#man who is that loser ethos

[sn0wp1anets]

ok but objectively the best thing about dl boat boys is that etho and joel are both enormous fucking losers and theres no other way to put this. etho is a pathetic sopping wet cat whos stuck in 1.8 and joel is the most insecure man on earth and dies pathetically in every life series. but somehow their maxed out combined loser-cringefail-ness has transcended normal boundaries and then they became the reddit meta prediction favourite

[thecoolerliauditore]

Very Long Post about Flower Husbands, Interpretation and Character vs Content Creator

This is a toxic flower husbands post. Btw.

I'm not sure when or why it happened but somewhere between limlife and the 24th joelshipping discourse cycle, "flower husbands is toxic" became a mainstream opinion on both here and traffictwt, usually sourcing Scott's ingame words and actions as evidence.

This interpretation has existed within the fandom for a fairly long time, although the words "toxic" and "abuse" were often omitted. Here's one example of a popular post that implied FH was less than ideal for Jimmy.

This does not mean the interpretation was widely accepted, however - hell, I even put this under a cut and warning for a reason. For every toxic FH believer that comes crawling out of the woodwork there comes another post defending their legacy.

For the record, despite what some threads on twt I've read seem to imply: There is nothing morally wrong with liking a mcyt ship regardless of what discomforts other people see in it. There is no explicit "wrong" way to interpret the series. There is no canon. It's fandom shit. It's not that serious.

However, I'm unfortunately abnormal about this series and possibly mcyt as a whole. So I'm forced to grapple with the fact that most non-toxic flower husbands posts seem to either self-contradict or come off as purposefully trying to incite some sort of culture war. As such, here's a list of common arguments I see proposed against the toxic flower husbands interpretation and why I personally don't find them convincing:

The CC Side of Things

Alot of anti-toxic flower husbands posts will accuse toxic flower husbands fans of disliking Scott, the content creator IRL guy, and often imply the interpretation is born out of homophobia -- usually through some variation of the phrase that the interpretation villainzes "the only openly gay CC in the series"

I take issue with this. While Scott is the only homosexual CC in the series, Cleo and Martyn have both been here since 3L and are both very openly queer. Gem has also since joined. You could argue that Scott is The Gayest but that's opening a can of worms in terms of queer discourse I don't think I want to go touching anytime soon.

Even if he was the Only Queer CC In the Series, applying different standards of fanon to Scott just because he is gay feels.. wrong to me. In the same way it's often argued that Jimmy does not need to be babied from his friendship dynamic, Scott too is a grown man who can simply choose to not look at fanart/fanfic if it upsets him, which from what I have personally observed, he hasn't shown any sign of feeling "uncomfortable" by more intimidating or villainous portrayals in the past.

Here's an example of him liking my art that did not paint him in a completely morally good light.

Why can't gay people be calculating? Controlling? Abusive? Why are we applying a higher standard of morality to the gay CC when the rest of the fandom is having the time of their life calling Grian a homophobe, a murderer, calling Scar an arsonist, calling Martyn a loser and pathetic, so on and so forth. Is telling a story about an abusive gay relationship any more "problematic" than telling a story about an abusive straight relationship?

I don't want to imply anything about peoples intentions but it feels sometimes, to me, that the "homophobia" card is being played out of some obligation to protect Scott and his brand rather than out of genuine concern for homophobia in the fandom -- because then, I ask, where is that energy for critiquing the homophobic humour prevalent in CC circles?

I've certainly heard Jimmy make jokes about Scott's sexuality in videos before. Where's the breakdowns of the infamous "I am a straight man and would like to be represented as such" incident from Pirates? Where's that energy for referring to shipping as a "bit" or Etho "gagging" at fanart of him and Bdubs?

I'd even go to argue, in terms of homophobic caricatures, Martyn and Iskall are both often more akin to the classic "gay guy in love with you who won't take no for an answer" stereotype than Scott has been. Martyn at least we know is queer, does it simply not matter in his case? Despite the fact that Martyn is very much more villainized than Scott is, to the point where his Limlife win is often portrayed as maniacal and cackling rather than with the solemn acceptance of Scott's LL win or the heartbreak and regret of Grian's 3L win? Please know that I personally Do Not find these portrayals homophobic (although the Iskall side of things has peeved me in the past), I'm just questioning why homophobia in the fandom seems to start and end with one guy only.

In addition: "internalized homophobia" is certainly a thing, but the vast majority of toxic FH fans in my circle at least are very much gay. We're on Tumblr. Fork found in kitchen. I've seen more than one person express that Scott's behaviour in one or several of the seasons was reminiscent of a toxic or abusive ex, or reminded them of some other trauma. It just seems unkind to me to claim "homophobia" and then turn and tell very gay people talking about their very gay experiences that they are somehow The Problem.

Jimmy Likes It, Though

Often in response to toxic flower husbands posts, people will cite the many times Jimmy has said in the past that he actively requests to be bullied, as part of his youtuber persona, since he finds it funny.

I've always found this kind of strange, since unlike the homophobia claims which 99% of the time are unambiguously about the content creators, this is often said in response to people talking about the series as a story with characters first and foremost.

While the area of interpretation differs for all of us, most people do not choose to include behind-the-scenes youtube talk as part of their storyline, since this detail changes Jimmy's character drastically and impacts the tone of the series overall. So what, they were dropped into a death game arena and Jimmy... told everyone they should bully him, cus he thought it'd be funny? Offscreen, with no interactions or monologue in the series itself even alluding to it? It's kind of awkward to work in and there's really no reason to if what you are invested in is viewing the series as essentially an ultra meta theatre performance.

Now, I personally do work in some out-of-series material into my headcanons and interpretation, so let's say that Is a canon part of Jimmy's character -- maybe he knew the group beforehand and this was their established dynamic, or he simply offscreened it all. Now we have to deal with the fact that this is interpretation and the unreliable narrator aspect of the series.

Jimmy (the character) might've asked for this, but under what circumstances? Why does he want this? Is this really healthy behaviour or is it self-destructive? I never see this explored and instead "Jimmy says it's okay" is treated as word of god, which I find to be painful to deal with when it comes to this series (I'll get to this later).

Even if we throw out the character side of things completely, there are perfectly valid issues to have with this dynamic. I've seen people debating the ethics of presenting this type of humour to a young impressionable audience, I've seen people who find it upsetting because it reminds them of their own toxic friendships. CCs have no authority here, Jimmy does not decide where peoples discomfort starts and ends.

I admit this is a far reach, but indulge me and imagine for a second if the roles were switched and the homophobic jokes about Scott were what was leaned in to but Scott claimed he "liked being bullied". Would that be okay too?

People are Allowed to Dislike the Real Guy, it's Okay

There are plently of reasons to dislike CC!Scott that aren't rooted in homophobia, I can assure you.

Let's put it this way: Scott does not have to read this post if he doesn't want to. In fact, he'd have to actively go out of his way to see it in the first place. The fanfic writers are not calling him an abuser in his youtube comments section. This fandom bullshit is not clogging his notifications.

I don't dislike CC!Scott, I don't love him either but I think he's just kind of your average kind of a loser youtuber guy. But even if someone truly did find him to be the most abhorrent human being to walk the earth, talking about it on tumblr should not hurt him. You often see reminders that Jimmy is a grown man who can speak up if he finds things in videos hurtful, and I'd go on to argue that the same logic is never given to Scott who is, also, a grown man who can control his internet usage.

It's all just Minecraft and jokes

The most buzzkill of all rebuttals, in my opinion, is this argument that toxic flower husbands is "taking it too seriously" and that they are just "friends playing Minecraft".

Like when people bring up Jimmy's behind the scenes request, this confuses me because it is brought up 99% of the time to rebut posts that treat the series as a storyline rather than a youtube playthrough. You can't have the grief of Scott losing his husband and Grian's despaired suicide and Pearl's sanity slippage and still acknowledge that it is all "friends playing minecraft".

In fact I'd even argue flower husbands is pretty non-toxic if you look at it Purely from a friends playing Minecraft perspective, but that is never the case. Scott's grief over Jimmy's death is treated with utmost seriousness, but Scott hitting Jimmy for not listening to him or wanting to "whittle him down to nothing" never is. It's this pick-and-choose that drives me insane more than anything else.

In addition to this, while I might be mistaken, it seems like most FH fans are not super accepting of RPF so I wonder what the intent is in the first place.

Furthermore, I do find it odd when it seems like the issue is that abuse specifically is "taking it too seriously" in a series where murder is pretty much the main theme. Adultery is mentioned multiple times in Double Life. Martyn even says the words "toxic relationship" in Double Life regarding himself and Cleo. It's clearly something that is referenced directly in the series and not any darker than what is already commonly accepted in fanon, so I don't understand why it's such a taboo and gets hit with the "no fun allowed" stick more than Scar being a cannibal serial killer.

