#movie themes of greed

[lyricsolution-com]

Tumbbad 2 Official Announcement: Sohum Shah Says 'What Happens When Greed Knows No Limits...' | Movies News

Actor-producer Sohum Shah, who is enjoying the response to the re-release of his fantasy horror film ‘Tumbbad’, has said that the upcoming second instalment of the film will be an intense exploration of greed knowing no limits. ‘Tumbbad’, which was released in 2018, harped on the theme of greed and linked it to the Marathi legend of Hastar. Talking about the sequel to the film, Sohum Shah said,…

[hyohaehyuk]

Immortal_AMC: Vampires and scary movies go together like blood and.. well, vampires. #InterviewWithTheVampire #FearFest

[alicentflorent]

I’ve started seeing the same bad takes on “saltburn” as I saw on “parasite” back in 2019 send help

[ava-of-shenanigans]

So, I watched The Mummy (1999) last night, and I thought it was a good movie (inaccurate to ancient Egypt and Egyptology, but still a good movie). But it did remind me of this one story from Greek period ancient Egypt, that’s actually kind of similar to the plot of the movie? So I’m gonna ramble about that for a while now.

This story is called Setne and Naneferkaptah, and it also has a Person Who Is An Expert In Fields Related To The Mummies and Curses™ looking for a magic book that’s protected by curses, and a dead guy from an older time and his girlfriend (wife, in this story) who want to stop them from doing that. The Expert™ in this story is Prince Setne (he’s a magician), who was an actual real guy who existed, he was the son of Ramesses II, and he was used in ancient Egyptian fiction as the protagonist of a few stories, not just this one. The magic book is called the Book of Thoth, it was made by the god Thoth, and there two spells in it that will give you a bunch of cool powers, including being able to talk to animals. The dead guy who’s tomb Setne breaks into is called Naneferkaptah, and he stole the book of Thoth from the original place where it was, but then him, his wife Ahwere, and his son all got killed by the gods because of that, so now the Book of Thoth is in his tomb.

Anyway, the story (well, the surviving parts of it that we have) starts with Setne in the the tomb of Naneferkaptah, with Ahwere telling him the story of how she and Naneferkaptah got married and were really happy, but were then killed after Naneferkaptah stole the Book of Thoth. The place Naneferkaptah steals the Book of Thoth from originally isn’t a tomb, it’s a multilayered box at the bottom of a huge body of water. I guess there are what you could call “traps” around it? There’s just a bunch of bugs. And snakes. Six miles of scorpions and snakes and other reptiles all around the box. Naneferkaptah uses a spell to get past all the bugs and snakes, and then he fights the guardian of the book, which is another snake. He fights it thee times, the first two times it comes back to life, but the third time he cuts it in half and it stays dead.

Setne demands they give him the book after Ahwere finishes telling him that story, and Naneferkaptah is like, “Dude, my wife just told you how taking this book is a super bad idea, why do you still want it?” But Setne is doing that protagonist thing where just hearing the story within a story isn’t enough to get him to learn the moral, and bad things have to happen to him in order for him to learn it, so he plays board games with Naneferkaptah to try and win the book from him. Setne keeps losing, and every time he loses Naneferkaptah hits him the head with the board they’re using, which makes him sink deeper and deeper into the sand he’s standing on. This keeps happening until Setne is about to suffocate in the sand, at which point he just cheats and steals the book from Naneferkaptah with magic.

Then there’s this fakeout sequence, where Setne gets so horny for a woman that he’s willing to orders all his children to be killed in order to sleep with her, but at the last moment it turns out the woman wasn’t real, Setne’s kids are fine, it didn’t actually happen and Setne’s just naked and embarrassed now. Having learned an important lesson about the destructive nature of greed, Setne returns the book to Naneferkaptah. Setne also finds the bodies of Ahwere and her son (they were buried in a seperate tomb) and moves them to Naneferkaptah‘s tomb, so they can be dead and in love together for the rest of time.

So anyway, if you ever wondered about what ancient Egyptian stories about tomb robbing cursed texts were like, now you know.

[captaingimpy]

Aliens: A Thrilling Expansion of the Alien Universe That Captures the Essence of True Sci-Fi Action - Alien Retrospective Review Part 5

Aliens, directed by James Cameron, takes Ridley Scott’s eerie, slow-burn horror masterpiece Alien and shifts it into full-throttle sci-fi action, bringing a sense of urgency and intensity that has cemented it as a standout in both the franchise and the genre. While Scott’s original film laid the groundwork with atmosphere, suspense, and horror, Cameron expands the Alien universe in a way that…

[prideprejudce]

there should be a sub genre of books that were originally written to comment on the evils of capitalism and how greed and wealth corrupts society as a whole and how those popular books were subsequently made into hollywood movies and were marketed in a way in order to mass produce as much merchandise as possible so the companies behind the movies can make as much money as possible and thus completely erasing the original meaning of that story while also unintentionally proving the point of the original novels themes

[david-talks-sw]

I'd say where the dissonance really starts, when it comes to the portrayal of the Jedi in more recent Star Wars stories, is the perception of what the Prequels are about.

They're not about the Jedi.

George Lucas said over and over that they're about:

How a democracy turns into a dictatorship, we see this in the background of the films, as the Republic descends into becoming the Empire.

That first theme is then paralleled with a second theme: how a good kid becomes a bad man. We see this in the more character-driven and personal exploration of Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side.

The Prequels’ focus is on Anakin and the Republic, these films are not primarily about the fall of the Jedi. In fact, I’d argue they aren’t about the Jedi at all!

And when you look at the original backstory, you’ll notice that it also primarily focuses on:

The political subplot of the Republic’s downfall and Palpatine becoming the Emperor.

Anakin’s turn and his betrayal of the Jedi. 

So, there too… the Jedi themselves aren’t really that big a part of the Prequels’ original idea. They aren't mentioned much, beyond their trying to save the Senate and getting wiped out.

The Star Wars movies aren't about the Jedi, they're about Anakin and Luke, they're about Obi-Wan and Padmé and Han and Leia, the Rebellion vs the Empire, the fall of the Republic.

They're not about Ben and Yoda and Mace and Ki-Adi and Plo Koon and Shaak Ti and Luminara.

Just like Harry Potter isn't about Dumbledore and McGonagall. Just like the Lord of the Rings isn't about Gandalf.

On a functional level, the Jedi are:

POV characters who witness the events unfold with their hands tied, they're our anchors, whose eyes we see through to see democracy crumble into dictatorship.

Embodiments/vectors of the message George Lucas wanted to get across through these movies, which is the conflict between selfishness & selflessness, greed & compassion (Sith & Jedi).

But that's about it.

However, if you ask today’s fans and Star Wars creatives, most will say the Prequels are about the fall of the Jedi Order.

This is a take shared by a big chunk of the fandom, including various filmmakers, authors, and executives involved with Star Wars, so much so that the time period the Prequel films cover has now been redubbed by Lucasfilm as the “Fall of the Jedi era”.

Which leaves us with a question... why? Why the dissonance?

My guess? It's because the Jedi are cool. They're awesome.

And deep down, they wanted the Prequels to be about the Jedi. About the Jedi Knights at their height, errant warriors like the Knights of the Round Table.

And they didn't get that. They got a bunch of diplomats serving a political institution. And that didn't make sense, right? That's not what they expected so it's bad. And it's Star Wars. It's Lucas. It can't be bad, right? So like... what were they missing?

Oh... wait... what if... that's the point? That the Jedi were supposed to be Knight Errants and being guided by the Force instead of like - ew - space ambassadors for the Republic. Yeah now it all makes sense.

The Jedi in the Prequels aren't what we wanted them to be and that's their failure! Like, it's not just that I didn't like them because they weren't likeable to me, it's that I'm not supposed to like them because the narrative totally says so--

-- it doesn't.

The Jedi preach and practice the same Buddhist values as George Lucas, mirroring what he says in interviews almost verbatim.

The relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin/Qui-Gon mirrors the dynamic between Lucas and Coppola.

The designs of the Jedi and their temple had to be toned down because they looked too bureaucratic and systemic.

