#on the other you subverted a little too hard and now i have a guy who raped asari slaves on my ship

[pinkfey]

i have such mixed feelings about javik 😔

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 23 thoughts

the previous episode was SO good. but, it is true, i was distracted by the dog. it was SUCH!! a perfect episode. EXCEPT for that one thing. so i hope that today, i can face this episode with a clear head, free of judgement based on the fate of little dogs.

well, boy, i did face this episode with a clear mind, and wow. wowza. another AMAZING ep... and i will keep the angst from this episode in my heart forever and bottle it and take a nice long swig when i need my msr feels, which is basically always. wow. an exclamation point doesn't even feel APPROPRIATE, it just needs to hang in the air for a bit. (wiping tears away) wow....

let us go back to yesterday's notes, which shall commence below:

reading the episode description... so this one features murders linked to a device that alters television signals… huh. man, too many people i know don’t even have cable anymore. this simply would not work in the modern era. imagine if hulu or tubi or something made you kill people though lmao that would be silly to imagine.

we open with a guy digging a hole in the woods. always a promising start. seems he’s in an orchard of some sort? and the music is very very creepy. 

okay, so just as you suspect, this dude is burying a dead guy. sometimes your gut instinct is correct and tropes are not meant to be subverted. but the dude who is burying him says “your killing days are OVER” so is this actually a justice arc??? hmm. it is not clear. man, it would be hard to dig a hole like that.

shovel murder man is at home washing the blood off. but then someone else approaches him and he kills THAT GUY TOO WITH THE SHOVEL?? huh? what is going on. 

police at da guy’s house. everyone has the same face as the dude he just killed??? so they tase him. and then the faces go back to their REAL faces. now what is going on here!!!!!!!!!!

as the real faces return, the man realizes he killed someone named sarah!!! and he seems sooo upset by the fact that he killed sarah!!!! poor sarah :(

so does the tv make you see other people’s faces on the bodies of random people….? omg that’s insidious...

we now shift to a different scene, one where mulder is sitting in his car at 2 am. doing what???? waiting for some guy!!! he was waiting TWO HOURS for this guy!!! who is this guy...? it's giving blind date/drug deal.

the man who enters his car gives him a newspaper clipping about the murders we just saw. and mulder came here after getting AN ANONYMOUS EMAIL in the middle of the night??? this is crazy because literally so many people want him dead and this would have been a very easy way to accomplish that goal. wow. seriously, no self-preservation instincts on this guy.

mystery man says he has no obligation to explain what is going on, but if mulder walks away from it, more people will die. so no pressure!! xx

cutscene to a hospital, where mulder is watching our murderer through glass, while scully comes in saying that she is sorry she is late, but “the beltway was a parking lot”. beltway refers to interstate 495! thank you wikipedia i love your services!

murderer is named joseph. and he claims to have been killing the same guy over and over again, and that he wouldn’t die. which seems pretty awful.

OH! and the week before, in the same town, a babysitter attacked the kids she was watching because she thought they were WOLVES??? omg that is horrific??

they’re talking to the physician, dr. stroman, who says perhaps this was provoked by amphetamine abuse. then joseph starts SCREAMING. he sees a guy on the TV- miriskovic- sorry y’all idk my post-soviet history 💔 (update: i googled it, i don't even think that guy was real because all the results are links to wikis on this specific episode... reveals how little i truly know)

anyway, seeing that guy's face on the TV seems to have triggered the screaming situation. does he have trauma from the country he used to live in and seeing references to it makes these things happen…? that would be a wild episode. put me in the writer's room and let me cook.

scully quickly picks up on the fact that this case is Weird, and mulder admits it came from some random guy, which makes her suspicious. but they go to the crime scene, and, like always, he lifts the crime scene tape up over her head, and it’s very charming despite the lack of sensibility in going down this whole rabbit hole.

the minute they get in, they hear screaming and a gunshot! but it’s just some kids watching TV??? eating popcorn in a crime scene??? LMAO WHAT?

mulder kicks them out and scruffs one of the boy’s heads... ohhhh he needs to be a father so bad huh... like i have been saying this since s1 he just has a Need to tease and spoil children. well, we can unpack that another time. there's crime afoot.

so he watches the tv and it starts to go all static-y because a guy outside is fixing the wires. scully finds a TON of tapes and they’re just shelves and shelves of cable TV shows!!!

“there must be hundreds of videos here”, she says, to which he asks “anything good?” <- idk why this made me giggle. it sounded like he was gonna put one in and chill for a bit lmao

scully starts to wonder if seeing the cable news, like joseph had recorded, was what triggered his episode back at the hospital. ooooh! a theory!!! 

cut to mulder watching a tape in the bed of his motel, making an absolute pile of sunflower seeds- this dude is gonna attract mice or something someday omfg- and also he has a cola which is peak american culture. LMAOOOO he has a HUGE pile of tapes on the floor i’m crying... my type A self could NOT deal with him!

he says he watched 36 hours of bernard shaw and bobbi batista and is now also ready to kill someone as scully welcomes him into her room, which also has cola but is much more nicely organized! she found something weird on the tapes from late april, each a night when he committed a murder 

AND WHY DID MULDER GET ALL COZIED UP ON HER COUCH?????? hooooooly fuck i have never seen such a baby girl of a man

OMFG??? all the reports from the murder nights feature that miriskovic guy!!!

so did seeing violence make him violent? mulder says no, and that theory assumes that “americans are just empty vessels, ready to be filled with any idea or image that’s fed to them like a bunch of pavlov dogs, and go out and act on it” oh if only this man could see the news lately……… insert ben affleck smoking a cigarette image here to describe the things we see in our current age. mulder you would not believe.

he’s really bashing her theory, but she’s saying maybe he was high and seeing these things sent him on a spiral- makes sense to me

he is leaving to go get some sleep (after admitting he can’t explain what is going on!!! which always endears me) but scully says she is going to watch the rest of the tapes… a herculean task for our girl

middle of the night and it’s still tape time for scully, but she hears the phone ringing. she hears mulder having a conversation. and he says “no, she doesn’t” which is weird… that is suspicious… what doesn't she...

scully chews her ice which is so funny because me too sometimes. she has chewed all of her ice and must fetch more. and get a cola ofc!!! nothing more american than a cold soda iktr!

but she sees mulder in his car??? lighting up with cig man???? HUH??? and handing over a tape? omfg this is crazy. i assume she is hallucinating though, because no way….

cutscene to a lady named helene watching “the price is nice” (lmaooo) and washing some dishes. but the soap in the dishes starts to look funny- and everything is glitching around her!!! she sees a man outside in a hammock… kissing a woman!!! and oh, she is furious!! she gets her SHOTGUN?? this has escalated very fast. and we hear some shooting!!!

scully is still very visibly disturbed. mulder is reporting the murder, but she seems like a shell of herself. she checks the ash tray in the car, and there is no ash… she notices the car has been moved and he says he got a paper…. why do you ask…. “nothing. it’s nothing” OHHH THIS IS JUICY

so the crime scene has a very bloody hammock. and a dead man, who the wife claims he saw in the hammock with a blonde. but the only other creature at the scene was a dog!!!

OH!!! the hammock man wasn’t even helene's HUSBAND??? this really is LAYERED!! she killed the NEIGHBOR thinking it was her husband, who wasn’t even in town!!!!!! how do you mess this up so badly?

despite the fact that scully is clearly suspicious of mulder, she is sharing the umbrella with him in their usual fashion, and the sense of tension this produces is delicious 

they go to investigate the crime scene and mulder finds some sort of bike and immediately climbs upon it while proclaiming that television does NOT cause violence (LMAOOO HE IS SO WEIRD i need him.) 

they find a bunch more tapes and AGAIN the same guy is messing with the cables outside while they're investigating!!!! mulder is in chase mode!!!! but he cannot chase this dude in the van!!! no man, even a track star such as him, can outrun a van carrying secrets!

scully is trying to fast forward the TV and she looks out to see mulder climbing the pole…. average day for a man like him. he finds a weird cable scrambler in there. she wants to send it to the crime lab, but he says he’ll do the analysis, and she should go interview helene the murderer. OH... she is so suspicious, she just wants to go home…. scully :((( mulder is deeply confused as to why she is being so weird 

so he takes the thingy to the lone gunmen, who say it looks like it’s used for blocking premium cable channels, which i didn’t even know was a thing, you learn so much with this show. but it doesn’t block anything!!! HOWEVER, if you compare a tv with the machine and one without it, the one with the machine is slightly different. hmm...

