understand that they’re a piece of shit to him.

NSFW:

You like being dominated and guided? Good, because this man is at least 95% a top. He thinks it’s adorable that you’re shy and will most definitely be willing to guide you through the whole thing and tell you exactly what to do for him.

Jeff is really possessive tbh, so when he’s fucking you he will constantly say shit like,

“Fucking mine”

“You’re nobody elses“

“You belong to me, only”

This man will definitely bite you everywhere, he lives to just throw you down onto the bed and start biting everywhere on your body and making sure to leave marks just so you know exactly who owns you.

Don’t worry honey, he will spend hours just filling you with his cock and telling you that you cant cum unless you beg more, or he’ll just pull out right when you’re about to cum on him and just slap your folds with his fingers as a way to make fun of you.

He’ll call you things like, “baby” “dollface” “darling” when he’s feeling passionate but oh boy if he’s feeling angry or he’s punishing you? Be prepared to be degraded all night.

There we go <3

Sorry if this is too long lmfao, I just think that Jeff is a really misunderstood piece of shit. I hope you’re having a great day and taking care of yourself, and I hope you enjoyed this matchup. :)

[randomthoughtpatterns]

Ishida’s 1/16 stream - pt1

A compilation of my tweets again + a couple anecdotes too random/too long for Twitter. No guarantees there’ll be part 2. I’m honestly not really interested in random Ishida trivia, but I’m very interested in Choujin X details. Those were thin on the ground this time ‘round.

---

Choujin X is on page 69 so far. Ishida says there's going to be around 80 (for the first batch? I don't think it's a 1-vol work), but he's still on lineart. Still no assts, so he'll have to go back for backgrounds after that.

Judging by the text from the pages he’d worked on, Azuma is a famous highschooler. There’s also someone offering someone else to become a Choujin, so - it’s either not an innate ability or Choujin is a title (like X-Men).

TG Ishida had started w/o assts as well, but caved in pretty quickly (was it one volume?). Seriously... you've got to be insane to attempt a weekly series alone.

Ishida doesn't plan on watching NGE in a cinema, and in general only goes out for walks these days (bc covid), which I will begrudge him, pandemic notwithstanding, because I've waited a decade for these movies to be completed and want to see it in a theater.

Ishida: I started IG bc I sometimes draw thing that are better suited for that platform, but ALSO bc one of my sisters had told me a fake acct got like 900 thousand followers. Some celebs even followed it! People are suggesting he becomes a youtuber. Content suggestions include: cooking, dates with Takahashi Kunimitsu. A funny anecdote from one such outing, confirming Ishida is a great friend (it was, actually, in one of the manga extras way back when). Ishida: we went drinking and an old hag attached herself to Kunimitsu’s side. You know the type - bleached hair, looks young at first glance but then you realize she’s really not... Ah, I should call her lady instead of a hag. So, the lady was coming on Kunimitsu aggressively, asking him why two guys were there alone. Are we gay? And he was like, yeah... absolutely... for sure. I loved it. She was amazing. They got on marvelously. What was I doing? Staying as far away as possible. Follow-up Q: was she into gays? (fujoshi) A: no, she was into molesting people.

Q: what do you do when you've got no desire to work? A: last time I lazed around the house for 5 hours, went to the gym. This time I'm streaming (he's started the stream saying he's extremely not in a working mood)

On movies: I'm not the biggest movie fan. I went to see Promare in 4DX. It wasn't necessarily my 1st choice, they just didn't have it in any other format. Never again. The movie was fine! The 4DX was Not Fine. They kept pouring water on us.

Q: do you watch anime? A: not really, unless something really catches my eye. Same with movies.

Meanwhile, Ishida's finished part 6 of JoJo (Stone Ocean) and will be starting Steel Ball Run now. Extremely impressed with Araki's storytelling (as are we all!)

He also shared his first forays into mangaka business back at 7-8 years of age. He’d won a one-page mangaka kit off - something with a point system, he had to save points for a year. And then he spilled ink (I think it was?) on the carpet, and his parents tore up the page and forbidden him to draw manga ever again. Evidently it didn’t take.

On part-time jobs: never had any real ones (checks out; no idea if he’d finished uni or not, but he went there; and after that he was a manga assistant).

[likeadevils]

hey! for your post about sun moon and rising but with taylor albums, can you list out the characteristics of each album? i'm having a hard time associating them and it'd make it a lot easier, if you could do that :)

oh totally! Its really all about your personal association, so i’ll give vibes for the era and the album. a good rule of thumb is to read the prologue if you want the tone for the era quickly. honestly, there’s no set system, go wild

taylor swift (2006) “debut”

era: blue and teal and brown. cowboy boots and sundresses, wild curly hair, trucks and mud and wildflowers. very 2006, very high school, very country

album: swings between pining from a distance and wanting to destroy a boys whole ass life and feeling like you have no friends and no one understands you in the whole world. like I said, very high school, but also full of whole ass bangers

fearless (2008)

era: yellow and white. 24/7 prom. she’s got the fairy tale aesthetics set in high school, she’s got calling your ex boyfriend out on national television, she's got so many headbands. god to be 8 years old when the joe jonas/taylor swift drama was going down

album: again, fairy tale set in high school. lots of crushes, lots of realizing men aren’t shit. it’s about the pull between childhood ideals and real life tearing them down, and deciding how much you should cling to your dreams and how much you have to let them go. it’s also a pull between knowing that these little moments are kinda ridiculous but also taking everything so goddamn seriously

speak now (2010)

era: purple purple purple. she’s starting to grow up! her look has evolved out of sundresses and prom dresses and into a more preppy style. she’s moved out of fantasy and into this like. circus aesthetic? 30s movie type thing? watch the mean music video, idk how to explain it. her hair is still curly and but under control, and she’s solidly Famous at this point. the idea that she can’t sing is Big, and the man-eater stereotype is starting to get popular 

album: she’s starting to grow out of country. she’s experimenting with rock, but her pop sound is starting to take off. it’s all about Dramatics: she’s experienced her first heartbreak, broke someone else’s heart, and was in an emotionally abusive relationship all within two years. she’s moved out of her parents house and is both infantilized and forced to grow up to fast by the media.

red (2012)

era: its 2012 hipster style. her hair is Straight and she’s wearing vintage dresses everywhere, and she’s posting sketches of red lips and quotes from fitzgerald about heartbreak and finding yourself on instagram. she is dating and breaking up with harry styles Very Publically, and its the last major relationship she’ll have for two more years. the idea that she dates to much is everywhere, and she’s being slut shamed to an insane degree, while also being dismissed as a goody-two-shoes

album: it’s designed so each song has the opposite emotions of the song before it. it’s dramatic and it’s heart wrenching and it portrays these relationships that were toxic and messy and captivating. has the last vestiges of country, some more rock, and the first pure Pop songs, all nestled against each other to give you the epic highs and lows of being 22

1989 (2014)

era: its the height of her stardom, and she’s more beloved then she’s ever been and (probably) will ever be again. she’s cut her hair and moved to New York, she’s wearing high waisted stuff and taking polaroids, and she’s been single for two years and it’s has given her the freedom to find a “tight” group of friends and herself. shes talking about third wave feminism all the time, she’s papped every day, and she started dating c*lvin h*rris; they date for a year, he was the first boyfriend to be posted on social media, and the one she was with the longest (until her current bf). publically, she’s the happiest and most successful she’s ever been. personally, it’s more complicated, especially by the last few months. “she lost him, but she found herself and somehow that was everything” and “from the girl who said she would never cut her hair or move to new york or find happiness in a world where she wasn't in love”

album: single handedly brings 80s pop into the mainstream. (like seriously, her only contemporary influence is lana del rey, and even that is only on a few tracks. listening to this when it came out was a religious experience). it sounds basic now but only because she influenced all of the pop music that came after her. its also her first sonically cohesive album since fearless. subject matter wise, its very 80s movie. it’s the first album without a break up song that ruins a man's whole career— no cold as you, dear john, or all too well type. the relationship is on and off again, but more muted and mature then the tumultuous ones portrayed on red. its very star crossed; two people who just can’t find the right time. she’s also writing about how fame has affected her— blank space, shake it off, and i know places all directly reference it, but the idea that the whole world is watching is woven all throughout the album

bleachella (2016) 

this isn't an album but its definitely an era

taylor has become so oversaturated that people are starting to turn on her, and her mental health is suffering. her relationship with c*lvin h*rris is falling apart, she's changing her hair every couple of moths (most notably she bleaches it, and goes to coachella. so like bleachella), and then all of a sudden The Phone Call happens. kim and kanye release edited footage of a phone call that makes it seem like taylor swift is a liar who intentionally plays the victim to stay in the public’s good graces, and the world pounces on it. between that and the idea that her friend group is super cliche-y and exclusionary, her reputation is ruined and she goes in hiding for months. before going into hiding though, she breaks it off with c*lvin (he throws a FIT on twitter) and starts a whirlwind romance with tom hiddleston that includes them flying all over the world on vacations and meeting each others parents super quickly. this all happens in one summer.

reputation (2017)

era: black and white and gold. very edgy, very rich, lots of snakes and casual wealth. there’s the aesthetic of her being very hurt and defensive and lashing out, but the reality of her being the happiest she’s ever been. she’s still famous, but she’s learned how to have a private life and healthy relationships. the tough times have shown her who and what’s important to her

album: pretty much that. the first half is brash and bombastic and playing off what people expect her to be like, how they expect her to fall in and out of love quickly and manipulate those around her to see her as a good person (while exploring sounds that no one expected her to explore) and the second half slows it down and shows her falling in love more explicitly and sweetly and under cover. “in the death of her reputation she felt truly alive” and “finding love through all the noise”

lover (2019)

era: bright pink and pastels and bright colors and happiness and butterflies!! she’s in love and beloved by the general public again, but all of her past albums have been stolen from her by a man she thought she could trust. sadly cut off short by covid. “step into the daylight and let it go”

album: her messiest album (sonically) since red. a popular saying when it first came out was that it had the writing of speak now but the sound of 1989, which is... understandable? its the kind of thing you have to form your own opinion on. it’s on the surface all bubblegum pop and being in love, but it has some of the absolute saddest songs of her entire discography. a 18 song long rollercoaster

folklore and evermore

preface: these are definitely two separate albums and there’s a definitely a difference but this girl has so many albums and it’s taken me an hour to answer this ask and it’s 1am right now so i’m gonna smush them together. go listen to them, and we’re in the era right now

eras: it been covid so all we’ve got are a couple performances and the album visuals. cottagecore, a return to the small town setting of her first two albums, very understated and timeless. one noteworthy element is that both albums were surprise releases (especially after lover had almost a year of build up that kinda worked against it). she’s reached a level of artistic respect that she’s never had

albums: folklore is a level of sonic and thematic cohesion comparable to 1989, as well as having a similar feeling of like. oh god we’ve been waiting for you to make an album like this for years and you’ve still exceeded every exception and made it surprising. evermore is mostly a continuation of its sound, though it’s a bit more experimental. both albums are incredibly mature, and move into non-autobiographical storytelling for most of the songs. it’s easy to build your own world based on one or both of the albums. their main themes are also mostly divorced from relationships, and more tied to personal identity and mental state (though there is quite a bit about divorce and heartbreak in both)

[popculturebuffet]

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough. 