This is Lucas we're talking about. "On the nose" is his middle name. He named the drug-peddling sleazebag "Elan Sleazebaggano." He ditched an elaborate introduction of General Grievous in exchange for just "the doors slide open, in walks Grievous and he's ugly."

If he had really been hell bent on framing the Jedi as elitist squares who lost their way and were mired in bureaucracy, he would've made them and the Jedi Temple look like the authorities in THX-1138.

They weren't likeable to some fans because, well, they weren't developed or shown as much as someone like Anakin. Because it's not about them. It's not their story. It's Anakin's. It's Luke's. It's their respective friends'. Or maybe it's an adversity to "perfect goody two-shoes" characters (which the Jedi are not). But hey, it's a movie for kids. Some 2-dimensionality is forgivable.

Bottom line, had more time been spent on the Jedi, had Lucas made the Prequels into a limited show and give them a whole subplot, had he decided to do away with the 30s serial dialog and let someone else write the dialog, maybe the reception might've been different.

But that's what we got. And guess what it's fine.

It's more than fine, it's fucking awesome.

I proudly and confidently say that I love the Prequels, with and without The Clone Wars.

I love my space monks, I love that they're diplomat wizards, I love that there's such a variety of them, I love that Mace is a no-bullshit guy who genuinely cares about his fellow Jedi and how screwed the Republic is, and Yoda is wise and kind but also a gremlin weirdo who'll embarass you in front of a classroom full of kids, and Ki-Adi has a penis for a head, is constantly calm and yet goes down like a champ even though they take him by surprise. I love that Shaak Ti can kung fu an army full of Magna Guards and still have the energy to charge at Grievous. I love that Obi-Wan is a sass machine who is also hilariously oblivious to the fact that he's just as terrible as Anakin.

They're awesome even if they're not perfect. They're awesome because they're not perfect.

But the movies are not really their story.

They're Anakin's. They're Luke's. They're the Republic's and the Rebellion's. And the fight against a space Nazi emperor/empire.

[foone]

whats your favourite narnia book if you have one

Since I grew up as an autistic christian, I have many Narnia Opinions!

So, my favorite book for it's own reasons is probably The Magician's Nephew. I'm always a slut for worldbuilding and backstory and that novel is basically just only that. Some guy we know from another book goes on an adventure and in the process gets to be involved with the creation of one world and the destruction of another? kick-ass.

Best book to adapt? The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. 1988 BBC version, 1979 Cartoon version, 2005 theatrical? All good, in their own ways. The BBC version is just perfectly 80s and the costumes are amazing (because they are costumes! they did all the monsters by sticking a guy in a big costume and I love it), the cartoon version captures the fucking whimsy of a story where SANTA SHOWS UP AND GIVES EVERYONE PRESENTS and the first person to offer any serious lore about the situation is named MR BEAVER. And the 2005 film has the big battles and CGI and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch which is... so much. I love them all.

But the best book adaptation is the 1990 BBC The Silver Chair. Hands down. It's got Tom Baker's Puddleglum, Warwick Davis playing an owl, 0£ BBC budget greenscreened giants (MULTIPLE TIMES), a group of people discovering IT'S A COOKBOOK and one of them being offended by the cookbook saying they don't taste very good, the bad guy turning into a giant rubber snake. a witch trying to gaslight some humans into believing the sun is a myth, and the ultimate salvation of Eustace Scrubb: a boy who almost deserved being named that.

And since I can't not list basically everything Narnia ever made, BBC's 1989 Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is pretty good too. It's a fun "road movie", in that it's an odyssey into a fictional Mysterious Ocean of Here There Be Dragons.

Lotta hits in that one. It's also got a "collect the macguffins!" plot where they're trying to collect the Seven Lost Lords.

But yeah, it's like... the first Island gets them a lord and they get to end slavery. Next up, Dragon TF island (The dragon is Greed... but it's also just a literal fucking dragon). Next, Gold TF island. Gold, it turns out, makes you go insane in your lust for wealth, even if you're already a Prince of a whole country. The gold is Greed, but it will also just fucking kill you because you'll be turned into gold.

Then it's the island of the ugly invisible one-foot guys and it turns out they cast a spell to turn invisible so no one could see how they're ugly but they're not ugly, they just think they are? and then it goes "HEY LUCY COMPARE YOURSELF TO YOUR OLDER SISTER" and she's like "I'm ugly.... unlike her. Maybe I should use magic to STEAL HER BEAUTY?!" and it's like, wow. Is there maybe a theme here about self-esteem in your appearance? and Clive Officemax Lewis is over there going I'LL NEVER TELL.

Anyway it's got the good line about how the Wizard in charge of the ugly invisible one-footed pogo-idiots is that how he eagerly awaits the day that they can be ruled by wisdom, instead of magic. It's a fun approach to magic: it's something that is a shortcut, a crutch, and it's a poor replacement for Wisdom, even when used by "the good guys". Tell me, Mr. FedexKinkos-Lewis, do you have any opinions on the complicated relationship between Christianity and magic? oh, you do? I never would have guessed!

They also find The Island Where Dreams Come True. They don't land there, they just fish a screaming man out of the ocean who is trying to escape it. The sailors hear it's The Island Where Dreams Come True and are like "wow, I could have my own ship!" and he yells no, you fools, not dreams like your wishes and imaginations, your actual dreams come true on this island.

and everyone agrees: Get us the fuck away from this island and lets never return.

Anyway I'm not gonna talk about THE ENTIRE MOVIE/BOOK but it's got a great weirdness at the end where they reach the end of the world (which is flat. It's okay, this is Narnia, a completely different world with different physical rules than Earth), and it's a waterfall, but a waterfall going up?

It turns out Heaven is on the other side of it. They turn around, but the anthropomorphic mouse is like "ehh, I'll take that journey" and becomes the Elijah of Aslan's Country, their equivalent of heaven.

Narnia, won't you?

[venussaidso]

𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧-𝐑𝐚𝐡𝐮-𝐊𝐞𝐭𝐮: 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐕𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐦

the prominent themes of vampirism such as desire, hunger, mystery and illusions tie so perfectly with the moon and its nodes. it wasn't surprising to find the nodes dominating this genre the most, along with the luminaries (moon & sun nakshatras, but more fittingly the moon). i will not be touching on the few sun nakshatras playing vampires, as the moon makes far more sense symbolizing true vampiric nature.

So many vampire movie posters have this luminous glow to them, likely done consciously because of these creatures' affinity for nighttime, and generally being nocturnal as they're extremely sensitive to any type of sunlight.

I've once briefly mentioned, in my "Moon Dominant Themes" post, that lunar natives can operate very secretly, such as 'working in the shadows'. And the whole lore of vampires always emphasizes their ability to hide themselves while still living among humans.

Vampires undergoing periods of dormancy and resurgence is interesting as that can also be linked back to the moon's cycles of waxing & maning. The influence that the moon has on vampires, in some legends, is during certain lunar phases in which they become more active. A full moon could literally mean that their strength has enhanced, whilst a moonless night could mean their desire for blood is heightened.

Rohini Sun Colin Farrell

Claire Nakti explored, in her "TOP 3 Most Magical & Mystical Astrology Signs | Cults, Divination, & Occultism | Part 2 (Nakshatras)" documentary, on the ability of Moon nakshatra natives to brainwash/mind control/hypnotize.

daniel kaluuya is a hasta moon, not rohini.

As these natives are often cult leaders, their ability to influence the mind goes back to their lunar-rulership. The Moon rules over the mind, emotions and subconscious. A vampire's ability to hypnotize humans and other lesser beings is in parallel to the Moon's influence over the psyche and subconscious.

This illusory nature found in vampires can be connected to the shadow planet, Rahu. As Rahu is illusions, desire, hunger. Rahu is very seductive and tempting; this could tie back to some legends in which vampires lure their prey giving them promises of pleasure.

Ardra Sun Tom Cruise.

In "Interview with the Vampire", Tom Cruise plays Lestat who is an overindulgent, greedy vampire. Rahu governs desires and the pursuit of worldly pleasures. It's related to insatiable cravings that lead to greed. The lustful nature of Rahu is seen in Lestat's intense bloodlust and the chaos it brings.