“you know how television works?” “yeah, you click it on, you have a picture” <- the man who said that line went to oxford btw

it seems that this cable blocker thingy is adding some sort of frequency, but they can’t tell what… hmm.

mulder on the road. scully calls and only asks “where are you” in this very flat and creepy tone and OH i’m scared!!!!

he tries to explain that there is some sort of signal being introduced to the tv- he even says she might be right about the tv inducing violence theory! but she isn’t answering… she hears a clicking, like they're being listened to, and she says he never went to the detective…. let’s wait and talk on a landline, he says.

despite being in his car many miles away, he can tell that there is something very wrong with scully. he says don’t go anywhere, he’ll be right there, and redials after she hangs up. it's very much echoing when she said something similar to him in his crazed gargoyle quest.

but she is so scared, she rips the phone out of the wall and takes it apart!!!! and then the lamp too, and the table. she is checking everything for any sort of bugs!

holy hell, we have never seen her like this before... but i’m actually gagged because she is usually relatively stoic and seeing her paranoid is so different, but it also feels very natural??? she is acting her ass off here as she rips up everything in this motel room. big shoutout to GA, i love your work.

and the static that set in helene's vision earlier is setting in hers now!!! she hears a car pull up and drops to the floor…. she hears a man say “she’s in here” and a pounding on the door. 

OMFG someone tries to open the door and she FIRES 4 SHOTS RIGHT AWAY??? but it’s mulder!!!!

(author's note: i was thinking after i finished the episode, and we know that she is a good shot- remember how she hit just the right angle to knock mulder out but not kill him at the end of s2? so she is either SO out of it that she cannot even aim straight, or there is a tiny tiny tiny part of her that still thinks that mulder isn't worth killing. please mull over which option brings you greater angst)

he’s coming in with his gun and his hair is blowing in the wind and he can’t FIND HER!!!!! it was really very dramatic. hair blowing in the wind has this effect.

cutscene to scully’s mom’s house, and we see a picture of young scully on the table... AWW stop she’s so cuuuute and one of missy as well 😭😭😭

OH! it’s mulder on the phone calling mrs. scully in the middle of the night!!! NOOOO he has to tell her that he doesn’t know where she is :( NOOOO poor mrs. scully has gone through too much. he feels SO bad breaking this news, that he even apologizes for hanging up right away, something he never ever does. he must be in deeeep distress to do such a thing.

and why does he hang up?? because SKINNER IS HERE!!! he’s leading a manhunt for scully, and mulder is saying she shouldn’t be hunted like a convict… but skinner says dude SHE FIRED FOUR ROUNDS AT YOU AND SOME RANDOM GUY last night!!!!

despite this, mulder insists that he can get her to listen to him if they just keep her safe; she’s suffering from some sort of paranoid psychosis. skinner is being quite patient as he tries to explain that the video tapes made her do it. skinner says well... you better find her before these guys do.

GASP!!! he’s putting up the x on his window! and doing that thing where he bounces his basketball because he cannot relax!!! stop i'm emotional!!!!!

the lone gunmen call to say they found something on the tape…. and it induces electrical activity…. MIND CONTROL???

but why wasn’t he effected?

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! HE’S RED-GREEN COLORBLIND???? THIS IS AN INSANE LORE DROP TO GIVE NEARLY 4 SEASONS IN??????

wait, is this just for plot purposes, or is DD actually colorblind and they decided to roll with it? because now i’m gonna be looking at all the red-ish things we see on screen (like his tie he is grabbing to emphasize his point) and wonder, can he see that? how does this impact his tie selection process....

okay that really threw me off guard. man, i was getting to think we'd never get another lore reveal, which is a shame because i quite like formatting those facts in that way. good to know we could get more at anytime!

he gets a phone call from maryland state police. the lone gunmen ask if she’s okay and he says no, he has to go and ID the body. WHAT!!!! WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! he is trying to keep composed. holy fuck………..

(heavy breathing as i grab your shoulder and squeeze) hey man. hey. he was trying so hard to be strong.

so he pulls up to the morgue and stops before he gets out of the car, and holds his head above the wheel STOP I’LL CRY???? i’ll cry… what are they putting him through??? losing her again……..

(i mean i have SEEN gifs of scully in seasons past this one, so i know she's gonna pull through, but HE doesn't know that, and must be reliving the worst days of his life AGAIN, and aughhhhh!)

but the mystery guy from the start of the episode that give him the info on the muders pulls up and says get in right now!!!!!! mulder is furious, he says he’s busy. in a shocking display of insensitivity, mystery man says he does not give a fuck. mulder is yelling that this is all his fault. mystery man says “they” are destroying the evidence, and they’ll finish it by tomorrow if he keeps searching for her, but he kicks the door shut and ignores him.

(omg…. he loves her enough to break him out of his bloodhound mode… the dogged ahab-like quest for answers and revenge… i’m getting flashbacks to his conversation with missy in one breath…….. realizing he needs to put the ones he loves before his need for revenge sometimes..... wow)

so he walks into the morgue, and the dude in there says they found a body nude and shot in the forehead.

he closes his eyes to try and brace himself before taking a peek, to prepare to see her lifeless, probably reliving those many hours by her bedside when she was in the hospital, trying to imagine her shot in the forehead, the scully he knows and loves with her dry humor and her teasing smile and caffeine dependency, the her that is so full of life, lifeless…

but it isn’t her. PHEW!

despite this being good news that he has to share- she's not dead! her mother isn’t answering her phone…. so he goes to her house. and i'm thinking, oh my gosh, did she do something rash in her grief?

but mrs. scully answers the door and claims dana isn’t here. he bursts in and says he needs to see her right now. omg, he saw right through her lies.

(also, it always feels weird to refer to her as dana, but moving on)

NO!!!! she has him at gunpoint and says he’s here to kill him!!! poor guy looks so flabbergasted… and her mom is trying to get her to please put down the gun, and he’s trying to explain what is going on!!! he is so singularly locked into her…. 

“he’s lied to me from the beginning. he’s never trusted me” “scully, you are the only one i trust” AUGHHHHH (rips my clothes off of my body in biblical levels of grief) 

“you’re one of the people who abducted me” AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (rips off not only my clothing but also my hair as i experience emotions that rival what job from the bible went through)

she’s CRYING, and saying he killed her sister while her mom gets between him and the gun… and she’s saying she knows she’s safe here, that’s why she came here, and to put the gun down. and she falls into her mother’s arms sobbing. 

WHAAAAAAAAT. and he had to watch all that… oh my scully oh my goodness my poor scully…

timeskip a little bit. he shows up to the hospital where scully is with her mother, and mockingly puts his hands up in surrender, because he is so STUPID and he always has to make a joke, and i love him so terribly, so so so terribly, because he loves HER.

she's laying in the bed, and he shuts off the tv and asks how she’s feeling. she says she is ASHAMED- as if being a victim of mind control was a personal failing. scully, i want to yell, you have NO REASON to be ashamed, let me take all the shame from you and carry it elsewhere. she says it was like the world was turned upside down.

and he makes ANOTHER stupid joke about the world being out to get him, and now she knows how he feels-

before leaning in and explaining how joseph, the first murderer on this case, became convinced he was killing the bosnian war criminal who people called “the modern hitler”, which was especially important to him because both of his parents survived the holocaust. hence his line about the killing days being over!!!

and helene was scared her husband would cheat on her. so somehow the TV signal turned their worst fears into a living nightmare. 

OHHHH HER WORST NIGHTMARE IS HIM BETRAYING HER. HIM BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR HER GOING MISSING AND LOSING HER AUTONOMY AND MEMORIES... wails into my shirt. 

(this reminds me of that episode in s2- irresistible- when we learn her biggest fear is that humans are capable of terrible horrific things and grasping to trust despite that knowledge. we’re seeing that again right here. how uncertainty seeps in)

THEY CALL HIM THE CANCER MAN!!! wow very official canon recognition of the name (yeah it’s happened before but it happened again so that is cool) anyway she says she saw him giving cancer man the tapes and reporting.

he says that maybe cancer man was behind this, but then he whispers “why don’t you try and get some rest?” and there is something in me that melts so entirely as he leaves her to sleep.

(perhaps it is the fact that hurt/comfort and whump are my favorite tropes. because is there anything more intimate than letting someone see you at your most vulnerable, and them choosing to love you at it? is there any feeling more cutting than seeing your loved one suffer and knowing you’d stop the world for an instant of their relief? the terrible desperation of both parties, the wordless connection upon recovery, someone being the last thing you see before everything fades to black and then the first person you see when you return... yeah. it’s cathartic. but also it makes me want to yell and cry. pls give me all the hurt/comfort content)

so the doctor found high serotonin levels in her that maybe can be associated with mania, but now they’re back to normal. he asks if someone in her situation would be diagnosed with amphetamine abuse, and she says no. then he quickly calls the hospital where joseph is staying… what is he cooking in there…

he wants to talk to joseph's doctor, dr. stroman, who left behind only a number from the motel…. and he had JUST checked out…. so he’s going through his stuff. and asking about his calls. and he DOES find a cigarette in his room but a lot of people smoke so… try not to jump to conclusions juni… but the cigarettes mean one thing in this show!!! was this innocent-looking doctor behind such a cruel experiment?!

he calls and has the last number the doctor called get checked from the folks at the lab… so he goes to visit the place of residence and creepy music is playing. the dude from the cable company we saw before rolls up!!! he walks right inside the house, so mulder peeks inside. it seems the people in the house set up a trap of some sort, as they are talking about “him” showing up at 7.

he bursts in after hearing gunshots and both of the men in there are dead!!! shot in the head!!!!

who is there... but X???? X says he HAD to kill those men- he just hoped mulder would get them first. and oh, mulder is YELLING AT X!!! he is letting him HAVE IT!!! he says he is a coward, he was too scared to unveil the situation with the mind control TV murders himself….. he says X NEVER risks his own life, but he sure does make him risk mulder and scully’s.