With the same logic, I could argue that Scott was serious when he said Jimmy was useless, redundant, etc. and joking when he said he was sad his husband died but. I don't do that. Because that'd be insane

But Scott Loved Jimmy

Onto the stuff that's more purely in-universe, the argument is more uncommon now but I used to see alot of claims that flower husbands couldn't have been toxic because Scott "loved" Jimmy, usually citing the positive interactions the two do have throughout Third Life.

I think this is kind of difficult to talk about because, to me, it comes from a genuine misunderstanding of how abusive relationships work and what they look like. I won't lecture the reader on the theory behind abusive relationships and the trauma bonding cycle but I will say that the good does not balance out the bad and sometimes, context is severely lacking.

E.g. the cake. Late in the series Scott bakes a cake for Jimmy and hides it for him to find. This is a moment that I think is fascinating because it showcases both Scott's genuine care for Jimmy and the sadism he gets out of Jimmy's suffering at the same time. Jimmy is actively afraid of the cake, says to Scott that he thinks it's a trap and tries to get Scott to try it instead because Scott was still on green. Scott simply laughs and pushes Jimmy to try it, later mocking Jimmy for being scared at all.

Scott not taking Jimmy's fear seriously in this scene always seems to get cut out, or is paired with the usual insistence that it's okay because it's a "joke", and the cake itself is what is focused on.

Long story short: Abusers can love and care for their victims, abusers can be romantically attracted to their victims, abusers can feel trapped in the cycle just as much as the victim (e.g. the classic "look what you made me do" wifebeater excuse).

"Home?" "Home." and Word of God

In a similar vein, lots of people point to Scott's Third Life ending as proof their relationship had a happily ever after. This is one example of a trend I see within rebuttals where Scott's word is often treated as canonical Word of God.

Word of God, for those unaware, is the concept in storytelling of communicating definitive, unbiased information to the audience. Some iconic examples would be the Star Wars intro scroll, or any of the "once upon a time..." set-ups in fairy tales. Sometimes a character will temporarily possess Word of God and lose it later, such as Katara's intro narration in ATLA.

The subversion of Word of God would be Unreliable Narrator, where the person telling you the information is, in some way, not to be trusted. Some media play entirely on this concept, the Stanley Parable being one iconic example.

My personal interpretation of the traffic series is that every POV is unreliable narrator, with some being worse offenders (e.g. Scar and Martyn). I feel like it does a disservice to other POVs if you simply take one as Word of God, since some characters really do seem different until you see their side of things (some poignant examples would be Last Life Joel, Last Life Scar and Double Life Pearl). However, I must say again, this is not Correct nor is taking one POV as Word of God Wrong. That's just the rules I'm used to operating under.

So first off, operating within my rules: the "home?" "home." scene only appears in Scott's POV and is never acknowledged outside of that one scene. Jimmy clearly remembers the events of Third Life but never says a thing about him and Scott's shared afterlife (more on Jimmy's behaviour post-3L in a bit) and neither does Scott himself. To me this scene has always been either a tragic dying hallucination or an outright lie Scott invented to cope with the events of Third Life. I don't think there's any reason for me to believe the Jimmy in this scene is really Jimmy.

With that being said: taking the scene at face value as something that actually happened and it being a real afterlife Jimmy and Scott were sent to, there are still sinister elements that go entirely unacknowledged. Scott specifies that the flower valley was decorated to his plans, never mentioning Jimmy's, the same valley he previously insinuated he designed specifically so that he'd be "over" Jimmy.

Including Last Life and beyond as part of canon: this is very much not the "happily ever after" for Scott and Jimmy as. Well. They don't stay there and end up getting thrust into another death game where, again, this scene is never spoken about again and Jimmy only acts more and more antagonistic towards Scott as the seasons progress.

Disregarding Last Life and beyond: there is so much ambiguity that it's hard to take it all at face value, are there any other players in this place? Are Scott and Jimmy doomed to die knowing no one and nowhere else? Can Jimmy walk 15 minutes westward and come across the home of the guy who murdered him? Or is this a paradise where all the players can remain? What about Scott, is he going to go back to treating Jimmy the same way he did when they were both alive? How does he deal with the fact that his dead husband is suddenly back?

I do think this last one (taking Scott's POV as word of god + disregarding everything past this point) is the closest you're gonna get to an entirely non-toxic reading of this scene, but even then you'd have to work with the previous episodes of Scott hitting and berating Jimmy continuously.

Finally, one last issue I take with the "Scott's word = Word of God" interpretation is that it is, once again, inconsistent. If Scott ever says anything to contradict his "good husband" persona it's written off as a joke, but him saying that Pearl "cheated on him" is treated as if she really did commit adultery. There's also things that are just ignored, such as Scott saying "You guys (the audience) are obsessed with flower husbands, when really it's just been me and Pearl," in Secret Life -- words that would imply he really did not care that much for Jimmy.

"Nuance."

I see people just saying the word "nuance" or "scott isn't abusive it's more nuanced" like that's an actual sentence with worth really often. I'm sorry this section is harsh but "nuance" is not an argument, abusers can have nuance, real people are always nuanced and real people can be abusers. To imply that abuse cannot be "nuanced" is a little insulting to me.

Please just say "idgaf" and move on this isn't politics we don't need flower husbands centrism

Jimmy is the Abusive One

This one drives me insane but I see it fairly often and I. honestly don't know what to make of it. Sometimes it's coupled with an insistence that you can make anyone in the cast abusive if you try hard enough which... yeah I, I agree. We're agreeing here.

Seemingly most prominent during Limited Life, there's some claims that people are unfair towards Scott and that Jimmy is the real abuser, but I find the examples of his behaviour weak more often than not because they are usually 1. in direct response to something Scott did, 2. using psychic powers to sense characters motives (such as claiming he is guilt tripping people when he apologizes when nothing suggests that is the case) or 3. behaviour that not only is not toxic, but is very much harmless

Examples of the third one include things such as him refusing to say "love you" back to Scott during Limited Life and Secret Life, which he is not obligated to do. Some people insist he "owes" it to Scott somehow for Third Life which I find not only overestimating how much Scott aided Jimmy during Third Life (Jimmy Did die first, after all) but kind of. Dangerous? To say that you can somehow "owe" another person love and affection if they perform enough chores for you.

Another is the claim that Jimmy acts overly flirtatious with other men which hurts Scott which. I feel like needs an essay or two on slutshaming to make my point clear.

What really does me in is that this point is often paired with the insistence that Flower Husbands Would Be perfect if Jimmy just stopped "acting out" and did what Scott wanted him to. I don't really know how to explain why I find that kind of bad.

To me, it seems as if it's almost an admission that the further away from Third Life you get, the more clear it becomes that Jimmy does not have the highest opinion of Scott and in order for the non-toxic interpretation to still apply you need to stretch things, which often comes with the unfortunate side effect of saying some historically not awesome things about people like Jimmy.

Why Only Scott?

This often comes in hand with the first point about homophobia, with claims that Scott is the only one accused of being abusive to Jimmy, when others like Grian and Joel are the same if not worse.

This is another take that's strange to me because.. It's just untrue? I think it might be the shock of the culture shift of toxic fh that's spearheading this, but most of the smallidarity stuff I've seen, for example, come with some level of acknowledgement that Joel is a massive bitch. Sometimes it's through bully x victim AUs or storylines where he learns the error of his ways, but he's a bitch to Jimmy like. Most of the time.

Solidarian is a much lower sample rate ship for a character with a way too high sample rate but Grian characterization ranges from "pure evil watcher who feeds off suffering" to "previous abuse victim with trust issues". Very few times have I seen Grian presented as purely good in interpretations.

MOST of the jausage stuff I've seen is straight up sausage being. Weird.

There was a hilarious confessions blog anon awhile back that tried to claim shipping scarian was somehow morally wrong because Scar(???) abused Grian(???). It happens.

To add to this: very few of Jimmy's other romantic interests were literally calling himself his "husband" while hitting and berating him. The only other "canon" couple I can think of that come close is Jizzie and the way Lizzie will sometimes hit Joel, but that is primarily outside of the life series and their crimes against eachother in the series are always capstoned by almost cartoonish antics of "still love you, tho" (e.g. Joel putting Lizzie's stuff in a chest after she gets killed by a zombie or them choosing to team up Despite it All near the end of Last Life) -- I have more thoughts regarding them but this isn't the toxic jizzie post so I'll leave it at that.