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style. 

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start. 

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up. 

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

 They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL!  The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all. 

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team.  And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men.  Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast. 

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else.  So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut. 

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how  they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one. 

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes. 

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly. 

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly. 

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art. 

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr.  But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that. 

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now.  It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form? 

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy. 

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition. 

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look. 

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults. 

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense. 

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying. 

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use 

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future. 

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is.  Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on. 

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable. 

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option. 

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass. 

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good>  We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack. 

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet. 

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble. 

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing. 

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does.  IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her. 

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around. 

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their  issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay.  E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye. 

[monaisme]

One Week Later - Chapter Four

This is the sequel to my one-shot, “The Battle”

Going through a magical portal was definitely one way to distract from the nerves borne of having to step back into one’s life five years later and all the chaos that came with it.

The portal didn’t seem like a big deal after the fact, especially after spending the last days watching the successful use of them as those remaining in Wakanda were reunited with family and friends. It didn’t stop Peter’s brain from wondering for a quick second how Wong’s magic worked—if he was really just stepping through or if there was more to it?—Like the transporters in Star Trek. Maybe that ring he’d been wearing contained technology that manipulated the particulate in the atmosphere and—

His train of thought derailed as Mr. Stark finally came through the portal and the circle shrunk and fizzled away into nothing.

“Well,” he announced as he glanced back at the vanished means of entry, “That wasn’t my flashiest entrance, but it’ll do.”

Mrs. Stark rolled her eyes and stepped up to give him a kiss. “Yes, dear, whatever you say.” She teased as she caressed his cheek. “That exit, though...” She gave her husband a playful wink and then patted his face. “The Divine Miss M would be proud.”

Mr. Stark smirked, “Yeah, Wong will definitely pay for that later.” He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her closer then planted a soft kiss on her lips. He mumbled, “I’m so glad we’re home.”

Peter had watched as they did their flirting thing, but mention of home had him looking away pretty quick. He fought to tamp down his discomfort.

Five years ago, Mr. Stark had been freshly engaged and behaving exactly how Mr. Stark was expected to behave, all snark and sarcasm with the occasional emotional outburst.

And Mrs. Stark was, well—she was Pepper Potts, but not just Pepper Potts. She was Ms. Potts; CEO to Stark Industries, #1 on the Forbes list of “100 Most Powerful Women” in 2017, and MJ had just told him—he sighed as he mentally corrected himself, MJ had told him five years ago that she was creeping up on Oprah and Beyonce in terms of net worth. He’d met her a few times when she’d stop by the lab to make sure Mr. Stark was drinking more than just coffee and consuming actual food—not just the mystery smoothies Dum-E would make for him on occasion. She’d been intimidating, but always polite and kind and left the lab with a smile for Peter and a peck on the cheek for Mr. Stark.

And while he’d been stuck in that stone? Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts had gotten married, built a home... moved on, and here he was— Peter was getting tired again just thinking of it.

Five years later was weird.

Peter scuffed his toe against the floor, unintentionally drawing attention to himself.

Mr. Stark straightened the two of them up and turned to him immediately, making sure to grab his wife’s hand. “Yeah.” It was Mr. Stark’s turn to blush. “Sorry about that. I guess we’re all a little relieved to be back, right? We can finally get back to normal?”

Peter chuckled quietly and shrugged as he refused to look up at the pair. “I guess?” He replied, but in his head, he knew better.

“Well,” The pair moved closer to him and Mr. Stark put a supportive arm around his shoulder. “I’m not even going to ask what you want to do, kid.” Mr. Stark stated as he turned Peter around and started walking him through the living room of the penthouse, “but before we figure out when you can see May, I need to know if an in person visit is even in the cards for today. I’ll just pop down to the med bay and have a quick chat with the doctor and—“

Peter didn’t think before he stopped moving and the words fell out of his mouth, all desperate and pleading. “Can’t I just come with you?” Mr. Stark was opening his mouth to say no, Peter was sure of it, so he kept going, “I don’t even need to talk to her! I’ll stay back and out of the way and everything. Please? I just want to see her.”

Mr. Stark couldn’t hide the sadness in his eyes. “Pete, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

But Peter was determined. “But it’s May, Mr. Stark!” He begged. “And you can’t tell me she hasn’t missed me, I mean, it’s been five years for her and I know she’d want to see me—“

“Kid, that has nothing to do with it. I promise. You know what your aunt is like.” Mr. Stark seemed to hunt for his next words, “She’s a beast in the best possible way—but now? She’s not, and the last thing she’d want is for you to see her... less than one hundred percent because then she’ll get upset that you’re worrying about her and then you’ll end up getting upset and none of us want that either, do we?”

Peter tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “No. I get it, that’s cool. Just...” He trailed off before he said something stupid. He understood. He’d heard the doctor only a couple of hours earlier and he knew he couldn’t just go running into the med bay to throw himself at Aunt May. Stuff was going on and he wasn’t going to get in the way of it.

“Let’s give her chance to put on her game face, okay?”

“Okay.” Peter couldn’t have sounded more glum if he’d tried. He hated this.

“Hey, kid,” Mr. Stark pulled him into an awkward side hug as they all started walking again. “I promise you, we’ll get this sorted, but here’s what we’re gonna do. First, we’re gonna get you set up in your room,” they turned down into a hallway beyond the living room, “so you can take a nice, long shower—wash off all of those teenager cooties you’ve been sporting.” Mr Stark ruffled Peter’s hair as he attempted to lighten the mood. “Then, by the time you’re done, I’ll be back with all the information we need so we can make a plan, alright?”  

Peter nodded even though he wanted nothing more than to disagree with everything Mr. Stark was suggesting and make a break for the med bay. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Five years ago, he was supposed to help get the gauntlet and then come home and train with the Avengers after May grounded him forever... and now, even his freaking homecoming was wrong. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to deal with all of this.  

Mr. Stark steered him through a doorway and stopped. “So, kid. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Peter blinked, confused. “Um, what—?“

“You’re room, buddy, what do you think?” Mr. Stark gestured into the room they were now standing in. “We tried to make it exactly like your old one... got FRIDAY to...”

Peter tuned Mr. Stark out as he stepped further into what was definitely a space meant for him. Now that he was paying attention, it took a second to know that he was in the exact same room Mr. Stark had put aside for his use before half of the universe disa—

It was like a needle scratching across a record in his brain. NO.

He needed to change the thoughts in his brain—wished it was as easy to do for himself as it was for the schematics laying about the lab... a swipe of the hand and BOOM, a fresh start—the lab he hadn’t been in for five years because he was trapped in a stone.

NO. He scolded himself again and clenched his fists tight; thrust them into the pockets of his sweatpants as he tried to reframe it. He needed to make it something else before Mr. Stark ended up looking at him that pitying way again. 

Okay.

It was the same room Mr. Stark had put aside for his use on those nights when they’d goof around with Mr. Stark’s tech until stupid late and then the two of them would fight over whether 80s horror movies were the superior movie genre when anyone with real taste knew that Star Wars and all things sci-fi was where it was at.

Yeah, that was better. He could do this.

He tried to relax his shoulders as he took in some of the details.

Peter was grateful that the room itself smelled as fresh and clean as the last time he’d been in it. The laundry detergent used to wash his bedding was even the same. His posters were on the walls and his books were back on the tiny bookshelf by the desk set up next to the wide expanse of window. The pens, papers, books, and even an unfinished lego project he’d left upon it during his last weekend were sitting in a box, waiting to be unpacked.

It was almost exactly where it was all supposed to be.

Almost.

And then—

Peter remembered an April Fool’s Day when he and Ned had been little. It had fallen on a Saturday, which of course meant a sleepover for the two new friends and, while May and Ben slept on, the boys had decided to be as diabolical as six year olds could be. It had taken all of three minutes, for all of the giggles and impromptu pillow fight, but they’d switched all of the red throw cushions from the couch with the brown throw cushions from the two armchairs in the living room. The cutlery tray in the kitchen was given the same treatment before Peter and Ned were satisfied with their first ever attempt at foolery.  

It was insanity, and May and Ben were absolutely baffled at how something so strange could have happened while they slept!

Peter smiled sadly at the memory as he realized this was that moment, except it wasn’t a goofy prank by two silly kids. It was like everything in the room was six inches to the left and Peter was supposed to be confused that something wasn’t quite right—

Nothing was right.

He wondered if this would be the thing that pushed him over the edge.

“Pete?” Mr. Stark asked again, softer this time and laced with an undertone of concern.

He closed his eyes for a moment then pasted a smile on his face. “It’s great, Mr. Stark.” He turned to face him, hoped he’d buy the ruse. “You wouldn’t know that anything was different except that my desk is finally tidy.”

Mr. Stark chuckled, “Look, kid, I know it’s not quite ri—“

“No! It’s absolutely fine!” Peter couldn’t allow him to acknowledge the imperfection of it or he’d lose it. “I hadn’t even thought about... this. It’s just like I left it,” he lied.