OH! he is holding X at gunpoint. all X is saying is that he failed, and that mulder needs him. so he walks out, confident he won't pull the trigger. and he doesn't. 

WHAT! i need to kind of just let that sit for a second. i need to figure out this X fellow, but i get the sense i never will…. he failed… because he chose to try and save scully…….

cutscene to skinner’s office, where mulder is giving him a report. and scully walks in and says that dr. stroman DIED IN 1978!!! when skinner asks about the killer, mulder jumps in and says he remains unknown… oh, skinner is def gonna pick up on that….

so now we see X in a random back alley. getting into a car…. WITH CANCER MAN?????? X REPORTS TO CANCER MAN??? he asks if he has completed his work, and X reports that he has cleaned out all the personnel, everything is removed, but mulder still has a device. and mulder’s source has been eliminated. but the source’s source remains unknown. oh, he’s def lying through his teeth.

OOOOOOH this episode was SO good.

oh man, my brain is racing in a bunch of different directions. scully breaking down and sobbing into her mother’s arms…. scully convinced that mulder is a traitor, that he did those terrible things to her…. mulder so scared that she was gone, bouncing his basketball, getting a call from the police department that he had to go identify her… choosing her, even in what he thought was death, over following the Truth… the sick and twisted relationship he has with X, and X with Cancer Man, and Cancer Man with the world… it’s making me think of how mulder broke into his house that one time, was going to kill him over what he did to scully, and cancer man had the nerve to say he liked mulder… OOOH my brain is just racing racing racing. 

poor scully… how scared she was, how horrified afterward… 

other things that are on my mind, in no particular order: the bond between scully and her mother; mulder being all babygirl on that couch; mulder hopping on that bicycle and picking up some random doll from the murder victim's house; how haunting scully's voice was when she asked him over the phone where he was; their cola drinking; mrs. scully trusting mulder no matter what; how he tried to cover the grief in his voice when he told the lone gunmen he had to go identify her body; how he kicked the door shut of the mystery man, damning the investigation to pay his respects; how his head hovered above the wheel of the car before he got out to do that; how X uses and uses him to no clear end, and what is HE doing reporting to cig man, and what was that random doctor doing conducted fucked up experiments on random people; and scully's miraculously bad aim; mulder's conviction he could talk sense into her (spoiler: he could not); her shame at being convinced he had been the one who abducted her; how terrifying that must have been; and his stupid jokes when he walked into her hospital room, with the sincerity he tries so hard to outrun and outfox breaking through in his whispered why don't you get some rest?

so needless to say, i see why this one is a fan-favorite. this is certainly one i will be revisiting in the future when i need something strong. i have a million things to think over that will stick with me Forever, and i am in no rush to move on from this. in fact, i took these notes yesterday, but in the process of editing them tonight, i have decided i am not ready for the season finale and will have to save it for tomorrow because i'm still feeling So Many Things. so stay tuned to see how that goes, because whew!

[smytherines]

Overly long staircase scene acting analysis because I'm autistic

Watched the staircase scene again, because this is my life now. But I just cannot get over how incredible Joey Richter is in this scene. Every beat is absolutely heartbreaking. The anger and hurt in his voice as he yells "I'm going to single-handedly dismantle everything you've ever believed in," the way his voice breaks.

During the reprise he does a stunning job of "guy trying to be cold and intimidating but is actually incredibly sad and unbelievably angry." The way Owen says "a world without agencies, a world without spies, a world without secrets" with so much quiet contempt for the thing that ruined his life.

Maybe the best piece of acting in the entire show is when Curt steps up into Owen's gun and says "the feelings we had for each other." And Owen looks pained, he looks wistful for a second. His gun lowers to Curt's heart and his hand repositions like he's really struggling with what he believes he has to do. The thing he's been wanting to do for four years. But he just can't manage to pull the trigger, despite having ample opportunity to do so.

When Curt finally shoots his gun out of his hand and aims the gun at his head, the way Joey Richter plays Owen just feels incredibly sad. To me it reads as Owen, not being able to kill Curt, thinking Curt wouldn't be able to kill him either, and realizing too late that he was wrong about that. There's a kind of incredulous disappointment in his voice as he says "so what are you doing?"

I know I get ridiculous with my Owen Carvour headcanon, but this one scene just gives SO much insight into his character and motivations, without outright telling you pretty much anything. That's partially clever writing, but its also just Joey Richter absolutely killing this role, making Owen feel like a real person with real anguish and doubt and anger. Its spectacular.

And it's wild because Curt Mega is also really fucking good in this scene, but kind of in different ways? His delivery doesn't subvert what we know about Agent Mega, it reinforces it. Curt has been grieving for four years. He fell apart after Owen's "death," his alcohol use turning into a full-on disorder, making him incapable of doing the one thing he loves, the thing he feels he does best. And actor Curt Mega does an incredible job at conveying all of that without even saying a word. Curt's stance, the way he braces against the staircase just kind of numb with the realization that Owen is alive, the anger and resentment that he mourned Owen for so long only for him to be out there doing evil schemes. It's all played perfectly.

As an Owen Carvour defender I have issues with what agent Mega does here that are mostly subtextual, so I'm gonna stick to the acting choices within the actual text of the show:

The thing that stands out the most about Joey Richter's performance to me is the little vocal breaks and how raw the line deliveries are, but what stands out to me about Curt Mega's performance is his body language and facial expressions, which are just pitch perfect from start to finish.

Our guy is speedrunning the five stages of grief on that staircase.

First is denial and anger, kinda wrapped up in one package- denying that Owen has the upper hand, there's something about the stance here that feels like he's planting himself with a false confidence, like he doesn't want Owen to know how scared and overwhelmed and sad he is about this. How angry he is that his life fell apart mourning someone who isn't even dead.

Then bargaining- when Curt is pleading with Owen, telling him that he's sure the agencies can pull some strings and get him pardoned if he agrees to give up Chimera. It's hard to describe the expressions & body language in a way that doesn't sound kinda weird, but there's a flash on Curt's face that reads to me like "if you give up Chimera maybe there's a chance for us," which is of course cut off by Owen's anger. There's a desperation, and even a little hint of optimism- it isn't too late to fix this.

Then depression- the expressions here are just heartbreaking, as Owen pontificates Curt is just slowly unraveling, leaning back into the staircase his face just crumbles. Like every word Owen says is physically hurting him. Like he's realizing slowly that there is no going back, that the time they shared & the feelings they had aren't going to be enough. Actor Curt Mega makes so many interesting acting choices here that say so much more than you could say through dialogue alone. The way Curt steps into the gun very much feels like he is accepting that baring his heart to Owen could get him killed, and that it's worth the risk to try (damn, just gave myself more empathy for agent mega here)

And then- acceptance. After Curt has his big moment of vulnerability, appealing to Owen's memories of their time together, and Owen rejects him by telling him to move on, Curt accepts that he has to kill Owen. It reads to me like he isn't doing it to save the world (or at least not exclusively for that) he's doing it to save himself. To remove the spectre of Owen that has been haunting him for the last four years. That as long as Owen is alive he will be haunting Curt.

(As an Owen Carvour defender I have to point out that Owen is *disarmed* at this point, so I personally have a whole big rant I could make but this shit is too long already)

Again it's weird to describe someone's facial expressions and body language, but all of the emotions you can infer from this scene are down to just great acting. Two really good actors doing a well-written scene spectacularly. As good as the rest of the show is- and its very good- this scene is why there's still an active fanbase for a comedy spy parody musical, still making art and writing fanfiction and doing edits and memes about the relationship between Owen Carvour and Agent Curt Mega nearly eight years later.