Very, very rarely will I see someone who believes flower husbands is toxic but thinks joel/grian/fwhip/sausage/etc. are Completely fine. I also think it might just be that people talk about Scott more since Flower Husbands is the Iconic Ship and that gets numbers biased into people Only thinking Scott is bad for Jimmy.

It could also be argued that some of the Double Life pairings have the same level of toxic married couple energy that Flower Husbands does, but I'd argue that the soulbounds have enough variety that interpreting them as wholly romantic is difficult to do. There was also less hype overall with some of the most "toxic" pairings in DL, such as Impdubs or Box Boys, which makes it hard to find content for them -- I did a whole little liveblog of it calling Impdubs toxic as fuck. Y'all just didn't see it. Most of DL's toxic relationship themes also come from divorce quartet but admitting that those four have romantic tension in-universe gets you sniped in this economy.

To end: I talk about Scott more than the other guys because. I like him more. I like talking about people I like.

Conclusion (AKA who fucking cares)

I feel the need to restate my intro: no one actually fucking cares.

I've been talking about inconsistency in the "rules" of interpretation throughout this and I stick by my word but I think I'd have to mention that, in order to view this series as a storyline in the first place, you'd have to make some exceptions. I don't listen to the lines about youtube or viewers or when Grian talks about planning the series. I don't think it'd be Wrong to view Scott's POV as Word of God, disregard everything that implies he's a bad husband, not consider anything past "home?" "home." canon, so on. It would not be an interpretation I, some random asshole on tumblr, enjoy personally but if you're having fun you really should not give a shit about me.

However that doesn't mean people can't be rude or just straight up wrong or hypocritical when they claim toxic flower husbands interpretations are "homophobic" despite being antagonistic towards the gay people writing them in the first place (I've seen a ridiculous amount of middle school level namecalling for like no reason??) or claim that the interpretation is for people who "haven't watched their POV" as if a certain takeaway of a minecraft series presents you with some sense of superiority for understanding the cube guy harder than those horrible, horrible HATERS who think Scott killing himself over and over is sad to watch.

Oh and don't mention Pearl's role in all of this the only time I've seen someone try to bring her up I had to read it like five times and I'm still not quite sure I understand

[fountainpenguin]

Tango POV Session 3 highlights (My first POV this session, jumping in with no spoilers)-

Skizz: "I want a giant blinking heart in the sky" Tango: "Cool idea :) You're doing the redstone, right?" Skizz: ... Tango: "YOU'RE doing the redstone for that, right?"

Skizz: "While editing I was like... 'Am I a loser?' Tango: "No, no, no! It was well before editing that I realized that."

I do love the server dynamics that give us gems like Mumbo sprinting across the ground yelling about how he has a quick, urgent thing he needs to do... Just an average day in the death game.

slkdjf Tango and Skizz finally found someone just as desperate and needy as them... Enter the man who has been shunned for 3 seasons because of his boogeyman kill. We love a BigB!!

BigB: "Skizz, this might be time to point out my weak building skills-" Skizzleman: "Oh no, don't worry. That's why we've got ourselves a Tango!" Tango: /incoherent shrieking and denials

Tango assigned homemaker by the narrative.

So just to be clear, we've got Tango "I will teach you redstone and cheer you on" (Mansplain), we've got BigB "There is no hole in the mesa" (Manipulate), and Skizz "I built the base" (Malewife). Good for them.

Skizz: "At my IRL job when I had to create blinking lights, I literally had someone go back to the breaker and flip it."

Tango, to Cleo: "That's all we are! Cringe 'R' Us!"

sdlkfj Tango hugging and comforting Torchy over how scary Etho's water bucket attack was. "If he comes back, I will take care of this."

BigB: "I have an anvil." Tango and Skizz losing their minds: "BEST TEAMMATE EVER!"

Heart Foundation: "We will join forces and gift our hearts to a randomly selected person. Everyone will like and protect us; we are creating our own plot armor." Etho, immediately after receiving his hearts: "I am a huge fan. Sign me up. Whatever I need to do to stay on. I will let you use the enchanting table. I would be dead if it were not for the Heart Foundation."

Gem and Scott riding up on their zombie and skeleton horses would be SO terrifying. Can't wait to see the fanart of that sdfklj

Tango killed it this session, he did not cut corners in babbling to Torchy.

Gem: "I think your task is to remove light sources from the server." Tango: "That would be very incorrect." Tango as he sprints away, muttering to Torchy: "I know?? They were standing right by us and they didn't even notice??"

Torchy has such boogeyman tendencies, geez. Is this Leven Thumps; did we confine the spirit of the boogeyman to a piece of wood??

Tango, raiding someone's base: "You want to? We could."

I enjoy the new rule about Yellows having one chance to call people out on their task. I think this is a good move to up the tension and also encourage people to do it because you only get one shot per episode. Don't wanna waste it!

slkdjf @ Tango chatting with Etho, Etho susses out his task, so Tango immediately runs to Grian to confirm the rules. Grian tells him no problem, Etho's green so he's in the clear. Tango runs off crowing in laughter.

Lizzie: "I've heard some weird things about you." Tango: "We are excellent today." Lizzie: "That's the weird stuff I've been hearing."

?? Is Tango's official canon that redstone exposure turned his eyes red? Neat.

lksdjf Skizz seething about Impulse.

Tango: "What did he do?" Skizz: "His task was to find somebody who's got greater than 25 hearts and find a way to - air quotes - "accidentally" get them to lose 5 hearts. So he made sure I lost 20."

Yeah, that tracks.

Freaking goodness, Tango put his entire heart and soul into this invisible friend task.

Bdubs' globe is looking amazing <3

?? Etho running up to Joel and saying "I love you?" What is the context; looking forward to figuring that out.

Etho: "I love you." Joel: "Okay, I know you're obsessed with me, I saw you made me your thumbnail of your first episode, but come on..."

Called out at the end!!! Devastating!!!

That is the end, but what a great session. So much death...

[doodlebloo]

Top 5 Hermitcraft* Members Who Could Survive On The DSMP:

*plus Martyn

5. Etho

I honestly think he'd end up joining Snowchester and defending his builds based on sheer force of will. People either like him or fear him too much to mess with his stuff

4. ZombieCleo

She could also hold her own and get people to actually leave her builds the hell alone for fear of retribution. I feel like she wouldn't join a faction but would definitely play a huge role in killing The Egg

3. Joel

He would be bullied and would be running around the server with nothing in his inventory but he'd be exceedingly open to role-playing. Would join Technoblade and Phil's Arctic Commune and be their loser cringe fail apprentice who hates cRanboo for no good reason /funny

2. Grian

It would take him a bit to adjust to there being absolutely 0 rules and etiquette about like cleaning up pranks and not causing lasting damage but once he got that taste for blood he'd be a major player in Doomsday I just know it. Double-crossing people and shit

1. Martyn

He would've fully immersed himself as a member of L'Manberg but aided King Eret in the betrayal I know this to be true in my heart of hearts. He would have RULED as a dsmp member it would've blown us all away

Top 5 DSMP Alumni Who Would Thrive On Hermitcraft:

5. Niki

If she had the chance to actually be fucking listened to and cared about she could do such great things and would love being a part of the lore

4. AweSamDude

They would love him over at Hermitcraft. The prison is incredibly impressive and he's amazing at role-playing an evil guy but still being a nice dude

3. Philza

Anyone who has seen his hardcore world knows this. He isn't ranked higher on my list because people have been saying this for years so it isn't a hot take

2. Tubbo

He's a bit chaotic yes but he'd be overjoyed to learn from everyone and make cool little contraptions, he is admittedly hellbent on chaos and destruction but i think they could keep him in line for the most part

1. Foolish

This man was made for Hermitcraft. He's an amazing builder and he's so silly and he gets along so well with everyone he's ever met. They would love him there I mean it

[karma-creations]

My favorite bits/lines from every Secret Life session after watching all POVs

Session 1

tango trying to ask multiple questions at a time to get scar talking for a little while and scar outright telling him to shut up so he can infodump

joel’s response to lizzie, his ACTUAL WIFE, saying "I love you": "oh thank you"

joel: "hey bdubs your house is upside down" bdubs: "YES I KNOW IT'S UPSIDE DOWN- i'm sorry. i'm sorry"

bdubs not-so-subtly begging mumbo not to build a house inspired by his and mumbo straight up going going "uh huh" before suggesting a house inspired by bdubs's

cleo catching etho with the bed shrine

mumbo: "it could be like the alps, but bad. like, much worse."

martyn: "we can do a bit of, uh, tankin' and spankin'" gem: "……bit of what?"

skizz: "all of us are pretty old, maybe our island's called heart problems"

tango: "well, i'll be honest, skizz… everybody's teamed up, so… you're all that's left, we're gonna have to shack up" skizz: "well! it’s like a giant hug!"