Mr. Stark wasn’t convinced. Peter could see it on his face. “Peter? Tell me what’s going on in your head. I can see that something is—“

“No.” Yup. He really needed to not be talking about it, “Everything’s great... this is great, Mr. Stark, thanks so much for doing this for me.” Peter then looked behind him to Mrs. Stark still standing in the hallway. “And you, too, Mrs. Stark. I’ll try really hard to not be irritating while I’m here.” He kept that same fake grin going, hoped for the best.

And then Peter put an arm around Mr. Stark and ushered him toward the door.

Mr. Stark pushed back a little, making his desire to stay obvious. “Pete? What are you doing?”

“Just what you asked, Mr. Stark. I’m gonna jump in a shower now and get ready for the day.” He’d gotten Mr. Stark one step into the hallway when the man pulled free of Peter’s unintentional restraint, turned around and braced himself in the door frame.

“Peter, stop.” He tried to catch Peter’s eye. “What’s going on?”

The question stopped Peter cold in his tracks. He was absolutely not prepared to answer the question. “What do you mean? I just said—“ He glanced over his shoulder back into the room. “Everything’s great.”

“Yeah, Pete, I hear you. You keep saying it. It’s great, but that’s not what I’m picking up here.” His voice held nothing but concern and he stepped closer to Peter. “Do you want to try again?”

And his plan had failed in all of one minute.

Dammit.

An unexpected anger flared, “No, I really don’t.” He hadn’t yelled, but he was a near thing. “Can I please just take a shower now?” He tugged at the sweatshirt that wasn’t his, stalked toward the dresser he’d yet to inspect and pulled open the drawer that thankfully held his t-shirts. He’d hoped it would be enough of a cue that Mr. Stark needed to leave, but that was apparently too much to ask.

“Peter, c’mon. I need to know what’s going on in that genius brain of yours. Do you want to talk? Do we need to change something about the room?”

“NO! It’s already changed enough!” Peter snapped. He grabbed his favourite shirt and slammed the drawer shut with enough force that the dresser hit the wall behind it with a crash. 

Mrs. Stark gasped at the outburst, bringing Peter back to himself.

He froze where he stood, his ears flushed with embarrassment at the loss of control-- being caught out. “Shit. I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Mr. Stark stood silent as he waited for Peter to settle down, Mrs. Stark coming to stand beside her husband as the tension hung thick in the air.

And never before had he wanted Mr. Stark to leave him alone so badly.

“I think I need... can I just have a minute, please?” He whispered and fidgeted with the shirt in his hands.

“Peter, I don’t think we should--” his words cut off.

Mrs. Stark put a hand on Mr. Stark’s arm, effectively stopping him in his tracks. “Tony, wait a minute.” She gave Mr. Stark a ‘look,’ “It’s been a long week, and an especially difficult day for Peter. You go check in at the med bay while I check in with the others and give him a chance to catch his breath.” She addressed Peter next. “Does that sound like a good idea?”

Mr. Stark opened his mouth to protest, “But—”

Mrs. Stark didn’t bother to hide her glare. “I’m sorry. Did I pose that as a question?”

Even Peter knew from that tone that CEO Ms. Potts—um, Mrs. Stark was coming out to play, so he wasn’t surprised when Mr. Stark grumbled out a petulant ‘no.’

“Good.” She turned to Peter next, spoke kindly. “You take all the time you need, honey. I can’t imagine we’ll be longer than a half hour, but if you need more time than that, then you take it. We’ll meet up in the living room when we all finish. Does that sound good to you?”

Peter nodded a ‘yes,’ though he still refused to look at either of them.

She smiled, like the last minutes of Peter’s tantrum hadn’t happened, then continued. “Perfect. We’ll get out of your hair.”

She made to steer Mr. Stark out of the room, but he again stopped and turned to address his mentee. “Hey—“

But Peter refused to look at the man.

Mr. Stark tried again, “Hey, buddy. Listen to me. No one is mad. Okay?” He seemed to grapple with finding the right words for a second and then went on. “We all know this is messed up and no is going to blame you for not knowing how to react—but you have to talk to us okay?”

Peter couldn’t bring himself to respond.

Mr. Stark sighed, seemingly giving up on the moment. Peter glanced up, thinking he’d watch them walking out the door, but blinked in surprise at Mr. Stark waiting patiently for him to look up.

“If you need anything... if you need me, you let FRIDAY know and she’ll get me. Understood?”

Peter did nod at that, but kept quiet.

Mr. Stark sniffed and then cleared his throat. “Good. Go take your shower, sweetheart. We’ll see you in the living room when you’re done.” Peter thought he’d reach out to hug him, but he held himself back and Peter wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Instead, Mr. Stark grasped Mrs. Stark’s hand, gave Peter a wink and a nod, and the two of them left.

He waited a few seconds, listened for the concerned voices talking about giving him time to die away in the hall and then sighed in relief.

Finally.

Peter was alone for the first time since, well, he guessed five years ago. 

He stopped the thoughts again. It was too much, and he had thirty minutes to pull himself together, so that’s what he was going to do.

* * * * * *

Peter took a couple of minutes to be still and hoped it would be enough to get through whatever came next.

It wasn’t.

He did the breathing exercises MJ had taught the decathlon team before that huge meet against Bronx School of Science.

Maybe that took the edge of a little?

Finally, Peter gave up, realizing that it wasn’t going to matter what he did, at least for now. He just needed to get up and move.

And so he did.

He grabbed the rest of his clothes from the dresser, consciously ignoring the drywall dust on the floor behind it, and stepped into the ensuite.

FRIDAY had already started the shower knowing that Peter’s preferences wouldn’t have changed, so he stripped and stepped under the hot spray. He closed his eyes and counted his breathing again, but now that he’d moved from the quiet of his room, the urgency to get done and get to the living room started pressing on him.

He could do this. Whatever the world had in store for him, he’d manage. He’d done the whole starting over thing before, after all and hiding from it wasn’t going to change anything.

He wiped the water away from his face and grabbed the bottle of shampoo from the shelf, smiling to himself as he recognized the brand and scent on the label. He wanted to be quick, but he sound of the water beating against the ceramic tile and the soothing fragranced steam relaxed him more than he’d anticipated.

Maybe he’d be alright?

After a few more minutes of luxuriating in the heat, Peter finished washing up and stepped out to dry himself off, not bothering to do anything special with his curls. He slipped on his boxers then his jeans, keeping the towel around his neck so his hair wouldn’t drip everywhere. He finished off with one last vigorous scrub and tossed the towel into the hamper behind the door. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head, took a deep breath to center himself and caught a whiff of it...

He wondered how quickly Happy had been able to pull his stuff out of storage and how many times his clothing had been washed and washed and washed... all to try and get rid of that musty, unused smell that clings to old, discarded clothing. Except that the clothes hadn’t been outgrown or discarded—and below the layers of wash after wash he could still tell with his stupid enhanced senses that all that Peter was before was that stink of age and neglect.

An unnatural calm settled upon him as he pulled the shirt down from his face and left the bathroom.

He grabbed forgotten socks from another dresser drawer and sat himself on the bed to get them on.

He realized he’d get no reprieve from all of the reminders, and wondered why he wasn’t more upset.

It didn’t matter, though.

He looked at the clock on his bedside table. He’d already taken forty minutes and needed to get out to the living room. Mr. and Mrs. Stark were waiting—

And Peter figured that after five years, they’d waited long enough.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

It’s always fun jumping into a movie I know next to nothing about, and this requested review for Wes will be no exception. All I know is that Girls Just Want to Have Fun is an 80s teen romp with the worst photoshopped cover photo I’ve ever seen. It looks like Michael Scott put it together. I know it stars girls, AND I know what those girls want. That’s half your narrative battle right there. So do they achieve the fun they seek? Well...

They do! A lot of weird shit happens along the way, but yeah, fun is had and that’s all that really matters. God, 1985 was a simpler time. I mean, I know everyone was living in constant fear that the Russians were going to invade Kansas and we’d be faced with a neverending nuclear winter, but in the face of all that existential terror you also get movies where the entire pitch is “So there’s this girl (Sarah Jessica Parker) who wants to be a dancer on tv, but her parents don’t want to let her. But she does it anyway! And her partner is chosen for her and, boy, they do not see eye to eye. But then they do! And they have to practice a lot. And then they win the dance contest!” 

You know some studio exec heard that and screamed at his secretary to hold his calls for the day so he could sign the contracts and then do a mountain of blow off them. 

Some thoughts:

It’s so weird to see Sarah Jessica Parker without curly hair! I was never a Sex and the City fan, so my exposure to SJP is purely Hocus Pocus based.

This dance sequence over the credits is incredible. Why do we not have shows anymore that are just a large group of young attractive people dancing in sync? No host, no dialogue, just the power of dance. I was born in the wrong decade. I would have appreciated the shit out of the 80s when I was alive.

Poor Helen Hunt - she must be one of those people who always looked like she was 35, even in high school. Granted, she was 22 when this was filmed and she’s playing a teenager, but still. 

Helen Hunt is wearing dinosaurs in her hair. 80s fashion was on a wavelength that I don’t think any of us living will ever see again.

Omg this rich bitch (Natalie, I guess? She’s not named for at least the first 30 min of the movie) had Claire’s closet from Clueless 10 years before the movie existed! This is already groundbreaking.

NOW SHE HAS A BUG ON HER HAT. A big plastic green grasshopper. This review is mainly going to be about the insane things Lynne (Helen Hunt) wears.

Speaking of - I’m getting big lesbian vibes from Lynne Stone and I am so here for it. The homoerotic tension when she acts like she’s gonna fight the rich bitch? Delicious. The immediate intimate connection she makes with SJP? Practically U-Hauling. 

I love an 80s dance montage, and this movie promises to contain basically nothing but that tied loosely together with some nonsensical dialogue in between. This is gonna be my new favorite movie. 

Ooh Nestle Quik syrup! I forgot about Nestle Quik. 

Favorite line: “There is a time and a place for calypso music, young lady.”

Ohhh I see what this is gonna be - Janey (SJP) is a classically trained dancer and gymnast, and Jeff (Lee Montgomery) is more of a rough and tumble music video kinda guy from the streets. You can tell cause he’s got a motorcycle and a leather jacket. And he wears cutoff sleeves! He’s a white guy in Chicago, who could be more street than that? And they’re butting heads! How will they ever be able to make it work for the big dance contest??