[lostconductor]

really longwinded fuckass trans oc essay

despite being trans myself i don't really think any of my trans characters actually satisfyingly explore the trans experience to me, which is fine because a trans character can just Exist, but also i do wish i had more characters who's lives and identities are affected by being trans. because my experience so far is that being transgender has affected me in a way where i feel proud to wear the label on my lapel because i've come this far. but i find that in most of my trans ocs' stories, being transgender is either a: destigmatized and/or b: not a problem (hormones and medical transition readily available, taken care of). there's that line between "do i really want to write transphobia into a world where everyone can just be happy?" and "i want a character that's had one of the genuine modern trans experiences" (i say one of and not "the" because there is no The Trans Experience).

then theres project moon world. where gender is and isn't important because gendered bodies and traits do exist, it's literally just the names that are subverted. but (at least as far as i personally know, i dont know anything beyond lobcorp, half of ruina, and everything up to like the lab half of yi sang's canto) we don't actually see or hear any discussion of gender or gender issues, or anything implying that a gender inequality or trans people even exist. which is fine i guess. not the main focus when people are turning into giant monsters and killing each other with giant swords. but it makes it hard to picture any sort of modern experience and relationship with gender in that world that'd match up with anything we relate to. body modification is a commodity and normalized there. you can get surgery to transfer your body into a robot body as long as your brain is intact. you can replace your head now. top and bottom surgery is ancient news, that's just normal. you can replace your head with a triangle now. do people still come out of the closet? does gender even come into play with sexuality anymore? does anyone give a fuck when people are turning into monsters and shit? it sounds like a nice world, where you don't have to constantly be on defense because someone might kill you for being a little too queer, but it also makes it really hard to visualize anything you can relate to without it seeming a little old-fashioned or silly for it to even exist

in my salem world buggy / skuggy being trans was me slapping it on them because i was trans and i wanted to connect with my ocs. i honestly havent revisited them in a while so i forgot a lot but i tried to work it into their stories but mostly ended up thinking longer on it for skuggy as kind of just him crawling out of a bad home situation and him being able to transition finally being his foot down on earth away from that old life. like shedding a shell into a new one. yeah things still suck and i'm heading for a town that's going to kill me, but i finally am on t and i can start saving up for top surgery. but after that point in his life it fades to the background and it's just normal. i think my salem folks are the closest ill get to being able to explore a genuine transgender experience

farrow is weird because the entirety of his life he's been kind of accustomed to playing this certain role and sticking with it, and losing himself in the tough guy facade of uncaring manipulative loner that he just becomes it and doesn't see another way until he's literally killed for being a prick and reduced to a speck that can't hold that facade anymore after being put into his place. as a child he was androgynous and didn't care about it but was still a boy. but the moment he's forced to stop revolving his life around the sole purpose of survival (in fact probably now the opposite) and has to be forced to face what actually lies beneath that facade he's implanted into himself , that nonbinary elephant in the room suddenly gets very very big and loud and he's forced to stare it straight down. i explored his very disorienting confused tiptoes into gender expression and identity mostly in private because i got shy being anything less than funniejokes about my ocs, but it was really just "i think i might be nonbinary but i have a job so i cant think abt that rn" "oh shit im unemployed im fighting these fucking demons" "why did being called this term awaken something in me" "oh god help me". i think i explored and pushed it the absolute most in band au where it's the most similar to modern day reality and just got to make him a little thing. but it's kind of the same thing where while i did get to explore his gender presentation and his thoughts on it and how other people close to him reacted to it or affirm it it i don't ttthink it has a lot of bearing on his character. which is fine i guess. i dont know how i feel about characters who's entire basis is being trans. but i guess that is literally just how it is irl being a stigmatized group you are just Defined by it bc it affects Everything In Your Gd Life. idk where im going with this

idk the thing that prompted this is just thinking about my lobcorp ocs because it is so. HARD. to relate to any of their trans experiences or write anything resembling a modern trans experience with them. they live in a hyperdeveloped future, why Wouldn't they have access to hrt and gender affirming surgeries. why Would it have any bearing on them what gender they are, they have to go die in a Nest or smtng tomorrow. i think a lot about eva and griffin and even like myukeu or roger/mags. i'm trying to go back and think about how it might've been for eva growing up but the most i can think is that he probably just stayed in the closet until he built up the courage and his parents were just "oh okay cool i guess. maybe you wont be limited by the glass ceiling now. finish your damn homework" like just such a anticlimatic end. (but even that response implies any sort of gender imbalance or acknowledgement of gender in this world and honestly, with all the women taking leadership and even mastermind roles in this world there is no way that's anything close to canon. also i dont want to write in fuckin misogyny. but thats the thing in a modern au His Parents Would Fucking THink Like That his identity gender and all takes a backseat to his Purpose. but its hard to write that when Everyone Is Just Like That with gender). like yeah i can write this character juggling work and arranging pharmacy prescriptions and fitting in a daily t shot into his routine and having to recover after top surgery but once he's socially transitioned even if he doesn't pass it doesn't have a bearing or effect on him because It Doesn't Matter Here You're An Employee All The Same. his identity is an afterthought in the corporation. the only time it comes up is when he befriends other trans people and has that "oh hey" feeling of solidarity or when years down the line he's getting freaky with julian and has to explain no an abnormality did not scar me those are surgery scars. im trans. and then it's fine

idk this is a very looseform ramble because in the end i don't know what my actual thoughts are. i guess i yearn for just a mundane trans experience. which is why i'm so drawn to band au / modern aus of any kind because it lets me write these people being Very Mundane Normal People. sure writing them in doomed time loops and turning into giant monsters and harnessing powers beyond comprehension is fun but also i really like writing mundane shit even if its boring to read. why do you think i spamdraw post-lobcorp so much. theyre normal. anyways time to brainrot more over band au than the actual canon

also if there have been any mentions/discussions of gender in projmoon games i would 100% be down to read an analysis or whatever. this isnt a projmoon haterpost believe it or not it's just me thrashing within the nonexistent box i've put myself in.

i like mundane modern trans characters. i like trans characters that look like people i would meet irl and just Exist the way we do irl. i dont care if there is no transphobia in the world i just need to see them being mildly inconvenienced by having to do advanced aerobics to take off their binder or experience gender euphoria after wearing a tank top and jeans. i wanna see them having a sleepover and getting their nails painted for the first time and just going "oh my god i can actually be pretty thats just something i can do". idk. i think i just want to write more trans joy into my stories it's just hard when there's a more prevalent ongoing plot going on (hell timeloop and melting away of identity)

[poetry-protest-pornography]

I want to say that I'm meh about this week's For Him, and I'm definitely feeling like there's been a lot of telling and not enough showing, but also Nail and Him are in love and so cute with each other, and it's hard to be mad?

I'm definitely disappointed about what's going on with Jao and Phai (I know they're spelling it Chao now, but we also have Chaochom so I'm keeping the J), Phai hasn't earned Jao yet and I really hope that gets acknowledged or it'll be a waste. I also wish we got to see a little more of the shooting aftermath -- Him's recovery, Type's arrest, Te's am I the bad guy crisis -- but even a little more talking about it would be good?

I am looking forward to Dream and Chaochom's little wrap up next week, it makes sense for them to be in a "we can walk together on purpose" place, and they've built them up to there pretty naturally; I love their dynamic and wish there was more of them, but I'm okay with what we've got. I am mostly confused about Te and Peach (Piece?), and I'm a little afraid they're using the sunshine love interest to redeem Te, but at least he's also apologizing and acknowledging he's been a fuck up, so *shrug emoji*.

Overall, this is the most negative I've felt about the show, but I'm still so in love with Nail and Him that I can't really be more than mildly annoyed?*

Idk y'all, they subverted the episode 11 curse and also gave me a previously undiscovered kink when Nail left that trail of perfume for Him to follow, so maybe I'm just too soft for these two/the show in general.

*They should still let me write a BL; you can all bet that Phai would be suffering sufficiently if I was in charge, and Te would have to at least grovel a little. Also, Nail's adoption of Jao would've included a friendship and revenge montage

[ryuichirou]

💙 anon here!!

How are you both?! I hope all is well for you guys!

Here for another anon ask so here we are cause I love my little TwistedS!uts.

So 💙 anon here for the anon asks:

What are the twst characters kinks you think they have.

(You guys can list all characters or any you guys want in general)

That is all from 💙 anon!

Remember to drink plenty of water and eat your meals!

Hi 💙 Anon! You’ve been waiting for a reply for quite some time, sorry for the wait. I hope I’ll get to some other old asks as soon as possible, there are some very fun ones in our askbox…

This one is pretty fun, for example! It was interesting thinking about every character in that way hehe, although I skipped a few that I had nothing to say about… but still, this ended up being a pretty long list, and I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you for your concern and support, have a great day! And don’t forget to drink water and eat too~

Alright, so these dirty pervs.

Riddle – subverted powerplay (when he is more dominant at the beginning, but then Something happens), size kink; he isn’t really aware of/doesn’t admit either of those.

Ace – he is a baby dom that still has a lot to learn; he is also into using someone else’s dirty clothes for masturbation.

Deuce – probably praise kink, but he is yet to discover his own kinks, he is kind of shy when it comes to that.

Trey – teeth, duh. Overall, he is pretty orally fixated, but teeth is his weird thing. He likes both touching them and admiring bite marks.

Cater – hard to tell, but I feel like he has some surprisingly intense kinks that we are unaware about. Voyerism, exhibitionism, group sex, maybe something else…

Leona – anything rough, but nothing too bdsm-y. He is actually quite masochistic, but he’ll never admit it.