Rahu's associations with eclipses relates to their ability of being hidden in the shadows. Another hint is in Rahu being a Shadow planet itself, just like Ketu is which is also related to vampires.

The story about Rahu's head getting decapitated by Vishnu for trying to get a drink out of the nectar of immortality can be brilliantly paralleled with vampirism. Due to Rahu's consumption of the drop of the nectar, he became the infamous dismembered immortal. His dismemberment a symbol of the detachment from humanity to vampirism.

Rahu is considered an entity of darkness and malevolence, preying upon cosmic forces and defying the natural order of things (such as vampirism which does defy nature itself, ie. the dead becoming undead) in pursuit for immortality. Vampires are literal parasites, and Rahu is also parasitical. Vampires feed on humans without providing any benefit in the ecosystem in return, a one-sided relationship which resembles one between a parasite and its host. Rahu is depicted as insatiable and consuming, feeding and draining one's energy. It creates a cycle of thirsting for more without any fulfillment, a predicament vampires find themselves in.

Ashwini Sun Luke Evans

Rahu and Ketu represent the lunar nodes, respectively depicted as the head and tail of the celestial serpent. Their energetic interaction can be likened to the endless chase between a vampire and a vampire hunter, villain and hero, the friction between unlikely lovers. It's obvious in how Rahu embodies the insatiable hunger for experiences and the craving for fulfillment that it can be the vampiric force in such a dynamic. Like a vampire, Rahu relentlessly pursues its desires, often leading to greed and excess. And then you have Ketu, on the other hand, which embodies detachment, spirituality, and liberation from worldly attachments. It quite literally symbolizes the renunciation of desires and the quest for enlightenment, opposing Rahu's restlessness for more. Ketu is a cutting force, and like a determined vampire hunter, is skilled in tracking down illusions and breaking free from temptations.

Although it sounds like a more fitting interplay between Rahu as the evil force and Ketu as the hunter, it's actually more seen in the other way around.

It is more so that Rahuvians are the vampire hunters, which I found so intriguing; showcasing how Rahu is both the parasitical (illusory), and also the one to be rid of parasites (disillusionment). And I have explored this particular theme in my Rahu post -- how Rahu natives experience a lot of disillusionment from their reality, wanting to cast away the illusions that drain the life force.

The reversal of roles showcases the fluidity of the nodes; their roles almost always expected to reverse, illustrating just how Rahu and Ketu are deeply intertwined with the concept of karma, representing the push-&-pull between cosmic forces of destiny.

More nodal-vampire movies, and other examples in which Rahu & Ketu find themselves on opposite sides of the same spectrum in which they are both vampires, similar to the friction seen between Louis (Ketu) and Lestat (Rahu) in "Interview with the Vampire".

In the film "Fright Night", the one who has to kill the villainous vampire is an Ashwini native. It is also interesting how in "Queen of the Damned" (above, right), the villain is a Magha native who must be stopped by her Mula lover -- both being vampires.

As mentioned in the figure image about the film "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter", where a nodal-ruled native is paired up with someone who is lunar-ruled, this is a type of pairing seen a lot in these supernatural stories.

Similarly to "Twilight", as Edward was the one to turn Bella into a vampire, we see the planetary reversal of this in which the lunar-native is the one who turns the nodal-native.

Or the film "Vamps" in which Hasta Sun, Shatabhisha Moon native Alicia Silverstone turns Mula Sun, Magha Moon native Krysten Ritter into a vampire.

It isn't a surprise that the moon and its nodes are related to the extremities of the mind. These energies can cause isolation due to how polarizing they come off in regular society (furthermore validating its relation to vampirism), so they become attracted to one another -- especially the nodal natives to the moon natives, because of how much they feel magnetized by them, and vice versa.

edit: also paul wesley could be a purva phalguni moon instead of magha, there is an unconfirmed birthtime out there + he is a pushya sun and i have noticed sun nakshatras along with saturn nakshatras in vampiric roles as well. might touch on this some time soon.

The presence of some Sun nakshatras in vampire stories is present and that could tie to the Sun's influence over the Moon despite the fact that solar symbolisms regarding vampirism don't exist, and vampires are far too sensitive to the Sun so much so that they get sunburn during the full moon where the sun's light reflects (interesting to think about). The whole point of a vampire is to lurk in the shadows or during nighttime, so the strict avoidance of the Sun could make sense in there being solar-natives in vampiric roles. It makes for an interesting contradiction, certainly.

Ketu is the body of the severed demon Rahu following the consumption of the elixir. Much like Rahu, Ketu is also associated to darkness and illusions. But it symbolizes the darker, unseen aspects of reality -- all the hidden forces and energies as I've touched on in my Ketu exploration. Ketu and Rahu are two sides of the same coin, it isn't surprising to see them share many vampiric roles/stories.

Ketu is about spiritual liberation, detachment (in this context, becoming a vampire means a harsh detachment from normality/the old life), transcendence; these existential themes are found in vampirism.

The character Louis in "Interview with the Vampire" played by Mula Sun Brad Pitt describes his existential crisis as a vampire to a Magha Sun human who interviews him.

The enhanced strength, agility, speed, hearing and all these abilities are gained after the painful transformation process, going from human to vampire. This process is seen in the film "Interview with the Vampire", Mula Sun Brad Pitt's character going through excruciating pain when turning. My mind immediately takes me to Claire Nakti's first Mula nakshatra exploration, in which she touched on the interconnection of pain and evolution for access to more powers.

edit: robert pattinson is an ardra moon, not sun. and i accidentally used jk rowling's face as l.j smith, ugh! 💔

Vampires are caught between worlds, trapped in a liminal space between life & death. Ketu can cause feelings of entrapment. The yearning for release from their eternal existence is a common theme, as Ketu wants to escape its body. Louis de Pointe du Lac is the best character as example of rejecting one's own nature and wanting to cease to exist.

Mula Sun Brad Pitt

nodals being so emo jfc

notes: colin farrell's birthtime accuracy is botched, he's definitely a mula ascendant. tom hiddleston stays a possible ashwini moon until he's not (until his birthtime is available and accurate).

[spacecasehobbit]

I genuinely do think Saltburn is a lot deeper than many people give it credit for. It's not specifically a movie about class commentary, but there are a lot of great messages that can be read out of it, including on class commentary.

It's just that these messages are a lot broader in scope than purely class commentary. It's a movie about greed, obsession, and wanting to fit in to a world that has classed you as an outsider before you got through the door, and it explores these themes, among other things, through intersections of bigotry and entitlement along multiple axes, through the effects of loneliness and repression and what can happen when you're allowed a taste of everything you want but know it might be only fleeting.

It is a movie about how your actions are your own, regardless of whether or not someone else is doing something questionable or outright harmful at the same time - especially when you didn't even know about the other person's actions when you made your own choice to do something cruel.

And it baffles me when people claim that they found the movie boring and don't have any interest in thinking too deeply about it, but then follow up their lack of interest with the claim that there's nothing in the movie to think very deeply about anyway.

Personal preferences are subjective, everyone's allowed to like what they like and dislike what they don't, and not everyone needs the same messages from the stories that speak most meaningfully to their lives. But disliking a thing is not the same as that thing having no substance for others to enjoy.

The water is not made more shallow just because you chose not to dive in.

[victoriadallonfan]

Let's Talk About the Alien vs Predator Films

Talk about wasted potential, am I right?

I'm struggling to format this in an interesting way, since so much has been covered over the past 20 years since the first film was released. You can read my thoughts on Aliens Franchise and the Predator Franchise as well.

Note that it doesn't include Alien: Romulus, but suffice to say it was a good movie!

I think the best place to start is with covering the themes of Alien and Predator, and the history before these films were created (and the failure of Fox).

My fellow AvP enjoyer @agendergorgon has already posted some thoughts on the topic, giving me a lot to think about, so check out their blog too!

For the purposes of this review, I am not going to include Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, Prometheus, nor Alien: Covenant.... mostly. The AvP films really don't take much of anything beyond the first two films, though I will touch on Prometheus when it comes to religion.