How did Natalie know Janey’s phone number? She specifically said it was unlisted. Unless she remembers it from overhearing it offhand after the dance tryouts...? That’s insane, I can’t even remember what I wore yesterday let alone a 7-digit number someone shouted in a crowd.

Lynne Fashion Alert: Is she wearing a belt made out of bullets? And a Davy Crocket hat. This is galaxy brain lesbian fashion. If the costume designer for this movie didn’t win 10 Oscars...

The music director on the other hand...not sure what is up with all these weird KidzBop covers of excellent songs like “Dancing in the Street” or the titular “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” but if you’re gonna include them, you gotta spring for the originals. This is just sad. 

I’ve never been at a party with an ice sculpture. I think that’s how you know you’re among the rich. 

Whatever happened to Jonathan Silverman? I miss when he was the nebbishy sidekick in every 80s movie. 

Who enters a party by catapulting through the damn window?? Punk does not mean that you no longer know how to use doors, sir! 

Who serves a full roasted turkey at a party? Is this how rich people live? This feels like the equivalent of using Google translate to identify rich people food in another language, then translating it back to English. 

Lynne Fashion Alert: Now I think she has space shuttles in her hair.

Wow we got a real 1-2 punch of sexual harassment in this club. Who wrote this Tune in Tokyo gag and was like “You know what would be hilarious? If this shitty little nerd convinced this girl to raise her arms so he can just grab her boobs full on, front and center. And then she gets upset and runs away. God I’m good at this *snorts another line*”

Lynne Fashion Alert: Now it’s two globes (like, two Earths) with crab claws on them? This is a choice that I don’t understand, but I think I may just not be seeing what it is clearly. I am digging her mirror sunglasses though. 

I know Janey is smart but when did she learn how to hotwire a security system? It’s not like Google or Youtube existed, and I doubt there was a library book about how to dismantle that specific system. MYTH BUSTED.

Oh god oh no I’m so gay for these Dixon sisters from Kansas City, these two gorgeous black women in tuxes and spandex leotards. They 100% should have won this dance contest. 

Why did guys stop wearing crop tops? Can we bring back slutty quarterback as a fashion trend for dudes? Seriously, the costume design here is everything. 

I really love Jeff and his little family - his sister and his dad are so proud of him and supportive. You never see that in dance narratives featuring guys. I like the reversal here of gendered expectations.

Did I Cry? No, but my heart was warmed at various moments. 

Honestly, why can’t more narrative arcs in movies be solved via dance battle? 

Lynne Fashion Alert: She’s now dressed as...Cleopatra? Wait why the fuck is there a horse here? 

Oh that’s it that’s the end! Man, you can’t be mad at a tight 90 min film like this - it gets in, it gets out, bing bang boom you’re done with enough time to read before bed. 

Is this a cinematic masterpiece? No. But is it good clean fun? Absolutely. Barring the brief [obligatory 80s] sexual harassment scene, there’s very little to be upset with here. Kids wanna dance, they’re told they can’t dance, they dance anyway! It’s the power of dance! You’re either into it or you’re not, but if you’re not, I ask that you search your heart and try to find one teeny tiny sliver of joy inside it. You’re gonna need to feed that joy if you wanna make it through 2021, and watching this movie is a darn good place to start. 

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[strangcrdoctor]

∞So here’s a headcanon that I’ve been meaning to put into words for a long while but have never taken the time to. But I’m going to put it under a cut because it has to do with the details of Stephen’s accident and the medical trauma he survived therein.

This is specifically based off of the 2016 film (which I also think did a spectacular job of justifying the crash, btw - road conditions, model of car, impact points and all), but I’ll toss in a few cents about how comic iterations in previous generations might be different just for shits ad giggles and because I love shit like this. 

First and foremost, especially working from the earliest DS comic canon, the cars were of the age and variety of “screaming metal death-trap.” Seatbelts weren’t required by law in the 1960s, and in fact many cars didn’t even come with them from the manufacturers because they weren’t considered a safety requirement. Granted they were made of hard body steel and could take impacts well by virtue of being fucking tanks, but the tire quality and torque ratios were... not made for the speeds they could suddenly get to, which did top out at 80-110 mph (in luxury models) with suspensions that were not clement for sustaining speed and road grip at the same time. It was statistically common that even non-reckless driving could result in horrible injuries under the wrong circumstances, therefore. Add in a 1960s inflated male ego, and frankly it’s amazing Stephen didn’t just die. Which is the entire plot point, I’ll grant. I also headcanon that in that era (and even regarding modern Stephen’s collector’s dream cars) Stephen would likely have been in a Rolls Royce Phantom or a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. He would definitely have his eye on a Jaguar E-Type (still does), but back in the 1960s maintaining one would have been more trouble than it was worth even by his standards and budget.

All that aside, let’s talk about the crash in the 2016 Doctor Strange movie. First and foremost, the overall accident itself is totally feasible for the model of car Stephen was driving. Lamborghini and other luxury super-car manufacturers have exceedingly specific impact testing, which is focused - unfortunately - more for track condition impacts than civilian driving conditions. In essence, super cars are built to handle rolling and lateral shear impacts to frankly insane degrees. They are not, however, well built for head-on collisions by nature of the priority of aerodynamics in the design. This feeds into why the Lamborghini in particular was undoubtedly an active choice on behalf of the producers. What’s notable about the crash is that in spite of the glance off of the side of the other car, the Lamborghini stays relatively solidly on the road surface which is design accurate. (There’s actually an entire other tangent I could get off on about this, but I will refrain.) Where things go haywire, however, is where that glancing blow hit on the vehicle. Now with many super-car companies, they mount the engine in the “trunk” of the vehicle, which improves traction and opens up space for the frankly insanely large engine blocks that, oh, I don’t know, V12s require. This pushes the cabin toward the front of the vehicle, and leaves the “trunk” space on the front end where most standard cars keep the engine. This makes the front light, but because of air intake and drag it maintains traction via the aerodynamics of the front grille. The back also has improved traction from the weight of the engine sitting over the rear axel, which is a big additive benefit because most sports cars are rear-wheel drive, and in front-engine vehicles this makes the back axel lighter and prone to fish-tailing on tight corners. Not so with Stephen’s Lamborghini. In essence, the weight of the vehicle sits on the axel that bears the drivetrain.

That rear traction is precisely what makes everything go wrong for this particular crash. Because the weight of the vehicle and the wheel drive are all centered in the back, having that portion of the vehicle get bumped is like flicking a coin to get it spinning. The front end of the vehicle, which is substantially lighter and only has the steering column and brakes to counter the inertia of that rear engine, is abjectly disadvantaged for regaining control of the vehicle. Even the most experienced racer doesn’t have the reaction time to regain control on a two-lane mountain highway, in the rain, at night, from an accident that realistically takes less than 10 seconds from impact to exit through the guard rail. In essence, there was zero chance of Stephen being able to recover as soon as the front end of the vehicle impacted the rock wall and put the car’s trajectory onto “death frisbee” instead of “manageable swerve.” 

This is also the second instance where the super-car design seals Stephen’s fate. So because Lamborghinis have an empty front end - again the “trunk” is where the engine is on most other cars, so essentially empty, un-structured, un-reinforced space - head on collisions absolutely crush the front ends. This also explains and in fact makes viable why Stephen’s hands go through the dash in the compound impacts: the front end is getting folded in like a tin can.

Now we get to the dark and scary medical part of the accident. Obviously the accident was catastrophically bad considering the car careened off of a steep mountain slope and impacted all the way down until it reached the river at the bottom of the ravine. But as we saw from the post-accident scenes, Stephen’s injuries weren’t isolated to his hands only. As was made clear from the state of his face, he definitely had cranial trauma - to the point that it seems very lucky he didn’t lose his left eye - which involved contusions at least to the orbit of his left eye and very probably a concussion, and it seems all but impossible that he didn’t also have thoracic and potentially leg trauma as well. Thoracic either from directly impacting the steering column (which I find very likely), or impacting the door (feasible, and does feed into why I think his left hand is worse off than his right, given from the production stills his left hand has eight - five pins and three plates - of the eleven in his hands). He definitely would have had broken ribs and internal bruising or bleeding from those impacts. The leg injuries are also probable for drivers especially because of impact against the dash and steering column.

Now we start getting to the painful part. Yes, just now. So as Christine mentions after Stephen regains consciousness (probably not for the first time but probably the first time cogently), the “Golden Hours” passed while he was in the car waiting for the mercy flight crew to find him. Now, the Golden Hours is actually the Golden Hour - it’s the span of 60 minutes immediately following intense trauma and injury. So not only was Stephen upside down, in and out of consciousness, alone, half-submerged in a river, in a car that could blow at any moment, for more than an hour, it surpassed the hour that was most vital to his potential for nerve recovery. It’s also frankly astounding that Stephen didn’t die from shock, hypovolemia, or hypothermia during the hours it took for them to find him. I will also just mention in passing that jaws of life situations are touchy enough as is with cars, but with someone as injured as Stephen was, in the exceedingly precarious position his car was in, the emergency responders would have had a hard fucking time getting him out alive at all.

But wait, there’s more! So after all of this, he has to get flown back to New York where the actual work of saving his ass begins. And again, I will emphasize that it’s unavoidable that Stephen - who was canonically on the table for ELEVEN HOURS - was not only in surgery for his hands. As a matter of fact, medically his hands would have been the lesser of many priorities. They would have spent some preliminary time trying to make sure his circulation was intact, but to be frank, amputation is a safer, viable option for hands, and they would have openly made that choice on his behalf and prioritized any cranial or thoracic injury. Hell, even prioritize saving his eye, because the trauma of eye removal/optic nerve disruption has a greater chance for fatality than amputation. So Stephen’s hands didn’t just lose the Golden Hour, but would not have gotten operated on for up to three to five additional hours, and that’s under-estimating the complexity his other, higher priority traumas.

Put it all together and what do you get? A man that, by rights, shouldn’t be alive at all. And who, rather than valuing the life that he got to still have, held it against himself that he could no longer inhabit the life he’d had. 