Ruggie – “anything you want as long as you’re paying”, but in actuality he genuinely enjoys leaving bite marks and receiving good scratches on his back.

Jack – he’s probably the most vanilla out of the entire cast, but he still gets quite feral due to his wolfy instincts.

Azul – quite dominant in general, but if we have to pick one kink, it’s probably bondage, ropes, his own arms/tentacles, anything that restricts his partner.

Jade – also into ropes, but he is more sadistic about it. He is very meticulous in general, so I can see him using needles, certain drugs and other dangerous experimental things. Oh, and sensory deprivation, blindfolds… also, sometimes he also wishes he could use his unique magic more often.

Floyd – he has a new kink every week, he does whatever he feels like doing, but his love for choking and gagging is pretty consistent. Scratching and biting is also something he loves to do. And also extreme creampie. Right now he is intrigued by water sports, so beware everyone.

Kalim – he isn’t aware of his kinks, for the most part he does whatever he wants, but he tends to enjoy hair pulling way too much for Jamil’s liking. He also likes dressing his partner up and having sex in a pool.

Jamil – spanking (but only when he is in a very good mood), hair pulling (hello) and edging; all these options are inconvenient to him, but he can’t help it and kind of hates it.

Vil – he enjoys some elements of roleplay and sometimes gets a bit carried away. He can also be surprisingly bratty at times. Body worship is good, but he gets bored of it quickly, so he needs some kind of a twist to that kink…

Rook – this guy has way too many. The most notable ones are voyeurism (duh), primal play and actually brat-taming.

Epel – muscles. Just… muscles. He is sure that he is just fascinated by them because he also wants to be big, but nah, the boy is way into muscles.

Idia – he also has quite a bunch of them, although a lot of them are purely theoretical, like he just loves reading certain doujins and watching hentai and stuff… But in general: robot fetishism (let’s be honest), tentacles (let’s be honest), dirty-talk and humiliation.

Ortho – doesn’t have any kinks per-se, but he is fascinated by the idea that people can get aroused because of the weirdest things. So he actually has phases when it comes to kinks, and he learns a lot during those. Right now he is very into sensory deprivation! What an interesting concept, isn’t it?

Malleus – he is surprisingly into whatever his partner is doing, his only requirement is for him to go all-out. He is quite intrigued and wants to be entertained. If I had to pick one kink for him, it’s probably wax play, it just feels right.

Lilia – waaaay too many kinks; even if he isn’t all that into it, he’d probably done it. He used to be very into sadism, blood play,  knife play, all this stuff, but now he is more into exhibitionism, sex toys, somnophilia, to name a few.

Silver – sexual servitude; he is very submissive and a little bit masochistic.

Sebek – stuck between being a dom and being a sub, and doesn’t even realise it. He is really into verbal degradation, you can’t shut him up. At the same time, I can also see him cuckolding in very specific scenarios so…

Crewel – come on, we know it. I’m pretty sure he practices bdsm and petplay quite regularly.

Trein – enigma of a man that is suspiciously reactive to dirty talk.

Crowley – yes, Crowley. Crowley is an exhibitionist; he is just way too good at hiding it. He is also much more messed up that we’re giving him credit for in general.

Neige – body worship, phone sex; I can’t explain either of these, to be honest.

Che’nya – absolutely cursed chaotic beast, he has too many kinks, but his most favourite one is probably tickling, because he is that cursed.

Rollo – more kinks that he cares to admit, but he never acts upon any of them, that would just be disgusting. But if we’re being honest, he is quite masochistic, so anything where his partner takes power from him and punishes him would make him feel good.

[noxofspades]

Appreciating+analyzing Brokeback Mountain's first tent scene for it's 18th anniversary

It’s been 18 years since Ang Lee used his familarity of repression from his culture to bring Brokeback Mountain to life. Starring legendary actor, Heath Ledger, and his co-star, best friend + the godfather of his child, Jake Gyllenhaal.

And i want to show appreciation to the first tent scene. It’s the most famous scene along with Jack’s final speech. I guarantee that most non-viewer knows about either one or both of these. And while this sex scene is very impactful and a few ppl also like this scene, it's usually met with two types of reactions. First, plain homophobia. Like when ppl just immediately left the theatre, outraged or disgusted.

Ppl made parodies about this, and there was a trend of ppl showing someone this scene out of context and enjoy the shocked, horrified or disgusted reaction

On the flip side, there’s the ppl who loves+appreciates this film but has valid criticisms about this scene. It’s not realistic when it comes to prep. There’s the beans thing (even though Jack threw a whole tantrum about hating to eat this, so Ennis had to give him alternatives like hunting elk+getting soup).either way, that beans aspect is something ppl can't look past,therefore can't take seriously. This scene is too rough for some, too short for others. Or it feels really sanitized to them.

I see all of these points. I actually disliked this scene as well on my first watch when i was a young teen.However, as i grew older and i rewatched this film a few times, i developed a huge appreciation for this scene. i geninuely love this now. And coming from an aro/ace person, this one of my favorite scenes in cinema. And here's why...

We know that Ennis is a virgin from the ‘sinner’ talk. And later on, you get the details of Ennis' trauma from being forced to see the horrific aftermath of a hate crime. So growing up, as he went through puberty…i don’t think he let himself fantasize about guy. And also, his parents were methodists, so add religion in his childhood.

So this isn’t only about him giving into his lust for Jack, this is about struggling with all these repressed emotions of fear, shame. He grew up, being denied the most simple pleasure of life. So this isn’t just about this sexual release, it’s a huge, shattering emotional release as well.

And putting all this together, this backstory is the reason why this scene is vital. I highly doubt that with all this repression+trauma, that Ennis would make any kind of move, romantic or sexual. Heck, i don’t even think he was fully aware of his feelings until this moment. It implied in the short story that even though he doesn’t know why he’s so happy around Jack, he could still just palm the white of the moon.

So i believe this is the only way he could face not only his lust, but his emotions. Having Jack being aroused and explicitly state with his actions how much he wanted this

This being THE MOMENT where Ennis could experience true freedom. Let the restraints go and just vulnerable with another person. And i think it being it at night, in the dark helped give him that extra courage.And because of all the pent up lust went with his emotions, he just lost control at the sound of the belt unbuckle and just roughly took Jack on the spot.

I like how this subverts my expectation. Jack is the impulsive, extroverted and bold one. And also, i'm used to scenes where when someone is hesitant or really scared to be intimate with someone, they are usually soothed and they will slowly let themself experience pleasure. But instead, Ennis is overcome with lust, and fully takes over.

And the moments after Jack is pushed down just gets me. You hear tiny little noises of excitement from him, cuz the shy, reserved man he knew suddenly shoved him down, shaking hard from lust+impatience. And he is just waiting, while Ennis is rushing to undo his pants then practically rips off Jack's . No pleasantries, nothing, just does him raw. Is this ideal in real life? Hell no. But as a fantastical concept, i find that incredibly hot. I may not find ppl sexually attractive, but i appreciate a spicy scenario, as long as i’m not involved.

And i appreciate the film not framing the loss of Ennis' virginity as comedic or even victorious, like a prize he finally won. I often see this in media with male characters having sex for the first time. This, while abrupt, is still taken seriously. Ennis is really clumsy, and even though he’s doing the work, he’s not the one in control. He is barely hanging on, really overwhelmed by all these new sensations. The surprise, the bliss and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t last long. The way he pressed his forehead onto Jack’s back as the orgasmic sensations abruptly hits him.

And Jack aggressively slamming on the tent floor when the release hits him. Iconic. Apparently, Jake G added that in, which shocked Ang lee in a good way. And yeah, that definitely adds to the level of intensity that this whole scene built up to.

And there’s also this brief scene i like where the two, especially Ennis, is just WIPED OUT. And while a part of me wondered why it’d be like if this scene lasted longer, I think it also really adds to the intensity of Ennis’ experience. The physical and the emotional release is so monumental for him that not only he wasn't able to last long, it also just shattered every ounce of his physical energy.

And i like how it didn’t linger on the afterglow. It’s a quick cut to the outside shot of their tent, as you still hear their panting. I liked this because it emphasizes how this was truly impulsive this act was. How desperate they were to just feel each other that they even couldn’t utter a single word. And they couldn't even take the time to fully undress or enjoy each other's bodies yet. This was just instinctive and animalistic.

And it's the fact that there's no music, and it's all shot close up, alternating from Jack+Ennis that makes it feel more authentic. To me, it doesn't feel staged, and that again, just adds so much.

And i love the contrast between this and the second tent scene. Ennis surrenders in both but has different reactions. Because of the overwhelming lust+emotions, this moment is rushed.

But after struggling to process that he found so much freedom+pleasure in something society deems immoral, he gives into his desires and enters the tent. Now since the physical barrier has been crossed, and the pent up lust is satiated, he is forced to face his emotions. And allow Jack to fully see him the most vulnerable he's ever been. The way he clutches his hat like a shield and struggles to make eye contact.