Ditto for the Predator films, but that's because Predator wouldn't get a third film until 2010, 3 years after the AvP duo.

The themes of Alien Franchise:

I'm sure the first thing to come to mind is that the Alien series is about sexual assault, and you'd be correct. The xenomorph is designed to be extremely phallic, the facehuggers quite literally rape their victims, Burke locks his victims (including a child) in a room to be raped, Ash tries to murder Ripley by thrusting a rolled up porn magazine down her throat etc etc.

Some of you might also remember how Aliens was noted by James Cameron to be a criticism of the Vietnam War, Corporate Greed, and the callous arrogance of the US Military. The xenomorphs represented the innumerable "faceless" soldiers that could overwhelm more advanced enemies with ambush tactics and numbers, Burke thinks only in "goddamn percentages" and how this could benefit himself and the company, and the Colonial Marines are not only woefully mismanaged a newly brought on commander but also completely delusional with their own sense of invulnerability, only to break and panic under pressure once they meet a foe who is determined to fight to the death.

(I will NOT be tackling the fucked-upness of comparing people fighting for their independence vs a fucking Xenomorph, because holy fucking shit, it is literally the opposite AND worse counterpart to having the Predators be colonizers)

But, in the broader scope of the series, Alien - and the xenomorph - represent the uncontrollable, unfathomable, unknown. What are they? Why were they there? What are their motives? How did they end up in that ship? Were they built? How do they 'see'? Why did the xenomorph spare Jonesy the Cat? Are they intelligent life? How on earth do they function with their bizarre biology?

We don't get any real answers to these questions in the original films. The whole point of these movies is that there are things that mankind does not understand, and the horrors of space are vast. And equally terrifying is the arrogance of man (and synth kind) to think they can harness this horror for profit at the expense of human lives.

The themes of the Predator Franchise:

There's been tons of articles on how Predator is either a reconstruction or deconstruction (depending on who you ask) of the 80's action hero flick. A team of muscle laden, big gun toting, sweaty men spouting off one-liners as they mow down their enemies in a secret CIA led operation during the Cold War, interrupted by the presence of an intergalactic hunter than treats these badasses like mere toys. The massive Arnold Schwarzenegger is smacked out like a mouse facing off against a particularly cruel cat, needing to rely on tricks - not his brawns or guns - to stay alive and eventually defeat the Predator.

Others might point to its related take down of machismo. The opening scene is rife with characters testing each other's physical strength against each other such as with Dillon and Dutch, Ventura and Dutch have a small face-off in the helicopter as they try to make a pecking order, Ventura makes a whole speech about being a "sexual tyrannosaurus" and then mocked about sticking a gun up his "sore-ass", Hawkins repeatedly tries to make pussy and sex jokes, and they end up with a single woman in the group who is treated more like an object and baggage than a person for much of the movie. All of these men are emasculated by the Predator, some of them not even lasting a single second to its predations (both in tech and physicality), all of them losing any sense of quips and confidence, and the sole woman of the group survives because she didn't fit the movie's (and Predator's) mold of "tough as nails". When Arnold/Dutch is rescued by helicopter, it's not a cheerful one; he's haunted by what he endured and remains silent as the film pans into his thousand-yard stare.

All of this applies to Predator 2 as well, amping up the violence, dick measuring, and rules of the Predator targeting anyone who thinks they are tough shit for carrying a gun or knife. Even Danny Glover's victory is bittersweet, because he is now left in the middle of dozens of officer deaths, and entire subway car filled with corpses, and an antique flintlock pistol that promises the return of the Predators to Earth.

In a much broader sense, the Predator films are about the oversaturation of violence and lack of care for human life. Predator 1's main plot before he arrives is the CIA using Green Berets and then Dutch's special ops team to clean up their dirty work, giving them false information and not even reporting the Berets being MIA in furtherance of their Cold War goals (slaughtering guerrillas who were working with Soviet Russia). In Predator 2, the police are seen as being ineffective because they trample on each other's jurisdiction, with the Federal task force being willing to kill their own cops to keep the Predator existence a secret and letting it hunt people down for a better chance at capture and experimentation.

The Predator creatures are the epitome of such greed and arrogance. They are the General Zaroffs of The Most Dangerous Game, taken to a new height by showing that human lives literally mean nothing to them beyond a trophy hunt. They care nothing about our social lives, our politics, our loved ones, because for them this is nothing more than the equivalent of posh British Elite going on a Fox Hunt: cruel and sadistic, just to placate their egos. They will violate the corpses of the dead and taunt those in mourning, for the thrill of the game. And in that sense, the Predators are very human antagonists: they are not unfathomable nor are their goals beyond our understanding. The horror of the Predators is that they are creatures we can understand, communicate with, and even see similarities in their culture to ours... and that culture is putting us on a trophy rack alongside other skulls of creatures they felt a thrill to hunt.

So, did the Alien vs Predator films cover even half of these topics?

Well... kinda? Just... not well.

Not well at all.

The Build Up

Alien and Predator have a connected history dating back to the creation of the Predator itself. Stan Winston was on a flight with James Cameron some time after the famous director had finished with Aliens, and the director made a comment about wanting to see a monster with mandibles, which eventually led to the creature we know and love today.

Predator's debut on screen was also often compared to Aliens due to the superficially similar premise of a team of commandos going on a mission and fighting an unknown alien threat.

Despite what some people think, the AvP series wasn't started by the films.

Yes, there was a particularly memorable scene in Predator 2, where the City Hunter is admiring his trophy room and a xenomorph skull can be seen mounted on the wall (though, fun fact, it's actually an inaccurate depiction as xenomorph skulls look more humanoid facing), but that wasn't the first time the duo met in media.

And I'm not referring to the 1993 Arcade Game either (since that only came out a year after Predator 2).

The Alien vs Predator comic first appeared in 1989. And there were publications continuing ever since.

Think about that going forward. There was 25 years of content to choose from, storylines they could adapt, interesting forays into the cosmology and interactions between Yaujta, Xenomorphs, and Humanity.

The movies used exactly none of it (barring 1 thing: the Predalien).

Alien vs Predator (2004)

The plot of this movie is that Weyland-Yutani corporation detects a heat bloom under the ice in Antartica that reveals an underground pyramid, and in a race against his competitors, Weyland rounds up a team of elite experts led by Lex Woods to investigate the ruins (and find that the Predators have left them a convenient tunnel to enter the deep ice). Only to find out that this was a trap, as the pyramid comes to life activates a Xenomorph Queen, unleashing a brood of facehuggers on the helpless crew, all the while the Predators hunt them down. After a spectacular shitshow and release of the Xenomorph Queen, Lex and the last Predator (Scar) have to reluctantly team up to escape the pyramid and blow up the xenomorphs, ending in a final battle with the Xenomorph Queen. Scar perishes in the fight, but Lex manages to send the Queen into the depth of the artic ocean, and is rewarded by the watching Eldar Predator with a spear for her troubles. A post-credit scene reveals that Scar had a chest-burster inside of him, birthing the Predalien!

Rewatching this movie, I'm surprised at how good it looks. The opening scene of the satellite in space, several shots of the ship (and spaceship), the frozen tundra, the set pieces like the Xenomorph Queen Prison, and the CGI!

The CGI! Of 2004! I was shocked that they looked so good for something that is 20 years old now, but they did really well for themselves.

But it was the practical effects that blew me away the most. The shifting Pyramid is absolutely iconic and the abandoned whaling station is suitably creepy. The face-huggers look amazing and the xenomorphs are just *chefs kiss*. It's so funny seeing these Xenomorph effects compared to that of Alien:Covenant, and seeing how much work bodysuit and puppetry can do to make a monster look so much more terrifying than a CGI creature.

I know a lot of people didn't like the Predator's bulky appearance in this movie, but honestly... I dig it? It makes sense that not all Predators are literally built the same, and that the ones who would choose to go hunting in the artic would be the bigger ones who could hold more body heat. And the movie does a really great fucking job of making these Predators look badass and distinct from each other, with Celtic having the coolest mask of the whole group.