Secondarily, in light of all of the above and the seven consecutive surgeries that Stephen put himself through, you can absolutely bet your lunch money that this man developed an addiction to pain medication. It takes the body up to six months to filter out anesthetic, and given Stephen surely pushed his surgery scheduling to be more quick than advisable for recovery, his endocrine system would have been in free fall. To say nothing of the fact that the only way to deal with that much invasive surgery isn’t just eating healthy and hydrating...

Also please never forget that Stephen’s intern, Billy, was on the phone with him when the crash happened. So Billy was absolutely the one that made the call, and was undoubtedly sitting there, watching the clock as the Golden Hour slipped by and Stephen’s chances of survival dwindled by the second.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.∞

[paradise-creator]

OwO when u have time,, can I have a haven box for BNHA?? But just when you’re free and not working on prior works!! >:( I’m watching u bish

You can use my name in the result if you want to lol I already know it anyway!!

She/her, Taurus, INTJ, slytherin (pretty freakin’ queer but I usually lean towards boys/enbies more)

Personality: the first thing people notice about me is that I am less of a feeler and more of a thinker. I do have an IQ of 125, but my emotional intelligence is quite low, so I have trouble sympathizing with others. But I learned through experience, so I don’t SEEM emotionless. I can (and will) help my friends through tough times if they need me. I’m pragmatic, so I always go for the facts instead of the feelings during decision making or tough situations. I hold a lot of perfectionist traits that make it really hard for me to be satisfied with my results if they aren’t higher than the norm. I also have a slight issue with saying no, so sometimes I’ll offer my help or enrol myself in long-term projects while knowing I legit do not have time for more stuff on my schedule. Being a bit smarter than average, I sometimes feel like I’m obligated to help others so that they can do good too (however, I do like helping people with their hw to a certain extent). I’m working on those issues though!! I’m also an introvert, and I can get rlly tired if I have to be interacting for more than four hours straight with people, especially if their persona isn’t rlly compatible with mine.

However, when I’m surrounded by friends (or generally people who aren’t my superiors), I’m very energetic, loud, silly and I have a sharp tongue. I’m also insanely competitive, like someone please stop me?? My sense of humour goes from absolute nonsense to almost mean spirited sarcasm, but it all depends on who I’m talking to. I’m a MAJOR memer, I have a bunch of files filled with them, and I couldn’t bear be with people who didn’t understand my meme references. When I start liking something, I can get easily obsessed. I’m stubborn, therefore very passionate about the things I care about. I also have a slight case of the Endorphin Junkie, meaning that I really, really like the high you get after sports so I do crossfit training like five to six times a week. I’m unapologetically myself, and I will not ever change who I am to fit within the norm. I’m sometimes told that (that I’m odd, I mean), but I usually thank the people who tell me. I have a really, really big love for music and I have a tendency to break into song sometimes when people say a line from a song I know. I also cry sometimes when music gets really good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whoops

Appearance: I’m around 5’6”, with hazel eyes and brown hair that goes around to my shoulders. It gets curly out of nowhere. I can either wake up with straight hair or wake up with a freakin perm, it’s funny. My body isn’t exactly the lean type, I’m somewhere around the buff area of the scale instead, but as long as I seem visibly strong, I’m satisfied. When I’m not going anywhere significant, I usually just wear sport shirts and sweats, but I have a penchant for Dark Academia so I like /looking/ like I’m smart sometimes. And I have glasses bc apparently my eyes are assholes and they work too hard and it hurts my brain all the time

Likes: music (DavidBowieDavidBowieDavidBow-); I have a really wide range of music that goes from early 2000’s pop to 1700’s requiems(my faves are Bowie, Queen and Pink Floyd). I enjoy studying theoretical fields, reading, and I like talking about Absurd Theories About Reality That Make Little To No Sense. I like sports, and I love joking around with friends in the most exaggerated ways. I also love the colour green and I’m more of a cat person

Dislikes: dogs (they’re cute but keep them away pls), ignorant people, irresponsible people, spiders, things I’m not good at from the beginning, having to deal with strangers being upset, crying (me. I don’t like crying; I mean me, I’m fine if my friends cry)

Other fun facts!!

- my goals for the future are all over the place; I want to work for Disney, I want to get a musical composition degree, I want a biomedical engineering bachelors degree, I want an astrophysics doctorate, I want to study languages, I want to be a foreign English teacher... I can’t ever decide.

- I have a long history with getting crushes on guys who turned out to be gay. It happens so often and I HATE IT, it makes me feel terrible.

- I!!love!!70’s!!music!!so!!much!! I was raised on that stuff, my dad wouldn’t let us listen to anything else

- Lol my favourite playlist name is Drugs Playlist But I Don’t Even Do Drugs it’s just a bunch of Pink Floyd and David Bowie songs

- My favourite movies are 80’s or 90’s comedy classics!! Like Wayne’s World, or Airplane!, or Night at the Roxbury. I keep quoting Wayne’s World and no one understands :(

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Hello and Welcome my Starlight!

The Haven box includes:

- Match up

- Sun drop

- Flashes of memory

- Truth or dare gone wrong

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

I'd match you up with

Sero Hanata, Cellophane

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Sun drops

The reasons I paired you

- It me awhile to think about who to match you up with

- I was thinking of either Bakugou or Denki

- BUT THEN I REMEMBERED SERO

- Sero is such an underrated character smh

- BUT THIS DYNAMIC IS WHAT I LIVE FOR

-At first, you might be annoyed at his lack of knowledge but you over past that

- His EQ can help you grow as a person as well

- You have the IQ he has the EQ, BALANCE!

- You two would often have laughing sessions at class

- No cap tho, you two would be the most interesting couple

- You guys would have a matching necklace or a Keychain (IDK why but I feel like it-)

- You get along well with Denki, (IT TOOK A LONG TIME)

- But you would rather hang out with Bakugou (He tolerates you more than the others).

- BRO, please give him love. He craves your attention

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Flashes of memories

Sero: Hello there hot stuff!

Eve: Hello there Soy sauce

Sero: NOT YOU TOO

Eve: Just kidding, Hello babe

Sero: ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?

Eve: Yes, killing you with love

Sero: Dang that's smooth

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Sero: He-

Eve: I didn't take your Pocky, Denki did

Sero: How-

Eve: You've been yelling about it for the past few minutes

Sero: Oh-

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Sero: Can you help me with studying?

Eve: Struggling again?

Sero: Yes...

Eve: Why did I date you again?

Sero: Please?

Eve: ...

Also Eve: Fine

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Truth or dare gone wrong

The class 1-A were all gathered in their common room, even Bakugou was present. The class was having a truth or dare session, it seemed interesting. “Sero, my man! Truth or dare?” Denki asked as he looked at Sero. “Truth! I choose truth,” Sero said. “Who have you been talking on the phone to this past weeks? The one I keep hearing is my pumpkin?” Denki asked. Sero’s face then turned a light shade of pink. “O-Oh- ummm,” He started as he looked away. “Does our Cellophane have a girlfriend?” Mina teased as she poked Sero. “Y-Yeah,” He stuttered. “OI THAT’S NOT FAIR?!? WHY CAN YOU HAVE A GIRL BUT I CAN’T,” Denki sulked as he placed his head on the table. “If you weren’t such a perv then maybe you can get one!” Hakagure responded.

“Don’t be shy. Tell us more,” Mina said. Sero’s blush darkened and he looked away. “We are playing truth or dare! It’s my turn to ask,” Sero then said. “Actually, I am quite curious as well. We can always continue later,” Momo said as she smiled. Everyone agreed and they then looked at the nervous male. “C’mon now guys, this is unfair,” Sero said as he looked at everyone. “But you have a girl and we want tea,” Mina then said as she sat in front of him. “I- um, you guys really want to know about her, huh?” Sero said as he chuckled. Everyone nodded and stared at Sero intently. “Just tell us already, Soy sauce,” Bakugou growled as he glared at Sero. “Don’t listen to him, bro. He is just jealous,” Kirishima said. “WHAT-“ Bakugou was about to counter but was silenced. “Fine! Fine! You got me in a corner,” Sero then said as he chuckled. “She should be coming here,” He added as he looked at the door. “Three, two, one,” He then said as he pointed to the door.

“Hello, is Sero Hanta here?”A feminine voice said. “ARE YOU A PSYCHIC?” Denki said as he looked surprised. “I’m right here pumpkin!” Sero then said as he smirked. His nervousness melted away as he saw the 5’6ft girl. It was his girlfriend, Eve, and he was overjoyed. “Hey there babe!” She then said as she smiled. “DANG YOU GOT A FINE LADY!” Denki then yelled as he checked her out. “Keep your eyes above for I’ll gorge them out,” Eve then said as she glared at Denki. Soon enough, Mineta tried to touch her as well but his efforts were at vain. Sero used his tape as to stop Mineta from getting closer. And Eve kicked him away, far away from her. “Get your filthy hands away from her,” Sero said as he stood up. He then wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “Woah, that was so manly!” Kirishima said as he smiled.

“GIRLS! GET HER-“ Mina said as she tackled the girl. They didn’t fall down but Mina was laughing and hugging her. “Girl! How long have you been together?” Mina asked as she pulled away. Eve was a bit uncomfortable but she merely had a stoic face. “A few weeks,” She responded bluntly. And soon enough, the truth or dare session was forgotten. It was replace with the class 1-A trying to pry out the tea from the couple. Did they succeed? No, not really. Though the class seemed to love Eve and her antics. The class even tried to make them forget about the date they have planned. But either way, Sero and Eve got manage to get away to have their small movie date at his room.

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Author's note

Hai bb! I'm sorry it took so long. But thanks for requesting again~

[mooncleo]

and we recover slowly, my love, but surely

Fandom: Harry Potter 

Main Pairing: Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger/Harry Potter 

Description:  Ron, Harry, and Hermione live together after the war. It seems like the logical choice, and the next step into comfortable domesticity seems logical as well. They learn and they love and they heal and cope and live and it’s beautiful and painful and perfect. 

Words: 6,893

Edited: Literally not at all sorry guys 

Author’s Note: Good morning to everyone who did not ask!!! I’m gonna double post my fic for all of my two followers, whom I love and cherish very much 🥰🥰

I honestly was not expecting this fic to end up being ot3, that kinda took me by surprise. So did my 2k turning into almost 7k, that was a little bit of fun. 