The way Jack sees all this and responds with so much tenderness. How he kissed him, whispers reassurances and cradles him. And Ennis feels safe enough to properly enjoy Jack's body. And feel his chest. That soft kiss he plants a moment later. Just gives me so many butterflies.

On the first watch, it's really sad to see Ennis so scared. But on a rewatch, when you know the details of his trauma. Soul-shattering. You fully realize how much he needed to be soothed +held like this😭😭

And then i found this great website, Brokeback Mountain Love Scene Tent – Book & Movie Library (whythebookwins.com)

where it talks about the symbolism of the nature+ tent. I love how it points out how nature is their silent witness. Whether it’s for their frantic first time, or more tender ones that happen later on. And how the tent is so confined, which reflects Jack+Ennis’ relationship. Because of our cruel society, they had to hide their love+vulnerability from the world. And because of Ennis’ trauma and internal struggle, it’s only this tent on Brokeback Mountain, that is truly becomes their only safe haven.

Heath+Jake did fantastic in both of these scenes. Especially the first one. I'm glad that there were proper measures to make sure these two were very comfortable and they weren't exploited in any way.

[illarian-rambling]

what inspired the robots in your stories

Oh man, good question!

I've always loved robots ever since I was a kid. R2D2 was my favorite Star Wars character back then, I've always been drawn to warforged and artificers in dnd, the guard bots in Laputa captured my imagination, and I read Asimov at probably way too young of an age to actually comprehend anything. I think I was just drawn to the idea of this creature that may or may not be alive, but either way, it has a purpose. There's so many ways to subvert that and play into it - the opportunities are endless!

I know for a fact that Mashal's brand of robot was heavily inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. In fact, a lot of Mortal God was inspired by FMAB if you look hard enough. I always liked when they played up the body horror aspects of Al being stuck in a metal suit, even just for laughs. In a way, Mashal is the direct answer to the question of what would FMAB have been like if they refused to ever let up on the thought of how awful it'd be for a person to be stuck in an unfeeling metal body.

As for the more roboty robots, I took a lot of my inspiration from the Eberron setting in dnd (2nd best setting, Sigil is always no. 1 😎🎸). These guys are sentient, but no one knows why. They weren't sentient before, but they are now. How do you treat a hammer that woke up one day and declared it wanted to study art? It doesn't have hands, it's a hammer! Anyways, I won't give away all the mystery to their sentence other than everyone's favorite spooky desert is involved, however, their purpose is far less body horror and far more social speculation. I love wondering about how their neighborhoods work when no one sleeps or eats, but everyone has a perfect memory and struggles with the same conflict of how to separate programming and passion.

In the end, I love both of my brands of robot, and indeed, robots everywhere. Every win for a funky little metal guy is a win for me <3

Thanks so much for the ask!

[aviculor]

Next on the list is The Puppetman, about the daughter of a man on death row who claims his body was being controlled when he murdered his wife. 5 minutes in and I need to pump the breaks because the protagonist's best friend is talking about "Satanic pedophile elites". That's dogwhistles, my guys. You can't be saying that.

At least the actors sound like real people this time.

I'm not crazy about how this takes place in November because I do not want to be thinking about snow right now. Petty non-criticism.

It's a little weird to be recording your roommate's sleep walking episodes and telling other people about her deeply personal secrets, even if you claim you didn't have bad intentions. But I guess she was telling the truth about that since, you know, dying in the next scene precluded her from having any larger, more sinister role in the narrative. The recordings themselves will definitely come in handy, though.

We're clearly building up to a reveal that Michal mind controlled her dad to kill her mom, but how does this relate to her being found by the police in a cage and the ambiguous ties to a cult? Was her mom a cultist who was raising her to be a human sacrifice?

Well, that was perfectly acceptable. Had some gnarly kills in it. I don't fault movies for being formulaic because too often, I see ones that try to break formula and subvert expectations so hard that they end up lacking in more important areas. A film doesn't necessarily need to be the freshest, most unpredictable, most madcap tour de force possible for me to respect it as long as it has solid technical merits. It didn't floor me or give me much to chew on after the credits rolled, and there are a few moments that don't really hold up to scrutiny, but overall I liked it.

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Made it through chapters 13-18 today and I wanted to start this one off by mentioning something that I noticed a while ago but neglected to mention here so far, which is that Feyre uses Ihr/Euch when referring to Tamlin and I think Lucien and even Alis as well (Ihr/Euch is the Formal You thats used to refer to nobility (as opposed to the more common Sie/Ihnen which is the Formal You used in others contexts)), while Tamlin and Lucien refer to Feyre by du (Informal You) and Alis refers to her by Ihr/Eugh as well. I wanna try and keep track of when Feyre starts to use the Informal You for Tamlin because its a small detail but it always signals a pretty big shift in the relationship in german-language media and I think its really neat

Anyway, now onto the other stuff; i remember that I complained about the pacing feeling very slow in my first post and I would like to say that thats gotten a lot better, at least on the level of individual scenes. When it comes to the story as a whole though, I feel like its moving unnaturally quickly. Like, its a little hard to describe but Feyres character development and her warming up to the fae feels like its happening in chunks rather than a smooth, natural progression. The fact that SJM's writing is incredibly unsubtle isnt helpful either, it just makes the unnatural-ness of it all stick out that much more. I wouldve definitely needed atleast one realization of "Oh, these guys arent that different from me and the people I knew in my life" from Feyre before she started warming up to them and feeling sorry for Andras' death because as it stands, her feeling guilty felt very sudden

While the fae are still dissappointing overall and I despise the horrible What-if-America-colonized-the-British-Isles ass layout and the exposition was clunkier than ever before, I did like all the non-high fae fea creatures, the Suriel and the Bogge in particular, its truly incredible how interesting SJM's writing can be when shes not too focused on the most generically handsome basically-human-except-they-fuckin-growl-and-roar men

Speaking of those men, I continue to find Tamlin pretty charming although hes definitely definitely not my type, my type are pathetic submissive easily flustered guys, but given that this is a book by Sarah J Maas a guy who actually has hobbies outside of fighting and fucking might be all I can hope for. Despite that, I like Luien a lot more and I find his relationship with Feyre far more compelling. Like, him giving Feyre that dagger telling her not to stab him in the back with it was absolutely lovely, not mention his incredibly interesting family drama. Like ughhhhhhh whyd SJM decide she wanted to subvert expectations by having Feyre end up with Rhysand when Lucien is literally right there. Although granted, I think a large part of the reason I feel that way is because Feyre and Tamlin havent really interacted too much in almost 200 hundred pages while Feyre and Lucien have spent a decent amount of time alone already and its a little baffling because its not like Feylin have absolutely no time together, its just that we dont really see it. Like, we dont see their almost nightly dinners and its really frustrating because Im not even someone who really enjoys this kind of bland cishet "dark romance" thats popular on booktok, but like, whats the point of a beauty and the beast retelling where you dont see the beauty and beast slowly get to know each other. Its even more frustrating when I remember that like a quarter or maybe even a third of this book is gonna be all the Under The Mountain bullshit, like you know you can just tell a smaller scale romance story in a fantasy setting without a big war right

[kob131]

Velma Episode 1 Thoughts

“So, how’s that promise to not watch the Velma show go-”

*Sees a list of Youtube reviews*

“...May as well check out for myself then.”

-Wow, you guys are trying so fucking hard to cause a rise out of people. This is some of the most pathetic baiting I have ever seen. And I’m autistic- I am literally wired to not get this stuff.

-And because I’m feeling cruel-

‘Tall handsome guy given even more power’- Ever heard of Spider man?

‘Oh hey, what made this hot chick go crazy?’- Ever heard of Samus Aran?

-’Not Fred and his creepy sex van’. Five bucks says you end up riding around in that ‘creepy sex van’ with Fred giving you orders because your show will be tanking so hard you’ll need to pander to the original audience to survive.

And as an original fan, I say ‘die in a ditch’

-’I hate Daphne. >:(’ Wow, the nerdy girl hates the popular, conventionally pretty girl. Real great work subverting those stereotypes. Especially since that notebook has ‘Velma Dinkley-Jones’ written in it too.

Fun fact, my own little Team STRQ headcanon has Raven and Summer hating each other’s guts due to ideological differences (Raven believes that people need to survive on their own while Summer believes that people should help if they have the power) among other things. But I’m insecure about it because it can also be read as ‘two girls fight over a guy (Taiyang)’. In short- I have more awareness of stupid tropes regarding women than this show.

-’This is my story, told MY way!’

Which is why you’re not even remotely Velma Dinkley and this told through the same fucking story telling seen everywhere nowadays.

-...This show is going to use swearing as a substitute for actual maturity, isn’t it?

*Shows two cockroaches bumping uglies*

... Yay...

-Is...is this bitchy girl Daphne? The sweet, emotionally intelligent, kind hearted Daphne?