And the way the movie is shot is really fantastic! There are a lot of wide and tracking shots where the movie lets the atmosphere do the work instead of badgering us with words, taking its time to build up tension and soak up the visuals. One of my favorites shots they did was slow roam through the Predator ship as the systems come to life and we get to see holograms come on-line, feeding information directly into their masks. Equally good was when the Xenomorph Queen is awakened to cackling electricity and ominous lighting, showing us how vast this chamber is and how huge this Queen is in comparison to the one Ripley faces.

The same goes for most of the actions scenes, with a decent amount of cool slow-mo shots for things like Face-huggles launching themselves, Predators leaping across chasms, and showing Scar's impressive athleticism when he leaps 10 meters into the air and stabs a spear through the Queens skull.

And I can always rewatch the first time Alien Meets Predator Fight. God, that score! The music is just so damn good!!! You really feel like you are watching two massive horrors from space finally finding themselves sharing a space together.

Honestly, the Predators using the Xenomorphs as some kind of fucked up exotic pet for hunting trials and training fits the lore PERFECTLY. It’s actually a literal fox hunt not just metaphorical (and of course, in typical Alien fashion, it all went to shit).

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

"Wait, Ridtom/VictoriaDallonFan, are you about to say something nice about AvP:R?!"

Well, after turning up the brightness and hanging blankets over my windows and then watching the movie underneath more blankets... yes!

For one thing, the Alien and Predator effects are spectacular! Some of the best work I've seen in the franchises! The fight scenes are creative and use really cool set-pieces like the sewer and power plant, where we get to see Wolf (the name of the Predator of this movie) absolutely kick ass and slaughter his way through hordes of Xenomorphs. Not that the xenos are left in the dust, as they get plenty of murders on screen and even outsmart Wolf on occasion.

I actually like the Predalien design and the idea that it’s more intelligent than the average Xeno, including holding personal grudges and understanding Predator behavior.

And the Predator tech is really cool too! We got laser grids, land mines, power fists, converting the plasma caster into a plasma pistol And I love the moment where Wolf kidnaps one of the human protags to use as live bait. Such a dick thing to do but so in-character.

Even the bits we get of Wolf mourning his fellow dead hunters was a neat addition.

And to be honest, I didn’t mind the idea of seeing an actual xenomorph infestation in real time, in a small town. I think that sort of setting would be really fun for a one-shot story.

And… that’s it. That’s all the good stuff.

What Went Wrong?

I compiled a list of sources where I got a lot of information on the AvP production: Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4

Note that a lot of these are 20 years old so I apologize for the outdated and honestly abhorrent word use that some articles and videos may use. And another apology for using the Xenopedia wiki, it was just a good shorthand for other information.

In short: Fox fucking sucks. They will absolutely self-sabotage themselves in order to make a (perceived) profit. Tom Rothman is the most well known (and he’s gone to Sony as of now), but Fox has had a looong history of being stingy and terrified of any risks for their films.

The sheer amount of drama involving Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection is an insane rollercoaster.

AvP removed pretty much any sense of horror and purposely had the design of the Predators to be more “human” and “heroic” (hence the weird human eyes and bulky physique), with a PG-13 rating for more audience numbers. While the human characters aren’t bad, they are not unique or even memorable (barring the fandom romantic tension between Lexi and the final Predator). Also, it was very weird that the Predators couldn’t kill a single Xenomorph, meanwhile the Colonial Marines couldn’t trip without blasting apart swarms of them. It felt like they really wanted to save money on the film in that regard.

AvP:R was even worse, with it being filmed with such a lack of lighting that people could not actually see any of the movie, and even modern advancements in color grading make it a strain. The human characters are awful, just absolutely boring and unremarkable beyond being veiled callbacks to characters from Alien, and we get a bunch of stupid Dawson’s Creek drama involving teenagers who look like they are 30 years old fighting over a girl who has no personality because she was written to just be “hot girl”.

If the story had focused entirely on the wife coming home from the war and dealing with the fact that her own daughter doesn’t feel close or comfortable with her after years of being gone, there could have been focus and themes and yadda yadda yadda.

Also, while this movie at least has horror aspects, did we REALLY need to see the Xenomorphs eating the fetuses and belly bursting out of still screaming mothers? Like, there is horror and then there is just being gross.

Final Thoughts

I often wonder if AvP took the wind out of the sails of Prometheus. Both play with the idea of humans worshiping aliens as gods, because Ancient Aliens is fucking everywhere, but it’s really hard to take Prometheus seriously when you remember AvP did basically the same setup (with arguably smarter characters).

And these movies have really soiled the idea of the AvP franchise barring the video games and comics. There’s apparently an AvP anime locked up in Disney Vaults and so far, both franchises have kept their respectful distances from each other.

However, with the recent successes of Alien: Romulus and Prey, there’s been a bit of a stir with some comments hinting at a potential AvP future.

Who knows. It’s been 17 years, perhaps 3rd time is the charm.

[dr-spectre]

I think that it's now more important than ever to keep making art.

Whether it's some scribbles on a piece of a paper, paint on a canvas, typing out erotic fanfiction about two cephalopod women, i need you to keep going. OKAY?!

Keep going at your own pace. Don't feel like you have to "grind" to achieve success, you're probably young as hell, you don't need to become a masculine obsessed fucking nutjob that is so obsessed with "discipline" and all this bullshit. Sure "discipline" is cool but... That shit takes a LONG TIME to develop and it only comes with experimentation and see what you believe in and what you enjoy. Don't get.... heh...... heh heh..... BRAINWASHED!!! by women hating bald bastards online who wanna turn you into a fun hating robot that's all about "work work work." Fuck them.

You are a human with flesh, blood, bones, a heart and a brain. You are not a machine. Got it?

Anyways, in talks of art, i wanna give my own sort of help for my writer friends out there! I thought it would be fun and plus, there's too many damn writing tips out there that boil down to "you HAVE to do this thing, you HAVE to follow this structure" and i think that is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit that gives you more stress than needed. You know how many boring mid action movies come out that follow the hero's journey? The three act structure? The story circle? It is better to just make shit and learn what you could do for next time.

There are no rules, all of the "rules of storytelling" are just optional suggestions that you can either take or leave. Plus it seems like every fucking YouTuber has a different set of rules that conflict with each other anyways. However, I wanna share my own sort of "basic ass fundamentals of stories" that can fit into any story structure you want! I got these guidelines from the YouTube channel The Closer Look. I like their content, it's very insightful.

Here's Dr. Spectre's basic ass fundamentals for stories.

Characters. Simple, a story must have characters otherwise you are making something else that is not a story.

Progression. Is there a sense of progression? Does it feel like for every second of story it isn't stagnating or getting dull and boring? Does it feel like shit is happening and growing? If it feels boring to read for you, then it's gonna be boring for another person reading it. Progression could be plot based or character based and them growing as the story goes on. Doesn't matter which one, can be both or one. Good stories never feel like they are staying the same or spinning their wheels.

Delivery (Aka. Setup and payoff). Do you deliver on the promises in the story? And do you deliver them in a way where the audience after they finishing reading or watching, they felt like it was all worthwhile and they didn't waste time consuming your story.

Everything else? IT'S OPTIONAL!!! COMPLETLY OPTIONAL! YOU KNOW HOW MANY STORIES BREAK THE "RULES"?! Do not become reliant and dependent on these "rules" because it'll slow your development and discourage experimentation. Not every story is gonna fucking follow the Save The Cat format.

There is also the talk of theme and i will say this.

Theme is not "this story is about sex, drugs, greed." No. Theme is a message or argument, it is not a word, it is something you are trying to say via a story. People don't have to agree with the theme, but it must make people think about it. If your story is about sex, what is it trying to say about sex? That sex is a scary thing and that it's okay to feel scared and worried about your first time? What are you trying to say about greed? Etc. Etc.

I read through a Sonic comic recently that everyone loves called Scrapnik Island and guess what? I fucking love that comic too.