I’m going to try to put in a read more, if I fail PLEASE tell me I don’t want anyone to have to scroll through everything. 

Read it on Ao3 here. 

… 

It was the cool quiet of the evenings that kept him from even entertaining the thought of returning to London. Nights at the Dursley’s had never been this calm, always filled with Aunt Petunia or Vernon’s yelling, Dudley’s taunts, or the rumbling of an empty stomach, sent to bed without a bite of the dinner that he helped to cook. 

He never went to bed hungry anymore. It was one of his triggers, they found out one night when he’d spent all day working on one of his projects and forgotten to eat- laying in the dark with his stomach beginning to knaw on itself in protest had sent him spiralling nearly into a fully blown panic attack. The Dursley’s had fucked him up, for sure. 

It was not long that they’d been living together in their little cottage that Harry made a joke about cupboards and beds. It was bound to come up eventually, but he had hoped, somehow, to put the ensuing conversation off forever. 

Before they had even gotten into details, Hermione’s eyes had started to water in a way that made him, quite frankly, uncomfortable. “All these years, and we never even knew? You’ve gone home to them every summer! I knew they didn’t feed you very well, but God, Harry. I didn’t think it was this bad." 

He could tell that Ron felt the same way, but he’d never been particularly good at expressing it. Instead, Harry got twice the usual serving at dinner, and Ron’s grip was tight around him when they settled down to watch a movie later.

The next day at breakfast, Hermione brought it up again. She’d started by trying to convince him to file a court case against them. 

"It’s a serious case of child abuse, Harry. They were horrible to you, and they shouldn’t be able to get away with it.” That argument had not gone down well, as Harry had first denied that there was any child abuse involved, however horrible they’d been, and then added on that he had no idea where they’d ended up after the war. He also didn’t really ever want to see them again, though he left that part out. He had a feeling it might not help his case. 

“Well, you should at least go to therapy. It might help you process what they put you through.” She held up a finger when she saw him going to argue and said, “Listen, even if you don’t think the Dursley’s abused you, I still think you should go to therapy. Don’t pretend you haven’t stopped sleeping because of the nightmares, Harry Potter, so help me God. I know what you look like when you’re well-rested and this isn’t it. Those bags under your eyes could carry our groceries. Actually, I think we should all go. It’s not as though you’re the only one who went through a year on the run in addition to all the other fun trauma that comes with war." 

Ron was a little confused about what therapy was until they explained the concept to him and he shouted out, "Mind healers! Oh! Yeah, we have those.” This, thankfully, saved them from the ordeal of finding an either muggleborn or squib therapist so that they could talk about magic without being declared properly insane. 

Harry had been apprehensive about going to anyone who could claim to fix his mental issues- in part because he was half in denial about those mental issues to begin with. Yes, he had trouble sleeping most nights because of nightmares. Yes, he felt guilty about every single death that had happened during the war. Yes, the Dursley’s had treated him horribly for all of his life. But everyone had nightmares because of the war, those deaths really were his fault because they were all fighting for him, and the Dursley’s just hadn’t liked him that much on account of his parents. The hate was mutual, after all. 

It only took one session with his mind healer, Gertha, for him to begin to open up to the idea that maybe he was a little bit misguided. Gertha was an 80 year old witch with gray hair just beginning to pepper her bun, and she took no shit. Her age had given her the grace of being willing to properly fight him when he started to go into a spiral, and she had a dry wit that he appreciated. Halfway through the first time they met, he’d started talking about the war and how it was his fault. Her eagle-eyed stare had stopped him in his tracks, and he’d asked, “What?" 

"Boy, you are taking on far too much responsibility here. You think all those people died just for you? You think the war wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been around? No! Voldemort was coming back, with or without you- he would have found a way. And just because you were the face of the war, that does not make you the war. A rallying point does not control those who gather around it, it simply exists as a marker, a way to say ‘we are here.’ Those people did not die just for you, you hear me? They were going to fight either way. People don’t like to lay down and give up when their loves and lives are threatened." 

At the time, he hadn’t believed a word she’d said, but he liked the way she said it. It wasn’t quite scolding, more disbelieving than anything else. She also had said that Voldemort was coming back with or without him, even without knowing about the horcruxes. He liked her wit and the easy way she had handled his self-pity. She reminded him a bit of Professor McGonagall, and that in and of itself was a recommendation to him. 

He went back the next week, because she had told him to and he liked her. He felt lucky that he found someone he liked right away, because both Ron and Hermione didn’t like the first Healers they talked to. Hermione had not liked the bright, peppy young witch who was apparently entirely too optimistic. "Her office was covered in little paper flowers, as though she didn’t deal with grown adults. As soon as I mentioned the war she started patronising about how she felt there surely must have been a better option than fighting, like maybe talking. First of all, did she do literally any research before I walked into the room? Honestly, what if I had been just a mite more fragile? Or Harry?" 

"Hey! I resemble that remark!” A pillow found its way through the air in the direction of his face. 

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m ranting. Anyway, she was absolutely insane. 'Why did they have to fight?’ Because when another wizard throws a curse at you, you aren’t gonna just fucking stand there and take it! Good God, woman. I don’t know where she was during the war, but she clearly wasn’t paying any kind of attention to Britain. How did she even get her Healer’s license? Ridiculous.” Hermione took an angry sip of her tea and she and Harry both looked to Ron. 

“Yeah, mine wasn’t as bad as all that. I just didn’t really think he had the type of vibe I’m looking for. Kinda reminded me of my dad, actually. Not really what I wanted.” After sympathetic nods from the other two, Ron turned towards the TV. “What are we planning on tonight?" 

"Right! I forgot completely. The Princess Bride! The librarian was raving about it when I was checking it out, so hopefully it’ll be good.” As Ron was raised in a wizarding household, Harry hadn’t really had much of a childhood by way of movies, and Hermione’s parents had been very strict, the three of them had decided to work their way through iconic muggle films that they’d missed over the years. They’d all liked The Breakfast Club the week before, though they were postponing Star Wars from two weeks ago until they could get through the fight scenes without having semi-simultaneous panic attacks. 

The Princess Bride was a hit, and Hermione liked it enough that she put the VHS on her to-buy list. They wanted to build up their own collection of movies that they liked for rewatching purposes. Hermione had argued that going to the Blockbuster and renting a movie was much more cost effective that just buying all of them outright, since they were trying to get through at least a movie a week. The boys had decided not to argue, as she tended to be right about most things (and was also managing their finances). 

Three weeks later, Ron had found a mind healer he liked, and Hermione was still stuck. Ron never said much about the therapy sessions he went to, while Hermione preferred to rant after hers. “God, it’s like he wasn’t even listening! There has to be at least one healer out there that I can actually talk to with a modicum of intelligence." 

Ron and Harry traded glances. Harry’s look was quizzical, Ron’s was certain. It seemed that Harry would be the one to say it, then. ”'Mione, do you think that there’s a chance that maybe you’re having trouble finding a therapist because you don’t want to give any of them the chance to help?“ 

She was quiet for a moment. "I mean. I had considered it, but. Well. None of them- well. I suppose I may not have been entirely fair with all them. Although I stand by everything I’ve said." 

"Everything you’ve said? Your main complaint about the last one was that she wore a cardigan instead of doing warming charms on herself. You may want to rethink that, love.” Ron’s tone was gentle and amused. It was a good thing, because Harry was fairly certain she’d have bitten his head off if it’d been anything but. 

“Oh. Yes, well. Maybe a tad.” She coloured as she admitted it, and then added, “It was a truly hideous cardigan, though." 

"And warming charms are a rather simple.” Harry mimicked the arch way that Hermione said things of people she looked down on, a voice that only those close to her ever really got to hear. She never mocked people in polite company, but both Ron and Harry knew that she could be properly vicious when she felt like putting in effort. Ron laughed, and then Hermione did too, a second later. They descended into giggles for a few moments before subsiding. 

“Really, though. Your main complaints about her were her clothing, and not the soundness of her advice. Maybe try a second session with her, and see if it was a one off? If the only thing you could come up with was an ugly sweater then she must have been rather on the nose about everything else." 

"Hmmm. Maybe. She did seem reasonably intelligent, actually." 

The matter was concluded for the night, and they all went off to bed. After a night of rest, Hermione felt comfortable admitting that, looking back, it was rather obvious that she had been searching for faults as an excuse not to have to be vulnerable around people she didn’t know very well.

The solution to this, according to her mind healer, would be to get to know each other before starting. Hermione raved about how intelligent the woman was when she got home, and Ron and Harry once again traded glances. They didn’t say anything, but they were glad to have been able to help her find someone she actually liked. Neither was surprised that she was happy so quickly. It had been clear to them, before, that she was searching for faults. 

Their lives went on. Tuesdays became therapy days, and they’d all go out for ice cream afterwards. Eventually, Harry and Hermione ended up back in the workforce. Ron decided to stay home and take care of the house. (He referred to the two of them as his sugar parents, an idea that deeply offended Hermione. Harry thought it was hilarious.) 

Harry had toyed with the idea of going on to become an auror like he’d thought he wanted when he was 15. It did not take him very long to decide that he’d only really come up with the idea in the first place because he’d supposed that his life’s purpose was fighting Voldemort, and the aurors could have given him a leg up in that. With as long as it had taken him to accept that his life had meaning beyond fighting and defeating a dark lord, he wasn’t going to give that up now. 

They ended up spending the entire evening brainstorming when he brought up wanting to get a job. Even if he was never going to be an auror, he was still starting to get restless with all the free time they’d accrued living off the map together. 

"You could be a- a- um, fuck, what’re they called. Bus driver!! That’s a job.” Hermione, rather drunk on her fourth glass of wine, had taken to suggesting whatever came to mind. 

“I don’t drive, I’m gay." 

"Mmmm, you’re just as bi as the rest of us, darling. I bet we could figure it out. Actually, you know what, we should probably get a car.” She was starting to light up the way she did when she had a goal, and Ron groaned loudly. 

“God, I forgot we never even learned to drive. Do we have to? I can apparate half-decently, and so can Harry. We could just practice and then not drive." 