Session 2

everyone going "OOOOHHhhhhhhhhhh…….." after skizz's creeper got put in a boat

mumbo: "I'm happy to be in whatever group you guys- oh hey bdubs"

bdubs: "I DON'T NEED NO MOM, I'M A GROWN MAN!" cleo: "really? how do you explain the everything?"

cleo (to bdubs): "you're just a horse girl at heart, aren’t you?"

skizz going "BREAK IT UP BREAK IT UP" at the same time as tango chanting "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT"

scar: "was this your idea, pearl?" pearl: "no" scar: "this is amazing, only you would have come up with something like this"

martyn: "that's right, I'm a yellow life, and I've come to KILL you" bigb: "….wow, dude"

grian: "I've had the weirdest interactions whenever I see you" bigb: "y'know, I hope they get weirder"

everyone singing happy birthday off-key and out of sync

mumbo: "is there anything that I can help with? I come with no resources and very little talent"

bdubs: "I know how to crit punch, so it's gonna hurt you more than it hurts me!" gem: "..I also know how to crit punch" bdubs: "oh"

scar: "can I give you a ride, bdubs, wherever you're going?" bdubs: "freaking no, not on that thing! you kidding me?" scar: "aw. well I was just offering!" bdubs: "…all right, fine."

Session 3

*joel and lizzie arguing* grian: "aren't you guys married"

grian saying "I don't like what this has become" then immediately joining in the chanting when it’s joel's turn to fail

grian: "I love you, etho" etho: "……thank you?"

mumbo: "right, show me the gear knob on that camel" grian: "I’d rather not"

cleo: "yes, tango, the thing that I know about you is you don't know how minecraft works"

cleo's constant ethubs jokes

etho waterboarding everyone

scar: "losers will be beaten with my beatin' stick"

joel: "you are a FAILURE!!" martyn: "wow that was whole chest" joel: "sorry I’ve had a really rough episode"

bigb accidentally picking up torchy and tango being DEVASTATED

cleo: "why are we coming out this way?" bigb: "so no one can hear!" cleo: "well impulse is right there" impulse: "who?"

torchy out for blood the entire time

Session 4

cleo accidentally hitting etho with her sword and etho's immediate response: "I'LL DO THE DISHES I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT"

cleo: "hey grian" grian: "🎶hellooo theeeere🎶" cleo: "hello, are you singing?" grian: "🎶absolutely not, I would never sing🎶"

mumbo: "what's your favorite welsh town" grian: "……….🎶let me googleee🎶"

grian: "I don't know what to do with myself now, cleo, what do we do?" cleo: "I don't know, I think we should burn things down"

grian: "ignore the stairs, they wouldn’t burn"

scar: "you guys are still here? I went and stole a bunch of stuff and you guys are still yapping over here"

jimmy: "I'll go in BigB's hole" scott: "you're gonna do WHAT????" cleo: "I always knew there was something about you two"

scar singing back at grian with no hesitation

grian and scar spotting martyn hiding behind the tree

jimmy: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" scott: "hi, I’m just making the path connect-" jimmy: "STOP CRYIN' AND TELL US WHAT YOU'RE DOIN'" scott: "I'm making the path connect like lizzie did"

joel: "anyway, just came over here to ruin your day"

bdubs: "okay, you count us in" bigb: "okay. seven"

mumbo: "what do I win?" bdubs: "uhh- you win.. eight baked potatoes!" mumbo: "YEEEEESSS!!!!!"

bdubs: "you can't hit me! I can say and do whatever I want! okay, going to the house real quick though, to lock myself in"

people gaslighting jimmy and martyn (mostly jimmy) into thinking there’s a zombie/skeleton horse spawner somewhere

bdubs: "hey, hey! I consider you a friend! apparently it’s not reciprocated." gem: "it’s not. what do you want?"

jimmy: "martyn I think he can see you-" *beat* martyn: "WELL HE DIDN’T UNTIL YOU SAID THAT YOU IDIOT"

martyn: "oh yeah, wait! why are you wearin’ that?" scar: *incoherent cop sounds* (/ref)

jimmy: "he'll come back like nothing's happened now" mumbo: "hey guys 😀"

skizz: "here's the thing, I'm not too bossy, I- Boppers, go home for a second, I gotta talk to these guys"

[motherofplatypus]

So I saw this post by @iandoubt and i just have to write a fic out of this.

It's slightly NSFW, because I also use this fic for practice, so please excuse the cheap writing I made ٩(ᐛ)و

***

For Joel, the worst thing about being a red life isn't that he's on his last life and must go on a killing spree to get everyone to join the Legion of the Losers.

Nope. It's that he had to dye his hair, again.

The process of dyeing it is quite fast, but the effort to collect the ingredients are a pain. And yes, it's not necessary to change the color of your hair every time you lost a life, but it's a must if he wanted to instill fear upon those who sees him.

Also for style.

Mainly for style.

Anyway, after spending like a quarter of the session collecting poppies and turning them into red dye and carefully painted over the green streak on his hair, Joel finally finished. It took him like ten minutes max and an extra few minutes to let it dry. Being on the upper deck of the Relation Ship really helped the drying process.

He looked at himself and felt weird not seeing that green streak there.

While cleaning up, he looked at the hatch towards the lower deck, listening to the faint grunts from where the bedroom was. Etho is down there, dyeing his hair himself, and Joel quoted Etho: "I think I can do it myself, it's just like painting, right?"

It's not actually necessary for Etho to dye his hair, but they're partner, and if they wanted to be a functional partner in their last life, that Canadian man better get on with his style.

While waiting for him to finish, Joel decided to add extra details on the upper deck and the sails. He avoided going to the bedroom or lower deck to check on Etho, he wanted to be surprised by Etho's work (derogatory).

After some texturing and choosing better color gradient, something that took more time than collecting those poppies, Joel decided Etho might be needing his help.

He went to their bedroom, and the first thing that came to mind was "Did Etho just killed someone here?".

The bedroom was red. All red. The white sheet of their beds looked like someone just got murdered there, and Etho was sitting on it, entire body tainted with red dye except his white hair, looking defeated.

"I know you said it'll be just like painting, but I didn't expect you to paint everything except your hair!" Joel's mouth was gaping, trying to find a word to express his bewilderment. "How did you even do this? There's more dye on the ceiling than there are on your hair!"

Even with half of his face covered with mask, Joel could see just how embarrassingly red Etho's face was.

Joel took the dye away from Etho and pulled a chair from the corner. He gave Etho a sign to sit there. Without complaint, Etho obeyed, trying to hide his face away. Joel left the room for a moment and came back with a towel in hand.

He tossed the towel to Etho and moved next to him, preparing to dye his hair. "Clean yourself up, or do I need to do it myself as well?"

"You know, if you wanted to do it that badly, you just have to say it." From the way the side of his cheek raised slightly, Joel could tell Etho is making that snarky smirk.

His eye twitched and he grabbed Etho's hair like he's snatching wig. Etho screamed.

Joel decided he will just dye Etho's bangs. Maybe a bit more, as long as the white still the dominant feature of his hair. He had tried to imagine Etho with red hair and he hates it (not like he thinks about his partner that much, he's not that obsessed).

Five minutes later, Joel almost finished with dyeing one side of the bangs. It was relatively quick. However, it's a different story for Etho, who had to listen to his partner nagging nonstop in that five minutes.

"God, you're so pathetic. I mean, look at this!" Joel turned Etho's face and lifted some strands of hair to wipe a red stain. "If I left you alone any longer you'd be Hellboy by now."

"Joel, my ears are about to fall off if you keep nagging."

"Nagging is for losers. I'm not nagging, I'm scolding!" Joel moved to the other side and paint the white hair red. "You with your bloody dye and hair. If you can't scare the other with this, I'm ending our series."

Now, it's Etho's eye that twitched with annoyance, and he wanted to retaliate.

Etho grabbed the hair that's just dyed, feeling the dye still fresh and wet on his skin, and aimed it at Joel's face. Instinctively, Joel tried to dodge, but it was too late. The finger with the wet dye, originally aimed at his cheek, brushed upon his lips instead, giving Joel a rosy red lips.

Etho exploded into laughter. "Nice to see you there, pretty lady." Etho spoke between his laughter.

Heat crept up on his face that Joel thought he'd combust. Etho was laughing harder when Joel's face went red as a tomato, he nearly fell off the chair.

Joel clenched the dye in his hand and was more than tempted to just pour the whole thing onto Etho's head. But he thought, where's the fun in a quick revenge?