Scrapnik Island isn't truly about Sonic and Tails getting stuck on an island and Mecha Sonic is there and he becomes evil and does all this stuff. No, what it's ACTUALLY about is that your worth as a person isn't determined by successes and failures, Mecha Sonic feels like he is worthless and is a failure because he not only failed to kill Sonic, but also failed to help his friends on Scrapnik Island. However, Sonic snaps him out of that bullshit mindset and it's truly, truly wonderful stuff.

Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion isn't truly about Agent 8 being trapped in a facility and defeating an evil ai. It talks about racism and what does it talk about specifically? That it doesn't matter what someone looks like, as long as they are a good person that's all that matters. That life is varied and beautiful and it's worth protecting from those who wish to destroy it.

There's a reason why Agent 8 takes the time to soak in the fresh air and sunlight near the end of Octo Expansion, why Eight has memcakes to collect and we see their thoughts and wishes. it's there to explore that theme, that idea of what the story is truly about.

Splatoon as a franchise is about how wonderful creativity itself is, that art and life are connected and grow together and are important and deserved to be protected. Commander Tartar, Mr. Grizz and Overlorder are all opposed to that idea and that's why they are the antagonists. DJ Octavio less so because he is trying to save his own culture and art, even as to go far as manipulating a mentally ill Callie who was already growing distain and tiredness from her own culture, so it just so happens that these two chaotic forces share the same ideology.

Now, I wanna say, do you NEED a theme to make a story? No. BUT! If you don't have something to say and that connective tissue, then it's gonna weaken everything else and the action, plot and characters have to be fucking top notch. The "Rule of Cool" only works when... you know.... it's cool? And well done?

Anyways, I've rambled long enough. Please keep making art, please? Especially now considering what has happened. I need you to hold onto hope, hold onto creativity and fun. You must. You have to...

Be good people.

[another-lost-mc]

Hii, first of all, i love your writing 💕 and I hope you're doing well.

How do you think the bros would react watching the movie Se7en?

I think it would be interesting to see their reactions since the theme surrounds the seven deadly sins.

a/n: I love this movie! I re-watched while I worked on this since it's been a while. I wrote the blurbs in order of the sins as they're portrayed in the film.

➤ watching the movie se7en | the demon brothers

1k words | x gn!reader | nsfw | violence and dark/disturbing themes, demons thinking about demon things, movie spoilers

BEELZEBUB | the gluttony scene

Any other time, he'd be joking that if he had to die, he wants to die eating. He understands that now's probably not the best time to tell you that.

He feels a bit sad for some reason. He's not sure if it's the poor bloke's death on screen or the movie's gritty atmosphere in general.

Ravenous hunger has its downsides, but most of the time he enjoys eating food. He can understand why being forced to eat would be emotional and literal torture for someone.

He knows he could eat that much pasta without breaking a sweat, but he doubts it would be comforting to you so he doesn't say it out loud.

He wonders how much he'd have to eat for his body to break down in protest of finally being too full, but he keeps that to himself too.

MAMMON | the greed scene

It's not a horror movie but the dark vibe still gives him the creeps.

He hasn't had to look away (yet) but he tucks you closer to his side so you can cuddle. You can hide your face in his chest for the gross parts if they bother you, he won’t tease you.

He sorta gets an inkling about the greed motif— something about a scummy lawyer and money trading hands is his first guess about why this guy was targeted.

Eh, close enough.

There are a lotta ways to kill someone with greed without actually killing them, y’know.

(He doesn’t wanna talk about ‘em though. He doesn’t want you to think badly of him.)

BELPHEGOR | the sloth scene

What the actual fuck.

He was feeling a bit sleepy watching the movie up to this point, but he's not anymore.

He understands the interpretation of his sin, but he's surprised to see such an ugly version of it in a human world movie like this.

If he senses that you're uncomfortable, he tries to distract you until the scene ends.

Now seems like a great time to pause the movie so you can both get up and get a drink, or stretch—or maybe go for a nap if you're tired and don't want to finish it right now.

(He's going to make sure you don't have bad dreams after this.)

ASMODEUS | the lust scene

He's had custom sex toys made before, but something like this? Yeesh.

Literally fucking someone to death seems so brutal, so unromantic. This isn't how he would do it, but he doesn't tell you that; he doesn't want to scare you.

(If he had to kill someone using his sin, he'd fuck them before ripping them open from stomach to sternum.)

(If he had to kill you with his sin, he’d make love to you until you eventually fall asleep. Your death will be instant and painless before he cuts out your heart and eats it.)

He notices that this part of the movie made you squirm in your seat more than the others so far.

Maybe a warm bath and cuddling in his bed will help you relax once the movie's over. He’s suddenly overcome with the urge to hold you.

LUCIFER | the pride scene

It feels anti-climactic compared to some of the other portrayals of sin so far, but he appreciates the simplicity. He was afraid it would be needlessly gruesome like the others.

Pride is insidious, the mother of all sins, the first deadly bloom that causes all others to fester and rot on the vine.

He can’t help the way his mind wanders after this. As an angel, he tried to resist sin. As a demon, he embraces it. Humans are weak and he knows for many, pride is their downfall.

You might not believe you could be pushed to make such a fatal choice, but Lucifer senses the way your own blend of pride lingers within you too.

He keeps silent about those thoughts and he wraps his arm around you for the rest of the film.

LEVIATHAN | the envy scene

He’s unusually quiet. He doesn’t complain or whine about how boring it is, and he doesn’t reach for his handheld either. Sometimes he looks puzzled by what’s on screen, and other times he seems contemplative.

He’s a little surprised by the ending. Speechless almost. He understands envy, but to do all this?

And the part with the wife, well...he thinks it's just a bit of an overreaction, don't you?

He can’t help but glance at you once the movie's over. He thinks about life before you and life with you now; he can't imagine life without you in it anymore.

Would he be capable of that type of jealousy if you didn't choose him? If he had to watch someone else live their own happily ever after with you while he suffered alone?

Huh.

When the movie ends, he distracts you with an impromptu game night in his room and he cuddles with you in his tub after.

His tail curls around your leg as you drift off to sleep, and he realizes he'd do so much worse just to keep you by his side.

SATAN | the wrath scene

For the most part, he's been less interested in the portrayal of sins. He's totally wrapped up in the mystery aspect of the movie instead.

Throughout the entire film, he's muttered under his breath about certain things he noticed or his guess about what might happen next.

(He’s read all the books mentioned in the library scene too.)

He figured that the cop with the short fuse was going to be involved somehow with wrath. He actually thought the character was a bit annoying.

He does sympathize with the cop's behaviour at the end—all he has to do is think of someone hurting you and it makes him seethe with rage.

The reveal about the wife caught him completely off-guard but thinking about it later, it seems so obvious.

[bbyquokka]

panties

– in which changbin accidentally wears yns panties and doesn't hate it !!

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 | seo changbin x gender-neutral reader

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄 | smut – 18+ is strongly advised!

𝐂𝐖 | panty wearing ; light sub themes ; dom-turned-sub changbin ; dirty thoughts ; masturbation (m) ; nipple play ; a toy mentioned (strap-on)

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒 | 2.2k ~ ( 2,226 )

𝐀/𝐍 | ik its been a while since i posted :( pls accept this fic as an apology, hehe. wrote this a while ago & haven't stopped thinking about it since! don’t forget to leave feedback, reblog and tell me what you think here. curious as to what is next? here is my wips list! i hope you all enjoy! ‹3

m.list — you can also read it on my ao3

dont repost. dont translate. minors, ageless & default blogs; dni! feedback and reblogs are highly advised and appreciated!

it wasn't supposed to be like this. heck, he didn't plan on it ending up like this.

to him, it was a simple, innocent action that he didn't think twice of purely because he was in a rush this morning. he woke up late, time being against him. he barely felt clean from his shower because he was in a rush.

he was going to be late for work and his boss hates it when people are late. yet, there he was, standing in front of the open underwear drawer as he searched for a pair of his boxer shorts.

sweat coating his brow. his mood dipping and slowly becoming annoyed with himself. his hands fumbled as they brush up upon many textures of fabric. when he failed to find a single pair of underwear, he rushed to the wash basket to see that it was still full to the brim with unwashed clothing and sitting at the very top, as if to torment him in some cruel way, were his last pair of underwear.

ah, that's right. he promised to do the laundry yesterday but it slipped his mind. maybe because he was so busy indulging in you last night and now he has to face the consequences of his greed.