At Hermione’s put-out look, Harry interjected. "I’ll put bus driver on the list, but I don’t know that we need to drive. Where are we going? Half the shit we eat we grow ourselves." 

"That’s right! It’s sus- sustains- no, oh my god, I’m drunk- sustainsabilities. Fuck, I can’t speak. Sustainabilities. Yup, it’s sustainable! We’re helping the environment.” Hermione had, at some point during their conversation, migrated sideways so that she was leaning almost entirely on Harry. 

“'Mione, you have to move. You gotta- lean on Ron, I have to pee.” She snorted and nuzzled slightly further into his chest. 

“Hmmm, you do that." 

A few seconds later, there were snores coming from her frame, and Harry looked over at Ron, who was shaking with silent laughter. "Don’t laugh, I have to pee! Help me move her." 

Harry pushed at Hermione’s shoulder, and she flopped a little bit onto the back of the couch. Ron doubled over in another round of giggles, and Harry hissed, "Ron, I swear to god- if I start laughing I’m gonna piss! You gotta- oh my god- help!" 

At this point, Harry had started laughing and tried to slip out from under his girlfriend. Instead of quietly moving her without waking her, she fell and glanced her head off the arm of the couch. A brief moment of panic ensued, in which Harry and Ron both tried to check on her at once, and only succeeded in bonking their heads together. 

Ron was gasping through peals of laughter as he grabbed onto Harry to avoid falling off the couch. "Oh- oh shit, oh fuck, oh my god. Is- is she- fuck- is she okay? Harry, you fucking idiot, check her head." 

"She’s fine, dipshit. Fuck, that could have been so bad, shit.” Harry had sobered for the moment that it took to remember the diagnostic spell to make sure that Hermione was actually okay, and upon confirmation he sank back into the humor of the situation. 

“Goddamnit, I can’t believe that happened. Good god.” He wiped his eyes and then got up to actually use the bathroom. 

“Don’t get a concussion in there, Harry, the last thing we need is two of them.” Ron called after him, and he responded with a one fingered salute in the general direction of his boyfriend. He heard Ron’s collapse against the couch as he closed the bathroom door. 

It was as he was staring at the green tiling on the bathroom floor that he found himself reflecting on the fact that if that had happened a few months ago, it would have gone much worse. Any injuries sustained by the three of them were largely blind territory that brought back horrible memories for the worst of the months after the war. It was remarkable that they could laugh through it, now. 

When he came out to stick his still slightly damp hands under Ron’s jumper, he found Ron and Hermione curled up together, softly snoring. He smiled and climbed onto their couch next to them, levitating a blanket over the three of them as he went. It was a good night. 

The next morning, he woke up first. They’d ended up tangled closer together in sleep, but he was still on the edge and managed to slip out to start breakfast and find the paracetamol for the three of them. 

Breakfast was quieter than usual, with lots of gestures and grunts when someone wanted something. Wine hangovers were no joke. Later in the day, they went out to the garden together to weed, and Hermione suggested gardening as a potential profession. Harry vetoed, with the reasoning that he got to do it enough at home. 

Ron bounced off that logic to suggest Quidditch, and they had the first of what would end up as their two final options. The other was working as a professor, which Harry took a full week to warm up to the idea of. 

“I don’t know, becoming a professor seems like kind of a big deal. First of all, you’re shaping students’ whole lives, and second of all wouldn’t I need, like, higher education?" 

"Oooh, good point, actually. I believe you would need to get a mastery in the subject that you want to teach, which you can obtain by apprenticing under an expert in the field. I think that was in Hogwarts: A History? It might have come from somewhere else, I’m not sure. As for the other thing, I’ve seen you with kids, Harry. You’re brilliant. I don’t know that you even really need to worry about that quarter." 

"Mate, it might be good for you to get a mastery, actually. They usually discuss them with seventh years at Hogwarts, so I don’t really know much about them. Charlie’s was how he got started in Romania, actually." 

"Huh. That makes a lot of sense, actually. I always wondered if wizards had an equivalent to college, but I was a bit busy worrying about the dark wizard trying to kill me for most of my life, so I never got the chance to look it up.” Harry had actually considered asking McGonagall about it during his consultation on his future, but they’d started talking about Defense Against the Dark Arts exams before he could mention it. 

“Harry, you should write McGonagall about it. She’s always looking for new teachers, and even if you don’t end up wanting to do it, she can give you advice on how to start looking for a mastery, which you’ll pretty much need for most jobs, anyway." 

With that, they’d settled the matter. He wrote to McGonagall, and she replied promptly with an invitation to her office to discuss it in person. 

McGonagall had taken Dumbldore’s old office. Harry had known that she would, as Headmistress, but it still shocked him a little to see the space decorated so differently. Minerva McGonagall was a practical woman, and as such had no need for random devices scattered about the room. He walls were lined with shelves full of books of many kinds, and her fire was roaring. She and Harry sat across from each other in matching armchairs that Harry swore must have had some kind of charm on them, because they were the most comfortable chairs he’d ever sat in. 

"Professor-” Harry started, and then stopped. He wasn’t quite certain how to go about this meeting, on unfamiliar territory. She wasn’t quite his teacher anymore, and he didn’t know how to approach that. 

“You can call me Minerva, Harry. You are no longer my student.” The way she said it was not unkind, but he still felt lightly chastised. “I believe you wanted to discuss how to proceed in finding a career in the wizarding world?" 

"Um. Yes. Well. Minerva- hmmm, yeah that tastes strange. Minerva, I’ve been thinking that it would be a good idea to get myself back out into the world, starting with a job. Ron, Hermione, and I have been fine in our cottage, but sometimes it- I just feel like it’s time. I’m getting a bit restless, I think." 

Minerva looked amused at his rambling. "I know how that feels. Did you know that after Elphinstone and I got married, I took a break from teaching?" 

"Really?” Harry was genuinely surprised, because he couldn’t really imagine Minerva as a house wife. 

“Yes, really. I took a year off to take care of our home and try my hand at being a stay at home wife. A year was about all I could stand, honestly. I ended up going back to teaching the following September, I was lucky enough that Albus had been unable to fill my position beyond a temporary professor. I loved our house and I loved spending time with my husband, but I found it difficult to be alone all day and trying to productively fill my days. I also missed my students with no small amount of fierceness." 

"I definitely know how that feels. We have plenty of things to do but it’s so easy to get distracted without the structure of school." 

"Hmm. Speaking of which, how much do you know about masteries, Harry? I know that you and your peers all missed our usual talks about them, but you are also living with one Hermione Granger, who I am sure knows a fair amount about them through the pure virtue of planning three years ahead at least at all times." 

Minerva said it with humor and fondness in her voice, and Harry chuckled. "You’re not wrong. I know that it’s a bit like muggle college, and that it’s essentially an apprenticeship? I am a little bit confused about what one would do if they got to their mastery and found out that they’d picked something that they actually don’t like as much as they thought they did- for muggles they would just change their major, but if you’re working with one specific person because of their expertise in the subject that you’ve chosen, what do you do?" 

"That’s a good point. Most students have at least an idea of what they want to do based on what classes they liked while they were in school, but many don’t. Towards the end of seventh year, we allow students to start trying out different concentrations. Many will start to work with teachers in subjects that they like to see if they like the subject as much as they think they do. If we don’t have anyone specializing in the subject that they are thinking of, we can, more often than not, find someone who is willing to allow them to tail their work for a week or so to see if that’s something they like. We encourage students to look into at least three different masteries so that they can fully explore their options. This helps most students decide where they’ll end up, but even if you get to where you want to be and then decide that it actually isn’t for you, it’s not nearly as difficult to try something new as it would seem." 

"Good lord, that it a lot of information.” Minerva tilted her head slightly in acknowledgement. “So, if I start where I am now, without any weeks of tailing anyone and a bit beyond graduation, what do I do?" 

"Well, I might suggest taking remedial courses for the year that you missed, to start. It might help some with the boredom that you were talking about earlier, and you are a bright young man. I have no doubt that you will find you can complete the courses in far less time than it would take you to complete a full school year. We thought about offering students an option to complete an extra 'eighth’ year, but ultimately decided to keep Hogwarts at its usual seven years, and instead look into alternate options for them to finish. That September, most of our older students weren’t ready to return to the school anyway. War takes its tolls." 

"Isn’t that just ridiculously true? We were all wrecks for months, rather a bit. In the end Hermione pushed us to start going to therapy, and that helped loads. As for the completing the courses, I think that’s a good idea- I could probably do them with Hermione and Ron, Hermione’s been trying to figure out the logistics of finishing seventh year since it occurred to her that we never did, nevermind the fact that she’s performing spells of that level since fifth year." 

"I’ve been trying to remember that that is a letter I need to send out to everyone, though I keep forgetting. Even this far down the line, we’re still working through castle repairs and damages. There is always so much to do… well, that’s no excuse for slacking, regardless. I’ll have to add it to the list." 

She pulled out a piece of parchment from seemingly nowhere, and began to write on it with a quill also pulled from the ether. 

Harry was deservedly very impressed. "That was awesome, professor- what spell was that?" 

"I am no longer your professor, Harry. That is a useful little spell Filius taught me… " 

Their visit went on, with Minerva imparting far too much wisdom for Harry to ever be able to remember it all. They discussed a wide variety of topics, and McGonagall seriously considered all of the options that he had looked into, and was a particular fan of the quidditch idea. "Even if you don’t end up doing it as a career, it’s an excellent way to stay in shape. Far too many of my students simply stop playing when they decide on an office job, such a shame, and so much wasted potential as well." 

That particular comment sparked a long discussion about the merits of playing quidditch recreationally, which led to them talking about the professor’s league at the school. Harry was shocked that he hadn’t known about it as a student, had never heard it mentioned, and Minerva laughed at him for it. Apparently there were many secrets of the staff and school that students didn’t know about. 

When he left with several biscuits tucked away in a container for travel to bring to Ron and Hermione, he felt better. He was almost entirely decided on what to do for his apprenticeship, and he had a solid plan for his next few years. After the uncertainty of being on the run for a year combined with the certainty that he wouldn’t live past 17, it felt good to know what he was going to do, and additionally know that it had nothing to do with dark wizards. It was rare for him to be anything resembling normal. 