And so, Joel decided to make his revenge as slow and as painful as he could.

Joel moved in front of Etho, and without a single word, he sat on his laps.

The sudden weight on his laps instantly made Etho stopped laughing. His eyes were set and locked on the man in front of him. The man on his laps. But the weight wasn't the thing that got his attention.

Their waists were practically touching. Separated by the fabric of their pants, their tools are pressing one another.

The silent didn't go unnoticed by Joel. Seeing that he had won the first step of his petty revenge, he decided to step it up. "Nice to see you too, handsome man. This pretty lady needs to sit down for a while, you don't mind, right?" He smirked, both to tease him and to declare victory.

If Etho's brain was audible, Joel would hear a lot of sirens and stuff crash and burn. And when Joel moved himself to get a better position, there would be an explosion sound.

Joel returned to dyeing the hair red, as slowly as he could. Each stroke of the brush took at least a minute, and each stroke of it sent Etho's mind further into the blank mindscape.

Once in a while after turning the white strands red, Joel would purposefully moved himself. Feeling the soft brush of their pants that got Etho to moan silently while trying to not looking too flustered, it was a sight to be seen.

He would like to do this all day. Teasing his partner into oblivion, filling that head with nothing but the friction of their pants and the soft sound of his breath mixing with the pleasure moan that Etho himself made.

He would love to do this all day, but the circumstances won't allow them. Sooner or later, they will have to return to the game, be it willingly or have someone hunt them down.

With one last stroke and one last movement that pulled the longest moan Etho made, Joel got himself up from his partner.

"Alright, we're done. Let's get going." Joel turned himself away faster than he should've. Despite being the one deciding to move away and getting his revenge, he found himself already missing the pressure between his legs.

"Joel." There was a long silence before Etho called his name. Joel turned around to see Etho already standing behind him. Even though Etho was only slightly taller than him, Joel couldn't help but feel a bigger pressure being this close with him.

"What?" Joel finally spoke, his voice was squeaky beyond his control.

It was clear as day of the desire within Etho's eyes, as well as the lies he's gonna say. It was disappointing to know he would not be able to hear it, but something tells him he would not hear it now.

Etho pulled out a flint and steel, and those eyes smiled softly at him. "The ship burns, everything burns?"

Joel took the flint and steel with a smile that matched his partner. 'The ship burns, everything burns."

[dragonheart2497]

considering the actual definition of a tumblr sexyman these are who I'm advocating for

etho

tall lanky boy

Actually very awkward and silly but drawn badass/sexy by fandom you have no idea how many gay breakdowns I've had over Etho art I mean cough what

Mischievous 

Even his friends refer to him as an eldrich creature 

Usually portrayed as pretty masculine but no matter what, GENDERRRRRRRR

Xornoth

Now. The fandom was already down bad enough for him before his uncorrupted form was shown, and after that, OH BOY.

He's proud about having gone to 'demon high school' and 'demon college' why the fuck do we portray him as sexy as we do he's lowkey a loser he got trapped in a CRYSTAL 

His demon form's not just black and red, he's black and *VAPORWAVE PINK/PURPLE*. 

I'm going to be CLAWING for Xornoth to survive the round against Ranboo oh boy,,

AMENDMENT: I forgot to mention (cc!)Scott: "smash or [pass],,, Smash Xornoth- well, I can't say that, because he's my BROTHER, but... if he was NOT... then yes :3" (from Feb 16 2022 stream I don't have the clip but I have this terrible animatic)

cleo

"are about to let another cishet white man win another competition"

Fuck the skinny tall archetype anyway

They're a badass and that's all there is to it

Goodtimeswithscar

I really don't need to explain this one he's probably gonna win anyway

Doc

I think we're forgetting that Doc fans' reaction to Doc making a tumblr account was to mass-post art of him in a maid dress. This treatment has to qualify in some way

gets lumped into the villain role a lot but at least slays at it

Sparklez

Cg5 wrote a song about his abs. Like literally do I need to say more

I used to ruuuuule the woooooorld HES GOT THE MEMES. HES GOT THE HISTORY IN THE FANDOM

Sausage

..my TL. my poor poor TL. ive seen far too many sexymanified drawings of sausage (god damn you E. And sausage himself for encouraging it all)

Grian

He's only on this list because of Griande

AMENDMENT: also because of watcher fanon, cuteguy, the wacky gender stuff, he's basically our OC at this point like

Tango

OKAY SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU SEEN HOW PEOPLE DRAW TANGO??? HES EITHER DRAWN AS A HOT ENGINEER, A CLASSY GENTLEMAN, OR A BADASS EBOY. THERE IS NO INBETWEEN.

Mumbo jumbo

again. Pathetic guy who's drawn way too hot by the fanartists

He has the 'formal outfit' qualification! And tall he's literally 6'5

Jimmy

see above but x2 he's nothing but a loserboy in Canon why is his fanart kinda,,

He tries so hard to be a badass and the fanartists/writers are who actually give that to him

I know nothing about mp but Reigen reminds me of him

overall I think Etho Scar and Xornoth (might be biased on that one) are the most sexyman

[iknowiknowiknowtheend]

Can you talk more about Scar/Pearl I like hearing about rarepairs that people like

SO IT ALL STARTED BACK IN THE BEGINNING OF SEASON 9……. back when scar was the elf cookie man giving out cookies and stuff. there was this stream clip when he gives pearl one of the teleporter cookies aka a retextured chorus fruit aka “an elven kiss” AND RNG OF ALL TIME! she teleports directly in front of him when she eats it. it was hilarious and really sweet and I was like I Can Make Something Of This. and then I did. they’re very sweet scar admires pearl a good bit and pearl is one of the “really now?” reactors to scar scams. like some people go with it for the bit, etho will go “I’m trusting you scar ^-^” and somehow scams scar twice as hard— but pearl will stand there and stare at him until he cracks and gives her a full salary.

friends to lovers is trope of all time for me. like there’s the crazy ethubs friends to lovers that’s like oh yeah those losers have been friends forever and have always been a little in love with each other rolls eyes whatever. but I also like a more casual friends who start to get a little closer and are like omg we can do something with this. which is more scearl to me like they get along well and they admire each other and enjoy each others company and hang out more and it’s like oh I like u a little. awww

anyway I went crazy over them again bc the other day scar called her sunflower and the demons came back. it’s the casual….. its a casual friends to lovers thing for me and I love that shit

it’s pretty girl who everyone likes bc she’s pretty (and also a little funny) and guy who likes her just because she’s got a stupid laugh. it’s scar 100 charisma and pearl immune to the charisma charisma and oh look he just fell over that’s funny- what a cutie. it’s the casual admiration for me. thank you goodnight vienna

what the fuck I just went looking in my inbox for reqs but clicked drafts instead and this was in there. what the fuck I thought I posted this.

[mahgck]

I really like following you because I only watch smallishbeans in terms of Minecraft and I like seeing people talk about absurdities I have never heard. I didn’t even know ethoslab was supposed to be good at the game until I found your blog, I just assumed he was like kakashi, a man who is notoriously washed up. I love ethoslab. I won’t watch anyone but smallishbeans.

the thing abt etho is that the parallels between him and kakashi are actually crazy. like hes such a loser. hes Such a loser. and people who know that Know he is a loser. but hes So Fucking Cool just often enough that he builds up a reputation to outsiders of being The Swankiest Bitch Around. etho is to kakashi like bdubs is to gai btw. if that helps.

[smileymoth]

ok so i gave up figuring out my gender bc i have school and i don't have time for it. However.

its so fucked up to me that i can only ever relate myself to men. like there's so few female characters who i can relate myself to it's always male characters. I don't know if its due to in traditional media being a lack of well written women who aren't 100% traditionally fem, but it feels WEIRD ok!!! the only one i can kind of relate to is Bones from Bones(TV) lol. but thats also bc she's autistic and I'd rather date her instead. And in non traditional media like idk say mcrp, I love all the girls but I don't see myselt in them, it's always some freak whiteboy instead (cough etho cough)

I've felt so guilty for only ever relating to male characters (hence why all my ocs who i relate the most to are men/not women) All the women I see in media/social media, its not a "omg shes like me" moment, its more of a "I want her so bad it makes me look stupid" situation. Which makes sense since I'm a lesbian but uh. Wjere aum I

But like. I'm not a guy? I don't per say want to look like a man. Like my overall gender envy visuals come from, like, embarrassingly, fcking slimecicle, the thomas(? the blond one) guy from Maneskin, fuckin add jozels to the list and most worst of all w**bur s**t bc????. (He does make me me unbelivably angry when i look at him for too long? weird lesbian things ig). But most of them already look like lesbians. WHAT AM I. Weird girlboy freak who looks like the most average woman. But the idea that I look like a woman makes me feel ill . Kind of. If i get my medically humongous tits (still shocked the doctor told me theyre big enough to cause medical issues LOL) reducted it'll be easier to not feel like that much of a womanly woman tho lol .like i dont feel like a woman but i also dont feel like anything else .i dont confirm to the capitalist ideal and the societal idea of a woman, but if gender is a construct then i am a woman? But then me not feeling like a woman has nothing to do with my actual gender and more with societal expectations that i dont want to fill? I feel more like a girl than a woman even though i am an adult woman . Maybe its because i feel like people wont take me seriously bc im a kind of stupid overweight ''woman" . i am also a lesbian and that complicates things even more since have dykes ever been normal abt gender

I got so derailed oh my god . I still dont know why i dont find myself relating to other women. I love spending time with women, theyre wonderful and all, but i just. I dont feel like i fit in with them? I feel like i fit in better with a group of men??? But I also feel more in line with women/femmes???but i dont relate to them????