“fucking shit. fuck fuck fuck!” he looked at his watch. the minutes ticking by fast. now was not the time to feel sorry for himself! 

changbin thought about going commando. no one would know, right? but the thought of spending a full day in jeans with no extra layer of protection for his groin made him feel oddly itchy and uncomfortable. he dropped his towel, put on a clean tee and grabbed the first underwear his hand came into contact with – which were yours.

he didn't think much of it. he didn't even notice to be honest. he did feel a little uncomfortable and tight but he thought nothing of it and continued on with his day; until he got home, stripped and saw pastel pink panties with a dainty bow and frilly waistband hanging on his frame; leading him into his current situation.

“oh fuck.” he mumbles to himself. “oh fuck fuck.” he stares at himself in the full length mirror that's leaning against the bedroom wall. he swallows thickly as his eyes flicker around the panties.

they are yours. they are your favourite pair of panties and he is wearing them! the amount of times he sees you prancing around in this specific pair is uncountable. he can't count on his fingers the amount of times he has got hard over them, yet here he is, naked with nothing but the tight fabric on him.

he panics at first. sheer embarrassment and humiliation washing over him. “i must have accidentally grabbed them this morning.” he whispers to himself. his ears perk up as he listens for you only to be met with a soft hum and pots and pans clanking around in the kitchen.

he bites his bottom lip and slowly walks closer to his reflection like he is in some sort of horror movie and his reflection could jump out at him at any moment.

the closer he gets, the more he holds his breath. once close enough does he really soak it all in.

the pastel pink contrasting well with his tanned and dewy skin. the material hugging his ass and penis, accentuating the outline of his curves. his cheeks flush red as he can make out his assets. the dainty bow and frills adding just that little bit extra.

now with a closer look at himself, he strangely doesn't hate it. he feels pretty, sexy, but pretty. he turns his back to the mirror, looking over his shoulder and eyes widening at how plump and plush his ass looks.

“oh fuck.” he repeats. “this is bad.” he presses his lips in a thin line, facing full front in the mirror again. he traces his index finger down his torso and chest, following it in the reflection of the mirror. he stops at the waistband and gingerly traces the outline slowly.

it feels rough. not as soft compared to the rest of the fabric. he flicks the little bow and watches it bounce slightly. even though it feels tight and a little suffocating, it feels oddly comfortable and lewd. 

he lets his finger brush over the frilly waistband and onto the soft fabric. it feels velvety and smooth. he reaches behind him, tracing the outline of his ass and giving it a small squeeze.

he moans. it's a small moan, a silent moan but it's a moan and it makes changbin feel shocked at himself. he chews the inside of his cheek as he squeezes his own ass again. testing the waters and seeing if he has the same reaction, to which he does.

“oh fuck.” the same two words seem to be the only words he is capable of speaking right now. he looks down at his groin and sees his semi suffocating and stretching the material of your panties. 

up until now, he hasn't noticed that the pit of his stomach feels warm and fluttery. his penis throbs which he very clearly sees and it makes him blush. his nipples perk up a little bit and he dares to touch himself.

“maybe just a small touch.” he mumbles. he slides his hand to his clothed semi where he traces the outline slowly. he chews his bottom lip gently and hums softly.

the material feels hot and is radiating heat from his penis. he swallows thickly as he cups his balls and squeezes them ever so gently. he squeezes and tenses his thighs before huffing.

“why does it feel so good?” he questions. he's not doing much, just teasing himself but it's the thought. 

he drops to his knees in front of the mirror and parts then slightly. his hand removes itself from his balls and cups his growing semi. he gives himself a few gentle squeezes, head kicking and rolling back as his eyelids flutter close.

he increases the strength of the squeezing before rubbing his palm along his penis. he feels himself grow fully hard and throb. he rubs his cock head slowly but a little roughly as his free hand comes up and plays with his pink and perky nipples.

it's wrong. it's so wrong of him to do this. he knows that. he's also aware that you could come through the bedroom door at any minute and see him in such a lewd position but he doesn't care.

maybe it's because of the surging lust in his veins that he wants you to see him like this. his cheeks all red, curls flopping over his hazy eyes and bottom lip swollen.

his fingers circle his nipples before he tugs on them gently. he feels a growing wet patch against his palm to which he ignores and rubs his palm faster against his head. 

“oh fuck.. yes, just like that.” he whispers to himself. he tries to keep the moaning to a minimum or at least be quiet but with each passing second, his body burns.

his penis fully erect and leaking. the material stretching and hugging him tightly to the point of suffocation. cock and balls throb, thighs tensing as his body jolts with each surge of pleasure that courses through him.

“m-mhm!!” he looks at himself once again in the mirror and whimpers. the man in front of him is unrecognizable to him. he's so used to seeing himself as a strong, dominate man so seeing himself act and behave how you act, as a sub, all whiny, teary and lewd flicks a switch inside him that he didn't think he had.

he doesn't understand anything any more. he doesn't understand why he is thinking and feeling a certain way. one thing he is sure of though, is that his body is burning hot and he is filled to the brim with lust that it hurts.

he's far too gone to stop or think about that right now. he doesn't hate it and wants more. palming and rubbing himself through panties can only provide so much for so long so he takes it a step further.

his hand dips under the waistband and disappears underneath the fabric. he's met with his hot and throbbing penis. he groans as he wraps his hand around the base and squeezes himself hard. he looks down and grunts at the sight of his red and pre-cum leaking cock head appearing from under the waistband and being pressed flat against his soft tummy.

he gathers some saliva in his mouth before letting it fall onto his tip. his hand glides up his hot shaft for his thumb to smear the saliva and pre-cum around his sensitive head. 

he pushes his curls away from his eyes as he slowly strokes himself. the bumps and ridges of his veiny cock bumping against the palm of his hand. his tip continues to leak and spill as he throbs over and over again. 

he bucks his hips and tenses his thighs as if he were fucking you doggy style. he closes his eyes and imagines one hand buried into your hair and the other on your hip as he's buried deep inside you. he imagines the warmth and your scent as well as the sounds you make for him. 

but then his imagination drifts and all of a sudden, he imagines himself in doggy and you fucking him from behind. he squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head as an attempt to ease it from his memory like an etch a sketch but to no avail; so he welcomes it instead.

he swallows as he imagines himself on all fours in front of the mirror. your hands on his skin, tracing down his spine and to his ass where you slap his cheeks gently. he can hear the slaps, feel the ripples of his ass cheeks. he can hear and see himself being fucked out, begging and lewd. his face being tear and drool stained as he begs you to:

“put it in! please don't tease me anymore.” he whispers to himself. he's shocked as the words just free flow past his lips but he continues on. he imagines your fingers circling his wet and puckered hole. he feels his own hole twitching at the thought to which he briefly thinks about doing it but decides to stick with imagination (only because he doesn't have the confidence)

his hand on his penis increases in speed. he becomes rougher with himself, tugging and squeezing his nipples hard. he squeezes his cock hard too, lips parting as he moans loudly. he doesn't care at this point. he doesn't care if you hear him or walk in on him. he's so consumed with himself anyways to think.

as he rubs himself, he continues to imagine. he can hear your sweet and gentle praises, calling him a princess and a good baby girl. he imagines your fingers in his ass and stroking his walls. he imagines himself tensing and throbbing around the digits, his penis also throbbing and begging to be touched as it leaks.

and then, he sees it. the strap-on that you've both been preparing him for. changbin's hips stutter and his movements on his penis are now sloppy, fast and desperate. the pit of his stomach is burning and feels so tight. he's hot and very close but he continues on with his imagination.

he imagines the tip of the strap-on poking and prodding his wet hole. he imagines making a note of how wet it feels due to the lube that is currently soaking the plastic. he imagines himself looking from over his shoulder at you and sobbing.