Ron and Hermione listened animatedly to his recollection of the meeting. Hermione was especially delighted to find that they’d have a way to complete their schooling, while Ron was relieved that it was from home. "Gotta be honest, I don’t want to go back to Hogwarts. It’s lovely, and in a special way it will always be home, but I think there are a tad too many memories lurking around corners for me to be completely comfortable there ever again." 

Harry nodded, though he wasn’t entirely certain he agreed. It was something he’d not considered, the memories contained within the school’s walls. Hogwarts was his home, and it likely would always be in his mind, the first place that he ever truly felt comfortable. But with how bad his PTSD had been, and still was on occasion, would he be able to live there? Walk its halls the way he had as a child? He wasn’t sure. 

They started their schooling a month, later, when it became widely available. The three of them were in some of the same core classes, as they’d always been, but they were all taking different paths and therefore most of the time they spent with papers spread out around them at the dinner table that they never ate at were for actual working, not talking. 

Ron was taking only what interested him, just enough courses to be able to get his degree. He tended to finish his work before the other three, and would go kiss the top of their heads as he got up to go start dinner. Hermione had taken as many courses as she could fit, as always. It was almost worse than third year, because the courses weren’t held in person. She had taken that to mean that if she could find the time for it in her personal schedule, she could fit it in. 

Ron and Harry had talked her down from taking all available courses. She’d ended up with a fairly large courseload regardless, but that was to be expected. 

Harry was, as ever, in the middle. He found himself with a courseload he was happy with, a few extra classes that he thought could be interesting, but not so many that he was constantly doing work. That worked out well for him, because he’d taken an herbology elective having to do with the growing of potions ingredients in the wild. It turned out that understanding the ingredients in a deeper sense than just their names was immensely helpful for potions. He’d never been doing better in a potions class without cheating, and he’d also begun to actually understand some of the notes Snape had left in the margins of the stolen book. 

They got through their class work and watched movies and made tea and went for walks and before they knew it, the holiday season was upon them. Their classes all had breaks for Christmas, and they took full advantage of that time. 

"What d'you think we should get Molly this year?” Harry through the question out from his position on the couch, draped across Ron and Hermione’s laps. 

“That’s gotta be some sign of adulthood, having to give your parents Christmas gifts.” Ron’s fingers paused their carding through his hair as he digested the question, and then he resumed. “I bet she’d like some of that cleaner we saw the other day, the one that changes scent." 

"Oooooh, good point. I was thinking maybe some new knitting patterns, actually- I found a bunch in the clearance section in the bookshop we went to the other day.” Hermione started diligently scribbling on the parchment in front of her under the “parents” section of her well-organized christmas shopping/gift ideas list. She turned to her boys to say something more, but as she opened her mouth the tinny sound o a timer going off filled the room “That;s your turn done then, Harry. Scoot." 

"Awww, but I’m so comfortable, 'Mione.” Harry pleaded to Hermione’s uncaring eyes as he heaved himself upwards out of Ron’s lap. Ron scooted down the couch to take Hermione’s place as she laid down to replace Harry. 

“Mhmmm. Well, it’s my turn to be comfortable.” Harry’s fingers found their way to her hair as her quill and parchment floated in the air by her head. “Alright, where was I? Okay. Ummmm, right! Under Molly, I want: "knitting needles, pattern books, and scent changing cleaning spray." 

The quill started scratching across the page as Hermione explained, "The other day over tea she mentioned to me that she hadn’t a good way to organize her needles, and usually has so many projects going that half the time she doesn’t know which ones are already in use and which aren’t. I think we should get her a new set so that she can have doubles AND an organizing system. I’m sure if we look hard enough we can find a case that has an extension charm on it, or we can do one ourselves." 

Ron looked down at Hermione with a smile on his face. "Brilliant. Alright, who’s next?" 

Harry glanced at the parchment hanging in the air to see which space was blank. "Looks like we don’t have anything for Ginny, which should be easy enough. She was complaining about her broom the other day, but I know she likes the model too well to want a new one. I was thinking a broom servicing kit?”

The evening went on like that, and they eventually had at least a rough sketch of what they would be looking for when they went out to do Christmas shopping. They found a fair amount of the things actually on the list, and were able to get suitable substitutes where they couldn’t. 

Their Christmas plans were this: they spent Christmas Eve at Hermione’s aunt’s house. She explained to them that her mother’s siblings had a rotation going, and that next year the three of them would likely be required to come to her parents’ aid with hosting. Her family was surprisingly large, and she told them that they tended not to gather for anything other than holidays. She never talked about them because there weren’t any other wizards in the family. 

They found out that this was not actually true on Christmas Eve, when Ron walked in on one of the cousins changing her kid’s diaper with a spell. It was a rather awkward conversation, while Ron tried to explain that he was a wizard and she tried to obliviate him. Eventually, the truth came out: her cousins were American, and hadn’t been particularly affected by the war. They, in all honesty, had been remarking to each other all night that Harry looked oddly familiar to them, but had been unable to parse out exactly what it was. 

They ended up setting up a lunch date for all of them for later that week before they apparated back to Minnesota. The cousins were very excited to find that there was another wizard in the family, and Hermione was similarly vibrating. 

“I can’t believe, all this time, and I didn’t even know! I knew it would make sense that some of my relatives would be magical, but I didn’t think it would actually happen. I obviously wasn’t going to sniff around and risk them finding out just to see if they really were muggles or not. Oh my goodness, this is amazing. I wonder what schooling looks like in America? I mean, I know the basic principles, of course, but I would love specifics. It’s such a big country, and Ilvermorny is the main school that we hear of, but I’m certain they wouldn’t have travelled that far just for school, that doesn’t make sense, does it?" 

”'Mione, we’re having lunch with them later this week. I’m sure they’ll be happy enough to answer your questions. We certainly don’t know the answers.“ 

Ron nodded as he hoisted the backpack holding their gifts in it higher on his shoulders. They were walking to the closest apparition point. According to Harry, who was using google maps, they were about 5 minutes away. 

"Turn left here. For tonight we should just focus on trying to get ourselves home, I think. Did we end up finishing the wrapping for tomorrow?" 

"Oh shit, I forgot, actually. We ran out of wrapping paper. We only have a few left, but still. Should we find a Tesco and stop in? It’s not too late, is it?" 

"They’re open til 10.” Ron stopped walking for a moment to consult his watch on the time, which read out 9:37 p.m. 

“Alright, let’s go then." 

The tesco had one roll of wrapping paper with lumberjack Santa Claus’s dancing across it with axes. They were not literally dancing of course- there was a Tesco in London with a wizard section where they might have found something similar, but they hadn’t the time to go to it. 

The next day, George refolded his "hot santa claus” wrapping paper into a hat and wore it all through dinner. Molly was too happy that he was smiling to scold him about it, although she did have to excuse herself at one point. When Harry came in to check on her, she was crying lightly into a handkerchief. 

“Oh, don’t worry about me, dear. I’ll be alright- he just- oh, for the love of- he looks very much like his brother.” She blew her nose and took a deep breath. A weak smile graced her face as she looked up at Harry. “It’s hard, still. It’s been getting better, but- well, I didn’t think they could even survive without each other. I used to look at the two of them, always together, always finishing each other’s sentences, and think, god, they’re just like my brother’s, and oh, thank goodness they’ll never have to be apart. I just- I just wish I’d been right.” Her voice broke a little bit on the last word, and she started dabbing at her eyes again. 

“I know. I remember in school, they were always together. No one thought they should ever be apart, but. I don’t know. George is doing- not well, but- he’s surviving. That’s all we can ask of him. That’s all we can ask of any of us, really. I think he’s being happy in Fred’s memory, instead of in spite of it, you know?" 

"Oh, I know, dear, I know. It’s just difficult. I’ll get over myself, I just needed a moment. I love seeing him smile again, it’s like Fred’s back, just for a little. Fetch me a glass of water?" 

Harry nodded and swiftly vacated the room. Even after all his therapy, he was still shit with emotions. He found Arthur and informed him of the situation, sending him back to his wife with the water she requested. He knew that was the right decision when he saw Molly again, tears dried, laughing at something Arthur was saying. Her arm was laced through his, a glass of wine in her hand as she leaned against him on the couch. 

He took a minute to reflect that he rarely saw Molly so relaxed, and especially not since the war. He was glad that they’d healed enough at this point that they could, at the very least, enjoy Christmas. His musing were interrupted when Ron came up to him from behind and hugged him. "We’re going to play pick-up, you’re on my team. Ginny’s pissed about it, come on." 

He turned into his boyfriend with a smile on his face and give him a peck. "Excellent, let’s go crush her." 

Ginny, who was training to be a professional quidditch player, soundly kicked their asses. George and Bill helped too. 

As punishment for losing, Ron, Harry, and Charlie went skinny dipping into the pond on the property, but ended up just getting everyone else wet until they all went swimming together, whooping and laughing. 

It was a good night, and Harry woke up sandwiched between Ron and Hermione. He was content to lay there and wait for them to wake up, listening to their breathing and looking at the rise and fall of their chests. They were here, and they’d made it through- he hadn’t thought they would. In the deepest recesses of his mind, he’d done out the math and he had been so certain that they wouldn’t make it through the war all together- something would have to give. Thank god he was wrong, pseudo death or no. He wanted to be nowhere else than where he was, listening to the Weasley household wake up on a Christmas morning. 

They all got up eventually, slowly stumbling their way into the kitchen as the lure of coffee and sausages called to them. Mrs. Weasley seemed happy to have all of her birds back in the nest. Percy kissed her cheek as he left for work, the only one who hadn’t been able to get the day off. The rest of them sat down to eat. 

Overall, it was one of the best Christmases he’d had in a long time, one of the few that he’d truly been able to enjoy. It was reminiscent of some of his first Christmases at Hogwarts, the first ones that he’d ever known what it was like to get presents that weren’t hand-me-downs or worthless garbage. 

He thought about that feeling of being new to a world of literal magic, and the fact that the most magical part of it all had been that he’d had an out, that he’d been able to get far away from the Dursleys for 9 months. He liked this feeling better. Contentedly settled into his skin, with a wide and bright future set out in front of him. He couldn’t help but think that just maybe, there was nowhere better to be.