Like i feel guilty for this but i

??? What the fucj

my ideal gender is loser girlboyfriend who loves her girlfriend and also gets tossed around by her to a acceptable degree. Like i see couples and i just Yearn to be the boyfriend of a girl. I DONT KNoW

I still only like she her pronouns tho lol. And im not particularly butch . Im more femme/futch presenting than anything. I want to be an emo boy): my gender is emo dyke boyfriend JAJWSJWK

[tylerhellard]

Pop Loser Vol 2., No. 2

VOL 2, NO 2

☆

Happy Rex Manning Day to all who celebrate. I hope you like blue cheese.

⇩

Pod Loser. / Baseball, a mixtape.

⇩

Wieners and losers (and other confusions). / 🤑 It always ends in ads, even for Discord. / 🤡 How Vice fell to pieces. (Spoiler: there are no surprises here. It was dumb people making bad decisions guided entirely by a Silicon Valley capitalist ethos.) ❝One executive described Dubuc’s hires as “a fucking clown show”; another called them “comical”; a third called them “cartoonish”; a fourth called them a “screwball cast of suits”; a fifth told me he’d learned valuable lessons from them about what never to do with a company.❞ / 🤩 An oral history of that Madonna appearance on Letterman. / 🎸 A new Prince track dropped. / 🌭 You had me at “Big Hot Dog.” ❝‌Now I know that a billion of anything is so many that it’s impossible to really comprehend, so let’s examine some other stats Big Hot Dog provides.❞ / 🐟 Phil A. O’Fish. / ⚱️ Joe Flaherty died. / 🎨 Trench art. / 🤖 The robots are archiving the work of the robots and I’m hopeful pretty soon we won’t need people at all.

⇨

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week (Year 4, week 7)

Lord You Have Seduced Me, And I Was Seduced.

Into great silence is an unhurried, almost-wordless, 3-hour-long German documentary about the everyday life at the Grande Chartreuse monastery. About 2 dozen elderly men live there at the French Alps, in solitude and stillness, praying, doing penance & singing praises to God.

The director asked the order for permission to record the movie in 1984, and received their response 16 years later. He then lived with them in the cloister for 6 months, filming and recording on his own, and using only available light and sound. It's a meditative, hypnotic reflection into the ascetic life. 7/10.

🍿  

LIGO (Director's Cut) is a different, most absorbing documentary about the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory ("LIGO") and the painstaking path taken toward realizing and releasing their first major observation. It's a lot of smart scientists talking about doing complex science in an accessible way. Absolutely fascinating, even if - like me - you have no clue what they are talking about. 9/10.

If you are the type of person who likes this sort of thing, you'll probably like this.

🍿  

The Wyoming's 1892 Johnson County War X 2:

🍿  Michael Cimino's epic western Heaven's Gate, the movie that killed the auteur movement, the 70's, and the one that started the enshittification of Hollywood. A bleak anti-western about the war against foreigners - and poor people in general - so relevant to today's ethos.

A magnificent, leisurely-told story (I watched the "Radical cut" of 219 minutes), with a serious ensemble: Not only Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, and Joseph Cotten, but also Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe and T Bone Burnett in small roles. Not that different from his earlier 'Deer Hunter', so why did it fail so spectacularly? (Photo Above)

🍿 "Shane! Come back!..."

First watch: The glorious technicolor western Shane, with very 1950's vibes and style. A mysterious gunslinger slings into (the picture), and Joey, a cloyingly-blond boy is enthralled by his mystique. Jean Arthur last film. 7/10.

🍿  

Times are hard, and I need to replenish my resources of Léa Seydoux. The Last Mistress is a 2007 aristocratic period piece by Catherine Breillat about sexual obsession and societal expectations. Unfortunately, this was only Léa Seydoux's second film, so she only had a small role in it as a chambermaid. 6/10.

/ Female Director

🍿  

As a child, I loved the books by mysterious writer B. Traven X 2:

🍿 Macario, an unexpected 1960 supernatural fable, my first by Roberto Gavaldón. Considered one of the greatest Mexican films which were not made by Luis Buñuel. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the first Mexican film nominated for an Oscar. A poor woodcutter with 5 or 6 children who are always hungry, is dreaming of eating a whole turkey all by himself, but when he gets the once in a lifetime chance to do so, he shares it with an apparition of a man claiming to be even hungrier. For that, he is turned into a miraculous healer. What a gem! With the beautiful Pina Pellicer. 8/10.

🍿 "... Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges..."

I never realized that this quote was from the fantastic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a story about all-for-nothing greed. With an award-winning performances by Walter Huston as the grizzled gold prospector, and a cameo by his son John Huston. Also, Humphrey Bogart, in the best role of his career, playing against type as an insane paranoiac loser. A good portion of the movie was spoken in Spanish without subtitles or translation.

First watch - 9/10.

🍿  

Switzerland in 1975. I remember the didactic Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 from so many years ago as that important social-political manifesto of the times. But looking back at this group of people struggling with the failed revolutions of the 1960's, it's just outdated, dispirited and resigned. Sad and frustrated Marxism.

🍿  

Michael Winterbottom's comfortable travelogue The trip to Greece, one of the only few series that I actually watched in full. A light, fictionalized version of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, as they drive for the 4th time to touristy locations, indulge in eating tasty dishes, and celebrate their friendship while playfully argue with each other. It's middle-brow travel-porn with money shots of food and vistas. The highlights of all these movies are always their impersonations of other celebrities. There's a diminishing rate of return with each new chapter in this saga, since they are basically always the same.

[It ends though with a rendering of Max Richter's On the Nature of Daylight, which is lovely.]

🍿  

I loved Alice Wu's two queer rom-roms very much when I saw them a couple of years ago. So a Valentine Day re-watching of The half of it seemed natural. The cute Chinese teen, super-smart social-outcast, who lives alone with her dad, and who falls in love with another girl, sounded right up my alley. But on second look, it feels more like any other Netflix teen-drama, full of all the tropes and cliches you'd expect from one.

/ Female Director

🍿  

A monster call, a dark fantasy about a boy whose mother is dying. I hardly ever watch these type of CGI-generated fairy tales where anthropomorphic trees can walk and anything can happen. Not my cup of tea. With Sigourney Weaver. 2/10.

🍿  

2 with Emily Mortimer:

🍿  Harry Brown is a bloody and ugly vigilante, a-la 'Death Wish', with Old Man Michael Caine going medieval on the ass of the Clockwork Orange gang in his run-down housing estate. The only tiny sliver of redeeming value was Caine as the quiet, lonely pensioner who used to have 'a particular set of skills' in the old days when he served in Northern Ireland. 2/10.

🍿 TransSiberian, a pathetic 'thriller' about drugs and murder on a Russian train. Weak story, poor direction and un-charismatic actors (including another Woody Harrelson role as a Christian missionary worker, the 2nd time in two weeks). 1/10.

🍿  

Juzo Itami's Supermarket Woman from 1996. A broad - very broad - folk comedy about "Hanako", an ordinary housewife who help a fledgling local supermarket turn around. Far away from 'Tampopo', but Itami still managed to build some small emotional payouts. It ends with a giant chase by a pimped up Dekotora truck. 3/10.

🍿  

I have no idea how I came to watch the Australian TV series Fisk. A slight comedy about a strangely-calibrated middle-aged female lawyer who takes a job at a small firm in Melbourne which specialize in wills and probates. With bits of snappy dialogue and a few good jokes, it was light and breezy. But after 4 short episodes, I got the picture and signed off.