-You know, you guys could have given the girls some variety in their body types other than ‘curvaceous, busty and leggy’. I’m no prude but coming to be more true to myself, I’ve come to appreciate the variety in the female form. I also say this because this involved me coming to terms with how I appreciate the male form as well.

Also just because sex sells (I have checked out series because I found a girl hot) doesn’t make shoving gratuitous nudity in my face entertaining. At least let the girl fully check them out.

-You know what, here’s a lesson to any aspiring writers-

If you’re gonna be sensual, be sensual. Fully examine the beauty of the female and male bodies. The graceful curves and the hardy stockiness- be free, be open, be true to yourself! That is what it means to be an adult!

 -Nobody gets physical over these kinds of discussions. Where the writers fucking high when writing this?

-Maybe they were because the chick I’m pretty sure is Daphne is DROWNING SOMEONE.

Please for the love of god, someone ax her ass!

-THANK YO-

‘And how do you feel about race blind casting, Daphne?’

Oh god FUCKING DAMNIT!

- “I wasn’t expecting such an enlightened answer from such a bitch.”

https://youtu.be/CN2s-rFYQqI

VELMA WOULD NOT ASSAULT SOMEONE!

-... Solid JJ did this better.

-... I want everyone whoever called RWBY’s writing as ‘exposition dumping’ to write an apology. NOW.

No one would respond to ‘How long has it been since X has had you over’ with ‘ever since my mom died. Two years ago.’ It should be. ‘Two years ago, ever since Mom...’. That is something people SAY.

-Oh god, this is so painful. 

You-you know how a lot of dialogue in media can be boiled down to how it advances the plot or characters but the extra fat is necessary to make the dialogue digestible to your average viewer since media is an exchange between the audience suspending their disbelief and the creators presenting a nice story in exchange?

No one ever taught these writers that. It’s ALL just plot progression and obvious references with nothing to give it any taste!

-*Slicked over blond hair, blue jeans, white sweater, bumps into Velma while on his phone*

Oh no no no no no no no-

“Oh hi, Fred!”

“I have a disease where I can’t remember anyone who isn’t hot-”

-NO, FUCK YOU!

The one. ONE! Guy who was never even close to anything to being toxic in his masculinity. A kind, cheerful, calm, caring man who suffered from single mindedness but was nonetheless a man who carried himself with dignity and kindness who was beloved for basically creating the ‘himbo’ archetype-

You FUCKED HIM UP! IN ONE SCENE!

-... Fred’s gay and in the closet, isn’t he?

Of course he is. Because of course any man who dresses fashionably must be sucking dick. Just like Velma’s probably LGBT because she’s nerdy and not conventionally feminine. Because as everyone knows- if you deviate from the overly strict definitions of masculinity and feminity, you MUST be LGBT.

-Can we have ONE good father in a fucking cartoon for once?

-Whatever is inside her...isn’t a baby.

-’Oh we’re ABOVE the ‘slutty girl deserved to get murdered’ trope~’

And yet you roll around in those other, even more cliche tropes. No credit.

-Oh yay, this really is a ‘toxic masculinty’ plotline with Fred. And ten bucks says it will still get its ass beaten by Jaune’s.

-’I’m at fault for my mom leaving my dad who knocked up a waitress’

And you’re supposed to be the smart one...

-’Wow, I am emotionally invested in your journey and it’s stakes!’

Cool. Glad someone is.

-...Why is Shaggy even here? What’s even the point without his connection with Scoob?

-’I hate drugs! *wink*’

Shaggy being a stoner was a joke, not canon. May as well give him Ultra Instinct at this point.

-Oh cool, the fucking waitress knows ‘Velma’ better than her fucking father. Yay...

-’Maybe Velma’s mom left her because she was a brat...’

... Judging from how Velma looks and her size, she’s likely no older than 6-8 during those flashbacks.

If that is true then Velma’s mom bore a grudge or resentment towards her child for...acting like a child. And no, the eyeball injury is not an excuse because in no universe is spray water into someone’s eye going to cause enough damage to make it pop out.

Velma’s mom was a fucking bitch and her dumbass dad is implied to be the better parent...because she’s a bitch. Fucking wonderful.

-... This show was some tax write off, wasn’t it?

[ultramaga]

In Australia, regardless of who you vote for, things stay pretty much the same. Why?

For example, in Australia, Leftists have screwed up the country, making it more and more sexist and racist. How? Because they decided to create a "totally independent" body to police sexism and racism and so on, called the AHRC. Now if a Leftist screeches for the death of people of a certain group, the AHRC checks against the list of approved targets. Basically the government claims to be neither sexist nor racist, because it has checked itself. It just pretends that the Leftists of the AHRC are just somehow coincidentally coming up with the same conclusions that they do. So any politician who wanted to remove the discrimination would have to sack a huge amount of the civil service here, who are almost entirely staffed by people who hate the country and every one in it. Leftists saw that the way to infiltrate and subvert wasn't through democracy, but through the back doors. And if a politician tried to reform thing here, chances are they would be ruined and retired. All of the media, with maybe the exception of Sky News, would pump out propaganda against them, and every member of the huge civil service, down to the teachers, would be quietly pushing for their destruction via social media. You do not speak against this if you are a teacher, or you will be next.

I remember decades ago I spoke to a Labor Politician called Peter Garrett.

Yep, that was him, back in the days he was an edgy rocker. Anyway, he told me he didn't believe in any of the things he'd been saying. He'd gotten elected on words he'd sung, but had never meant. I argued that Australia needed a Bill of Rights, like the Americans had. He told me primly that the Labor Party had decided that the serfs do not need such things. I was hardcore Labor as a child, and that started my drift away. I had a look at the rival Party, but found it was just a watered down version - really, that's predictable as I believe the same marketing company was determining their policies. None of them had the guts to believe in anything, because they wanted the cushy chair and the cushy pension, and if they spoke up against the status quo, they'd be tossed out and left to drown in the sea of media hatred.

There are no independent voices on Aus. Media, not really. I watched ABC Australia the other night and they were discussing the election, and Fox News. I was confused as to why they thought they were important - most youtube channels have more viewers. Hell, I remember when Sargon of Akkad regularly pulled in more views. He was a gigantic influence globally, but he was never mentioned by the ABC. He was erased from existence - but they couldn't do the same with the Joe Rogan show, not entirely. The funny thing is Joe used to be their sort of guy, used to believe the things they did, but the Leftists moved hard away from Freedom and to Totalitarianism, and ever since it has been the quiet little youtubers and podcasters who have been moving the needle. JRE is important, but if he was assassinated tomorrow, the resistance to Leftism would carry on. Hell, Asmongold was just another gaming channel, and it became politicised. Leftists have become too awful and powerful to be ignored. You can't just tune out after work now, when loading up Dragon Age means having someone lecture at you for hours about gender pronouns.

Everywhere you look, there is Leftist propaganda, often State funded like with Dustborn, which taxpayers were forced to pay for. So it's natural now for normal people to look for a game, give up, look for a movie, give up, look for any goddamn thing that entertains - and the only thing left is youtubers encouraging them to burn the whole damn thing down and start again.

[ch4tk4t]

⚠️ Trigger Warning ⚠️ graphic violence ⚠️Trigger Warning ⚠️

Comics Fangirl n°3 - Rated X

This review is about "X-force volume 1-issue 116/2001"

Plot by Peter Milligan

Art by Mike and Laura Allred

What's up my muties?

I remember it like it was yesterday. I read this article in the french version of Wizard magazine, deep in my first fangirl phase. It was centered on the events of X-force issue 116, and my prepubescent teen mind took note of the sex and violence seemingly center stage in this soft relaunch.

Years went by, and I stopped reading comics for a time, up until recently, when nostalgia brought me back. After catching up on most of the main X-titles, I recalled this Wizard article. Mind you, I'm less of a angsty edgelord, but I was still curious.

The story starts from the point of view of Axel Cluney, also known as "Zeitgeist" as he recalls his recurring nightmare. In it, he remembers the first time his mutant powers manifested, which resulted in his girlfriend at the time getting disfigured.

Axel is a celebrity now, the leader of a brand new X-force, whose name was decided on because the original team was too busy saving the world to actually copyright their title, the silly gooses!

They're a highly sponsored, televised, and commercialy driven team, packed with angsty, vain, and egotistical mutant celebrities. Edith Sawyer, also known as "U-go girl", the team's teleporter, is on performance enhancing drugs, there's frequent infighting, and the team just lost a team-mate. The replacement, Tike Alicar, the "Anarchist", does nothing to ease the already existing tension in the team.

Not only that, but it seems the polls are saying the public interest for the team is declining. But the team's publicist has just the thing to boost their public image. Classic "good guys against bad guys" action.

He sends them to take care of a ongoing hostage situation involving "Boys R us", a famous boysband. At first, all is well, the team even seems like it's getting along okay. But in his mind, Axel is still that traumatized kid, angry at the world. As he looks down at his admirers, he feels nothing but contempt.

He doesn't see the attack chopper coming.