“please.” he begs to himself. “please put it in. need you so badly.” 

as he imagines the tip slowly entering his hole and stretching him, as if waking up from a wet dream, his eyes shoot open as his orgasm hits him in an overwhelming manner. 

“o-oh!! ohhh!” he moans. hot ropes of cum shoot out onto his torso. some of it landing on his thighs and staining the material of your panties. he strokes himself through his high, rubbing his tip in the process before painting heavily.

he pushes back his sweat coated curls and looks in the mirror. he flushes pink in embarrassment, post-nut clarity hitting him hard.

body stained with cum and sweat. cheeks rosy, eyes doe-like. his nipples perky and swollen but that's not what shocks him the most.

his own reflection staring at him as the tip of his penis is still visible and being pressed against his soft stomach thanks to the waistband. the once pink material and innocent look now stained with cum and tainting the innocence.

changbin panics and quickly rushes to the on-suite bathroom, where he takes the panties off (which are now stretched) and takes a quick shower to think about what to do about your underwear that he has just so lewdfully and willingly stained.

he comes to the conclusion to simply throw them away and buy you a new pair. 

surely you wouldn't notice that a pair of your favourite underwear has gone missing and been replaced with something completely different, right? 

[krokusplays]

I'm rewatching the Dollars Trilogy (or Man with No Name Trilogy) and I love how Boothill is so much inspired by these type of movies. We have:

the theme of revenge

the theme of greed

being an antihero/morally ambiguous

his voicelines (his ult line, the one about yapping when it's time to shoot, the aim for the heart one) are all from the Dollars Trilogy

the protagonist not going by/revealing his real name

there's some stuff if you squint (like e.g. in "A Fistful of Dollars" the metal plate "Joe" is hiding underneath his clothes during the final duel to reflect bullets...)

And, of course, on top of that we have the typical cowboy and Wild West references(his name, his eidolons' names, names of his moves etc.), his clothes, his love for Whiskey(I mean malt juice *cough*), him being good at playing a harmonica and guitar...

All this just to say that I love Boothill and everything about him.

[david-talks-sw]

What's 'Star Wars' about?

A while ago I got an 'Ask' that concluded with "what is Star Wars about, if not the Jedi, right?" And weirdly enough... I have to disagree.

I mean... to me? Yes. Star Wars is about the Jedi. A Jedi-less, Sith-less, lightsaber-less Star Wars movie or series will struggle to get me on board (which is why I was surprised that I loved Andor so much).

But if you read everything George Lucas said, if you think about the Jedi's place in his two trilogies... they're not front and center, right?

Sure, there's Luke Skywalker... but he's a learner, in the Original Trilogy. Same goes for Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, in the Prequels. They're going through character arcs.

Otherwise, the Jedi are either used as mentors to the protagonist...

... or to deliver exposition...

... but they're mostly vectors Lucas uses to present his thesis.

Functionally-speaking, the Jedi are important in that they embody the Buddhist philosophies the movie's themes are based on.

But when it comes to the plot, they're secondary. That's because the the themes of these films are bigger than the Jedi themselves.

So the question becomes... what's are the themes?

The primary goal of the Star Wars films is to inspire kids to start thinking outside the box and teach them a set of values and psychological motifs that have been passed down through mythology and fairy tales.

These values can be summed up in the dichotomy between greed and compassion / selfishness and selflessness / pleasure and joy.

We all have both aspects and need to strike a balance between the two. After all, being greedy ultimately comes from fear and being afraid can happen to all of us. Problem is, unchecked fear can lead to anger, hate and a whole lot of suffering.

The more selfish you are, the more you want things and the more you're afraid that you'll lose everything you have, you'll get angry when someone tries to take it and that will hurt everyone around you.

In other words, fear is the path to the tempting/addictive Dark Side.

Thus, seeing as we'll be inevitably tempted by the Dark Side and give in at some point (because nobody's perfect), we should aim to be as selfless and compassionate as possible for our own good... but also for the greater good, because we're all connected to a life energy. You can call it Qi or God; in Star Wars it's known as the Force.

As such, we all form a symbiotic circle and working with that in mind is better than putting ourselves first and draining from everything and everyone around us.

But we also need to be careful because there will be people who give in to that selfish side and will try to control everything. When the time comes, we must stand up for what's right.

So that's Lucas' thesis.

If I had to sum them up, the six movies illustrate it as follows:

The Prequel Trilogy is about the consequences of greed, explored through Anakin on a smaller scale and the Senate on a larger one.

The Original Trilogy shows the triumph of compassion, through Luke, Leia & Han and the Rebellion's fight against the Empire.

Lucas talked about it multiple times, the Prequels are about how Anakin becomes Darth Vader and how the Republic becomes the Empire, and in both those cases, it happens because they're greedy.

The Senate is greedy in the more classical sense. They could give a shit about "symbiosis", no they're taking bribes, letting corporations dictate policy, using loopholes to keep themselves in power and halting any meaningful progress out of fear that the new status quo will conflict with their own self-serving goals.

Anakin's greed manifests in a different way. He turns to the Dark Side because of his attachment. He wants to stop Padmé from dying... but not because he wants to save her, rather he wants to save himself from feeling the pain of loss again and will do anything to not have to live without her, her own wishes and the natural cycle of life and death be damned.

In both cases, they cave under pressure orchestrated by Palpatine, but nobody puts a gun to their head. They make a deliberate choice that comes from a selfish place, and neither one takes personal responsibility for it, they blame others, the Separatists in the case of the Senate and the Jedi in Anakin's case.

The Republic becomes an Empire with thunderous applause, betraying the people it was meant to protect.

And when faced between doing something he knows is right and giving in to his selfish desires...

... Anakin elects to do the latter, thus betraying his family and leaving the Force in darkness.

These selfish choices impact the galaxy as a whole, including the only characters in the trilogy who were doing their best to be compassionate and live in symbiosis: the Jedi, Padmé and Bail.

These champions of the Light Side are stuck playing catch-up or helplessly witnessing the events unfold, throughout the trilogy. They're playing by the rules and Palpatine uses this to his advantage.

Thus, as the galaxy tears itself apart because of Palpatine's manipulations, the Jedi and Bail are ignored and gradually weakened until they're either rendered irrelevant or killed.

A new order is born, one built on blood, lies and greed: the Empire.

But a new hope remains.

While before, the Jedi and people like Bail stood alone as everything around them became willfully corrupt... now, a Rebellion inspired by their legacy has banded together to overthrow the current order. But they don't fight for power or personal glory, they fight for altruistic, compassionate reasons. There's a sense of general responsibility that moves them, they're all doing their part.

On a larger scale, we focus on the Rebels, who are tired of seeing people suffer and decided this needs to stop. They have gone from being passive, to proactive.

On a more personal scale, we see the evolution of Luke, from naive farmer to a hero, and guess what? More and more selfish people - like Han or Lando - are inspired to join the Rebellion, after seeing the exploits of Luke, Leia, or even Ben.

It all culminates in the final film, wherein:

The Rebels band together with the Ewoks - literal teddy bears whom the Empire, in their arrogance, never even considered to be a threat - to destroy the Second Death Star and free the galaxy from imperial tyranny.

At the same time, Emperor Palpatine pressures Luke, who is tempted by the Dark Side like his father was.

But instead of giving in to his selfish desire to kill Darth Vader for all the horrors he's done...

... he finds the strength to rise above it, instead showing compassion for his father, which, in turn, inspires Anakin to do the same.

He faces a choice, like he did in Palpatine's office, two decades prior...

... and this time he chooses right.

Children teach you compassion. Anakin lets go of his fear and anger, and saves his son at the cost of his own life, finally bringing balance back to the Force.

Good triumphed over evil. Its champions achieved victory by being selfless, hopeful and fighting together / helping each other.

And that's it, that's how the movies thematically tie together.

As you can see, the Jedi aren't that directly impactful on the overall plot, because it revolves around Anakin, Luke and the respective factions/institutions around them.

But what the Jedi do bring to the table is their ability to teach and inspire others, both in-universe and out. They're spiritually impactful.

The Jedi are the epitome of compassion, and it's partially through them that George Lucas teaches his values to the audience.