🍿  

3 by Yugoslav animator Dušan Vukotić, and a few other shorts:

🍿  Vukotić was a co-founder of the 'Zagreb School'. His Surogat ('The Substitute') was the first foreign film to win the Oscar for animated short. A minimalist poem of whimsical shapes, reminiscent of the Italian 'La Linea'. A fat man goes to the beach and inflates every object in sight.

🍿 Cow on the moon, another charming gag of a girl fooling a bully to believe he landed on the moon.

🍿 Igra ('The game') is a terrific live-action/animation hybrid. Pencil drawings by a boy and a girl start fighting with each other. 8/10.

🍿 The experimental 1965 The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics earned cartoonist Chuck Jones his only Oscar as a producer. It's an abstract romance, in a Saul Bass geometric style, with specific early-60's message of 'Victory of the Bohemian over the Square'.

🍿 Re-watch: Kid auto race at Venice, Charlie Chaplin first appearance as The Trump, 1914 - Colorized!

🍿 My Mom Is an Airplane! a cute fantasy for small kids by Russian Yulia Aronova.

/ Female Director

🍿 Kabul Sea (2010), a short little documentary by a female Afghani director, Alka Sadat.

/ Female Director

🍿 The pixel painter tells of Hal Lasko, a retired graphic designer who started creating digital art on Microsoft Paint after his 85th birthday. The conversations of his family which was left behind him are banal, but the illustrations are delightful.

🍿 The Beauty Of Past Lives and The Beauty Of French Cinema from a YouTube channel that does Video edits.

🍿 Riding shotgun, a strange 6-minute animated story about 2 'horny' assassins filled to the brim with weird sex, violence. coke and dirty toilets. Not for me.

🍿  

My first film by Gaspar Noé (and surely also his last?), We fuck alone from 2006. The story is simple: A man and a woman masturbate to the same porn film in different rooms, under intense and irritating strobe lighting. That’s it. It’s literal porn, and the only place I could stream it was on a Pornhub clone.

I have zero objections to porn, but here I have to quote Malcolm Tucker (in conversation with 'In the loop' Linton Barwik): “I've come across a lot of psychos, but none as fucking boring as you! I mean, you are a real boring fuck! Sorry, I know you disapprove of the swearing, so I'll sort that. You are a boring eff-star-star-cunt.” 1/10.

🍿  

..."Jack was pumping up a flat on the truck out on a back road when the tire blew up. The bead was damaged somehow and the force of the explosion slammed the rim into his face, broke his nose and jaw and knocked him unconscious on his back. By the time someone came along he had drowned in his own blood..."

First time read: Brokeback mountain, Annie Proulx's fine piece of short story, first published in the New Yorker. After re-watching Anne Hathaway's hurting face in that scene...

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here)

[enpr-ss]

The start of the tango fire headcanons and the exposure of his unique tango noises

JOEL AND SCAR AS WIZARD BOOGIE BUDDIES!!! Joel’s “yes and” Scar matches so well

HE FAILED TO KILL HIS OWN WIFE AND FELL TO HIS OWN TRAP. LOOOOL. And he’s just punching Lizzie but she can’t hit him because use she has a diamond sword and that might actually one hit him!!!! CRINGEFAIL husband indeed. HOW DOES HE KEEP FAILING?!? First grian then the awkward taunting and then the water bucket by Scar and then trying to 1v5 starting with the best pvper and the best geared MARTYN. and then dying to an ungeared MUMBO who just punched him. I am impressed by the depths this man can fall to. I’m laughing so hard I’m crying. AND IT DOESNT STOP!!! SCAR BOOGIES MUMBO AND THUS BURNS BASICALLY ALL OF THE ENCHANTED DIAMOND GEAR IN THE LAVA, AND NEARLY THE ENCHANTER TOO. OH MY GOD. WHERES THE CIRCUS MUSIC?!! AND THEN HE DIES TO PEARL BECAUSE HE LOCKED HIMSELF INTO THE ROOM TRYING TO 1V2. HES JUST SPEEDRUNNING RED FROM 5. LOST 3 LIVES IN LIKE 5 MINUTES. INCREDIBLE. And then he finds out that Lizzie bet on him. PURE POETRY. Okay bridge jumping to his cave was pretty cool, was immediately ruined by the theft of his diamonds that he was bragging about, and then falling off the bridge during his cool one liner.

He’s SUCH a loser it’s amazing. Comedy of errors indeed.

Grian’s SCREAM of terror when he walked underneath the tnt minecarts and saw Joel. Incredible. And yet another failed trap by Joel. Wizard King of the North and Failure

HIS TRAPS ALL FAIL BUT NOT HIS AIM. His shout of pure excitement and joy when Cleo fell for his trap!!

Scott is just so done with Joel and Grian LOL

HOW DOES HE KEEP DYING TO HIS OWN TRAP. HOW. He comes crawling and ONE TAPS LIZZIE HAHAAHA

LIZZIE AND JOEL AND ALSO SCAR

They be griefing from 2012. Relationship goals

What he lacks in traps he makes up for in pvp. Stealing that boogeykill on grian from Martyn was LEGEND.

He was just picking apples!

A tnt trap finally worked!

“Worst episode of phasmophobia ever” - Grian on summoning bdubs

He got etho and Cleo! SCOTT KILLED HIM HAHAHAHA

Bdubs last lifeblogging

Actually such a good liar lol. That boogey kill on grian was so epic. Never gets old.

Wait so bdubs was the mastermind the castle security defences?! “Yes you do.” Beat. LOL. I guess etho would be a pvp master compared to bdubs. LOL SCAR. Bdubs and etho dissing each other about the nether experience and arguing about filling in holes. Ah banana. That’s the reason behind the code word banana. All the hype and buildup for sugarcane when they already had it LOL.

Bdubs' red episode is basically getting his thunder and set up all broken and stolen by the people around him CONTINUOUSLY HAHAHA. Etho and Bdubs working at cross-purposes but with the same goal of bringing the other to his side.

I still cannot understand what was going on Bdubs’s head when he decided to kill Tango. It’s like killing a puppy. It was SO FUNNY THOUGH. The spawn excuse again. THE CRINGEFAIL TNT CANNON LOL

Huh is there no last life episode 7 for bdubs or a movie?

[witherskullkai]

snowball fight!

IN WHICH I WRITE POSITIVE ALIVE HAPPY ETHODUBS AND TEAM BEST BECAUSE SESSION 7 HAS ME IN SHAMBLES!!

-fluff. just pure fluff. pls theyre so sof imma cry.

...

“Bdubs... wakey wakey little flower!” Etho hummed, attempting to gently nudge his partner awake to do a morning patrol around the snow castle. 

Bdubs groaned, swatting the other’s hand away with little effort. “’m no’ little...! Leave me alone...”

Etho sighed dramatically and swiped the pillow from under Bdubs’ head. He yelped, loudly shouting at Etho for ‘disturbing his beauty sleep’. The masked man rolled his eyes affectionately, and pulled Bdubs to his feet by the hand. After tugging on his mossy sweater and ensuring their hands were still clasped together, they slowly ambled across the battlements of the snow fort.

It was an risky but idyllic moment, with Bdubs resting his head on Etho’s shoulder as they gazed out onto the landscape outside their base after doing a couple rounds checking for holes or intruders. Well, it was calm until somebody decided to throw a snowball at Bdubs’ head.

“hEY! WHO THREW THAT?!”

Tango, down on the ground near the steps stood by Skizz, giggling with tears as he held up another snowball.

“OHOHO! YOU’RE GONNA REGRET MESSIN’ WITH ME!” Bdubs’ yelled, grabbing a fistful of snow from the snow castle’s wall and hurling it towards Tango. It hit Skizz in the chest instead.

“Aw! No fair!” Skizz smiled, throwing a snowball at Etho, who smirked underneath his mask. Skizz laughed nervously at his reaction.

It wasn’t even that long before mini snow forts were built inside the main one, with Ethos and Bdubs’ dodging the snowballs aimed towards them being fired by the other duo.

“agUHAH! IT GOT IN MY MOUTH!! EWW!!”

“HAHA! LOSER!”

It was turning dusk, and both teams huffed in exhaustion, their breaths turning into mist in the cold freezing air.

“How ‘bout we call it a day boys?” Tango grinned, pulling them along like ducks into one of the towers where one giant bed laid.

“Seriously? We have to sleep altogether? I wouldn’t mind, but Bdubs stinks!”

“HEY!”

“Girls, girls, calm down, we can complain tomorrow. Right now, let’s just rest.” Etho mumbled, flopping down onto the bed. Bdubs grumbled and tucked himself right in between Etho’s arms and chest, the other pulling him close. Tango shuffled behind Etho, content with the warmth. Skizz hugged them all tightly, pulling the covers over them all as they drifted off to sleep.

[pertinax--loculos]

Russian Roulette

Or, What Happens When The Bad Guys Devise A Test For The Precognitive They’ve Captured

Content Warnings: forced participation in a game of Russian roulette; graphic description of self-inflicted gunshot wound

***

Travers looms over the table, and his grin is bright and keen and cruel.

"The game," he says, "Is Russian roulette."

He slams a handgun down on the centre of the table.

The other three people jerk backwards away from it. Ethos remains motionless, staring at the sleek shiny ugly gun.

"For those not up with the classics," Travers says, "This is a six-shot revolver. There's only one bullet in it. Each of you aim the gun at your own head and pull the trigger. The winners are those left at the end of the game. The loser, well..."

The grin widens, fervent and sick and deranged. His eyes range over the three other prisoners and come to rest on Ethos.

"Be helpful if you could see the future."

The others glance at him, varying degrees of curiosity. Each of their futures is so short it's impossible to tell just by length which one of them is the victim. It could be him. He'd never know.

"So, then." Travers is enjoying this immensely, resting a hand on the back of the twitchy man and the woman's chair, leaning down to beam into their faces. "Who wants to go first?"

A rustling around the table. Ethos flicks frantically through the futures and sees the once-muscled man consider throwing a punch. That ends his life almost immediately. Twitchy wants to get up and run and just see how far he will make it. He won't make it far.

"Well?" Travers prompts. Threatens.

The woman reaches forward, her fingers shaking. She draws the gun towards her, the scrape of metal across the wooden tabletop unbearably loud in the sudden hush of the room.

She's uncomfortable with the gun, beyond the threat it poses to her life; unfamiliar, might be a better word, though even Ethos has seen enough movies to know how this goes. She wraps her palm around the grip and lets her forefinger rest on top of the trigger. Hefts it upwards as twin tears bleed out of the corner of her eyes and make long shimmering tracks down her cheeks. She places it just in front of her ear. The room is filled with the anticipatory silence of a single held breath.

The woman sobs. It crackles through the air like lightning, and she pulls the trigger.

The gun clicks and she practically flings it away from her. It skids across the table and skitters to a halt directly in front of Ethos.

"Now, we do have rules to follow." Travers reaches over Twitchy, making him flinch, sliding the gun into the spot in front of him. "Around the circle to the left."

Twitchy is shaking all over, and the jerky movements he makes as he lifts his hand seem to match the frantic hammering of Ethos's pulse. He keeps his finger straight, not curled around the trigger, as he raises the gun to his head. A single breath, not long enough for the anticipation to take hold, before he shifts his finger and pulls the trigger.

Another click. Twitchy places the gun back onto the table with almost reverent care.

Travers grins as he slides it over to Ethos.

It's impossible to tell what's going to happen, now, his own future a total blank. Ethos skims his fingers over the metal and wood of the gun. He's never fired one before. Never had a desire to. Doesn't have the desire to now.

There's not a lot of other options. He knows they'll kill him if he refuses.

It's heavier than he expected. The effort the woman appeared to put in makes more sense as he shifts his fingers around the grip, keeping his finger straight like Twitchy did. He doesn't want to squeeze the trigger accidentally, doesn't want to ruin his one chance. The whole gun is warm, and Ethos wonders if it's been fired recently. If it's just warm because wherever Travers kept it had to be close to his body. Whether it's Travers's personal weapon, whether he gets some sick sense of satisfaction or gratification out of watching it be used to slaughter the innocent.

He wonders if any of them sitting here are truly innocent, and he presses the barrel to his temple and pulls the trigger.

The resultant click is like water rushing through his muscles, and his hand falls heavily to the table, fingers still wrapped around the gun. It takes until Travers moves for him to find the strength to release it, and then he shoves it away from him quickly, violently, disgust roiling sickening and hot in his stomach.

Once-Muscled stares down at the gun, his jaw working, eyebrows twisted together enough they almost merge into one. His hand doesn't shake as he reaches for it. His grip doesn't hesitate as he lifts it, left-handed, to his head. His jaw doesn't have time to unclench when the bullet explodes from the chamber and shreds half his skull.

Blood and brain and shards of skull shower Ethos and he'd jump from the sensation, if he wasn't so preoccupied with the fucking explosion ringing in his ears, the sound of the gunshot magnified what feels like one thousand, echoing rancid and final around his skull, and when he licks his lips he tastes the iron tang of blood not his own and his stomach wrenches, twists and tries to empty itself of everything that's not in it, and Travers is grinning wider than ever and speaking even though Ethos can't hear it over the piercing whine drilling into his ears and--

"Well?" Travers prompts. Threatens.

Ethos reaches across the table. Wraps his fingers around the gun. Lifts it, heavy and violent and warm, to his temple. Curls his finger around the trigger and pulls it three times in quick succession.

Jerks it away from his head and sights down the barrel towards Travers's skull.

"I'll show you the future," he says, and pulls the trigger for the fourth time.

[cavehags]

cxg sets up many male characters who share traits with rebecca. greg, nathaniel, trent and tucker all come to mind. with the adult men in particular, the show really wants us to think about how gender plays a role in what these characters can “get away with” when it comes to crossing boundaries and invading people’s space. the first such character we meet is greg. he is immediately set up as “rebecca’s rebecca,” the hopeless loser crushing on her while she hopelessly crushes on someone else. but greg doesn’t cross boundaries the way rebecca does. he pines and he can be quite unsympathetic in his pining, but the series does not ask us to forgive a man who wields willful entitlement the same way rebecca does. 

as the series progresses, we meet men who push that limit. when we meet trent in season one, rebecca is indebted to him, and his abuse of that inequality constitutes blackmail. but we’re given dialogue from rebecca that shows that she doesn’t hate the arrangement. she praises him, thanks him for the favors he does for her, and even initiates sex with him. when he returns in season three, it’s another matter; he is explicitly forcing her into a relationship that she hates and struggles to free herself from. i would say that this is one of the scariest things that happens in the series; it’s several steps beyond what rebecca ever did. at the end of the season, he seriously threatens murder. at her worst, rebecca schemed to make josh think he wanted a relationship with her, but she never strongarmed him into one. as a man who is threatening a woman with blackmail and violence, trent is positioned as a clear villain--“worse” than rebecca. at worst, the audience is meant to feel relieved that rebecca is on the road to recovery so that she will never rise to the level of violation that trent does. 

there’s also nathaniel, the trickiest case. of these three men, nathaniel is closest to rebecca’s “equal” in terms of the types of boundaries he violates and the ways he violates them. we get the clearest glimpse of this in my personal favorite episode, “i’m making up for lost time,” in which nathaniel sends sunil out to monitor rebecca and winds up buying rebecca’s childhood diary off a child so that he can manipulate her into loving him again. rebecca has already broken up with him at this point and nathaniel knows that a relationship with him is not something rebecca wants. she’s been clear about that and he knows he is acting in opposition to her wishes. early in the episode, he says, “i love you; you love me. the sooner you get used to it, i think the easier and better it'll be for everyone.” kind of threatening, buddy! when he resorts to surveillance tactics and manipulation, he doesn’t cross any lines rebecca never crossed herself. but rebecca is able to see his behavior for what it is right away and she condemns it. she tells him: “the way you show your love is so messed up. i mean, you just now tried to manipulate me, and you manipulated a child. [...] you're blaming a 13-year-old for your actions? no. it's inexcusable.” after this episode, nathaniel continues to sulk over rebecca, but he does not continue to surveil and manipulate her. just like with greg, the series does not ask the audience to accept as a main character a man who acts to a woman the way rebecca acted to josh. 

i think this ethos worked okay until it didn’t. greg’s behavior warranted criticism but it was never truly scary. trent’s behavior was scary but we were never expected to forgive him. the problem with nathaniel is that, although he stopped acting with such force once admonished, the fact that he violated rebecca’s boundaries even once should have ruled him out of the running as a love interest for rebecca the way rebecca was ruled out of the running as a deserving love interest for josh. even when nathaniel embarks on his own “redemption arc,” the lessons he needs to learn are expedited and simplified far beyond the lessons rebecca was expected to learn. heather gives nathaniel a lesson about respect and he immediately decides he’s going to be “nice” now. that’s as deep as his self-improvement goes. he does not specifically interrogate his forceful behavior towards women. he does not even apologize to josh for endangering his family (which he did because he “was promised sex,” as he says himself in “nathaniel is irrelevant”). up until nathaniel, the show was very careful, in its exploration of one-sided romantic pursuit, to avoid showing any tolerance for people (men especially) who ignore a direct “no.” but that fell apart with nathaniel and it’s very difficult to understand how they expected the audience to move on from that.