Trigger Warning ⚠️ the following two images depict very graphic violence ⚠️Trigger Warning

As the dust settles, Axel realizes he finally remembers the girl from his dream's name. Perhaps now, he'll stop dreaming about her every night...

This issue ends on this gruesome note, with the hostages, the terrorists, along with most of the team, in pieces.

⚠️ End of Trigger Warning ⚠️

So that's volume 116 of X-force (soon to be X-statix). Needless to say, if you can't handle graphic violence, you're not going to have a very good time. The world depicted by the series seems a little darker than the rest of the Marvel universe, but also sometimes very human and down to earth. The serie's main topic is fame in general, and most specifically in regards to minorities. It pulls no punches, but it also takes time to humanize his characters. It tackles issues like race, sexuality, and later on even gender identity with a bluntness that sometimes hits hard. It faces head on diverse "superhero tropes" and sometimes subverts them, always in thought-provoking ways.

When it came out, the series struggled to sell much, and was canceled. It gathered quite the cult following since, mostly because it sticks out, with it's strong themes and amazing writting, along with Mike and Laura's GORGEOUS art.

Doop, the team's camera"man" has since made cameos in other X-titles, along with a miniseries in the early 2010s. There was also a Dead Girl miniseries before the team's relaunch in 2019. So if this seems enticing, you have a bunch of issues to look forward to. Remember to pirate this if you can, so your money doesn't help fund a genocide.

I give this issue a Doop/10

That's it for today's review. Talk to you soon, true believers.

Fangirl out.

[bearpillowmonster]

The Last of Us HBO

This show is sort of in a bad situation because it's an adaptation of a beloved property that's going to be criticized if you're too close to the source material and too far, not to mention it's a video game property which has a track record of being subpar to just plain bad. And then that game is one of the most well known games of all time so there's that.

To be honest, I haven't played the games but I'd be living under a rock if I didn't know a lot of what already happens. And how do you do that? How do you subvert expectations when everyone already knows the spoiler?

I have the advantage to look at this from a different lens than that of a fan but I still can't help but draw comparisons and I think that's partially because it's so baked in. A good scene to represent this with is the truck getaway. In the game, you have a third person perspective of Sarah so you're in the backseat while these guys drive recklessly. It's not the same exact scene but it serves the exact same job using the exact same technique. If you watched a scene with very similar dialogue and the same end point, but just different means to get there, what did you see? Is it worth seeing again? In a game, you can feel the vibration of the controller as the car backs up and the intensity of your surroundings and how they're invading your little bubble. The scene in the show does a good job of replicating that but does that mean you're missing something?

If you've played the Last of Us and didn't like it then I don't think this show will do anything for you. There are differences but I think they fundamentally have the same problems but I think that doubles for if you liked the game, I think you'll at least enjoy it for what it's worth for a whole other Last of Us revisit after the initial game, the remaster, the remake and now this. Neil Druckmann is still involved and you can definitely tell his fingerprints are on it, unfortunately they still have unnecessary cursing. (like, you don't need it to make it gritty, how many times do I have to tell you that?) People who were jerks are still jerks. There are better things about it, there are worse things.

The other guy involved, the freaking director, Craig Mazin and his stupid comments about video games. I just don't understand but first I'll give him a hand for actually walking the walk after talking the talk but I still think some of his comments are wrong and that they don't even make sense in this context when he literally uses video game techniques to make it happen but oh well.

I mean literally, despite never playing the game, I knew what must have been there. "Ellie, I'll give you a boost, drop that ladder down to me." Little stuff like that, but it didn't really feel forced or out of place. I see now where a Last of Us MMO could come in, sort of like making it an RPG where you can choose to fight or join the Fireflies, I think that'd be quite fun but from what I see, it's a battle royale.

Acting. Pedro. That's all. I mean, I got my space cowboy but now I've got the southern accent to boot, all he needs is a little hat and we're good to go!

Honestly, it's probably better taken episode by episode because aside from actively trying to make you dislike the characters in a specific way in order to care about them, there are a few really good episodes and even the bad episodes have good parts but they are dominantly bad episodes and just straight bad characters or characters that have no relevance but get spotlight anyway. That isn't to say that it's only the new stuff that's bad either, there's a lot of good new stuff too, it's just a mystery as to what you're getting in any given episode, you can normally tell "Oh, this will be one of the predominantly good ones."

The end. Though I knew how it would end, it felt a little bit short lived and I don't mean that in length, more like they were trying to get it done, like the moments didn't hit as hard as they should've because of one reason or another. It all feels pretty summed up. Dialogue was disappointing since it was the last episode and they have a short moment before it all goes down where it feels like they trauma dump rather than a nice payoff to seeing them slowly trust each other enough to reveal one's insecurities which is ironic considering….well, season 2 will answer for that but all in all, a decent video game product.

[mellongamma]

“No Shame In Running”: a quick look at Steve and Eddie’s relationship with self-worth

“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive” - Audre Lorde

It has been said time and time again that Steve and Eddie are narrative foils, but I think it’s interesting to steer the conversation back to one particular point of divergence: the different things that they’ve tied their sense of self-worth to.

TL;DR: Steve bases his self-worth on the standards to which he can accurately and reliably perform up to others’ idea of him - Eddie, the exact opposite: the more he shocks and subverts expectations, the more he thrives.

If anyone knows what it’s like to be put down and have their worth questioned, in academic settings or any other social sphere, it’s Eddie. Guy either falls into the burnt-out former gifted kid who read all of LOTR in three weeks in middle school, or unmedicated ADHD kid category - more realistically, both - meaning he likely never performed one single task the way that he was expected to.

Eddie can’t perform to any kind of academic or social standards without it being agonizing, but contrarily to Steve, he’s realized and accepted it. 

He’s given up on trying, but he gets no existential angst from it - whereas the mere idea of giving up on trying to conform would make Steve throw up. Even if Steve’s never quite got the hang of academia, he thrived in every social sphere he was ever in: even if it might have felt stifled at times, the positive attention would have been hard to voluntarily give up on.

Eddie never had to face that dilemma, because he was never going to have a chance to fit in anyway. In effect, when you’re put in that situation, running away isn’t cowardice: it’s survival. So when Eddie says ‘there’s no shame in running’, you know his words are weighted... you’re seeing a man who knows a thing or two about the shame of never having been deemed ‘enough’, and who’s managed to push through it enough to help others get out of it, too.

Now, contrarily to what the Duffers seem to think, learning to be unashamedly aware of your self worth regardless of how little people can profit from you is actually a very valuable lesson - and who better than Steve to benefit from it? Who more than Steve needs to run and not be made to feel ashamed of himself for it?

Eddie managed to sever his concept of self-worth from usefulness a long time ago; now, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, poor Steve is stuck in a place where his permanent performance of strength and reliability is his only assurance that he is wanted. Conforming to the expectations others have of him has become the only way for him to prop up his sense of self-worth. @werewolfsteve said it all too eloquently in this post for me to have anything to add to their analysis of Steve’s character.

It might have flown over Robin’s, Nancy’s and everyone else’s head, but Eddie has been through that exact process long enough to not notice. In fact, Eddie’s whole thing is noticing: the kids who are trying hard and staying behind, the kids who can’t push through like he did. Underneath the bravado, Steve is really a textbook case of the type of kid Eddie’s used to going up to at the school cafeteria. 

Eddie wouldn’t miss Steve in the dark with a blindfold on. Given some time and a little heart-to-heart, he would have taken just one good look at Steve and said: 

‘There is no honour in self destruction. There is no shame in running.’

[lindwurmkai]

okay! *cracks knuckles*

based on your response, i think you would definitely enjoy the untamed. whether you want to start with it or watch something a little less confusing first is up to you, so i'll present some choices:

the untamed: fantastical elements mainly include spells, curses, mystical artifacts, that sort of thing. plus one (1) Weird Creature and, of course, necromancy - that's one thing that fell victim to censoring in addition to the gay stuff, so you just have to imagine there is considerably more necromancy in the book. lots of drama, intrigue and revenge. synopsis here, it's a pretty decent summary i guess? you can absolutely tell that it's based on a BL novel even though the romance couldn't be exaaactly made overt. like. it's pretty obvious tho.

love and redemption: i'm so glad i get to recommend this. :D (it's where the guy in my icon comes from!) here we have interactions between gods and mortals, animal spirits in human form, fantastic creatures, and "demons" - one of the few confusing things about this show is the way that word is used. just keep in mind that the "demon clan" is a specific group that not all so-called "demons" automatically belong to, and that these are different from the western concept of demons. "maybe not all demons are bad" is a big theme the characters wrestle with.

it's focused around a het romance, but a subversive one (often defying gender roles), and the show is surprisingly queer regardless. a big part of that only becomes apparent after a huge plot twist near the end though, so you're just gonna have to trust me on that one. 😂 synopsis here, once again pretty decent. what "deprived of her six senses" means is the other confusing thing - don't take it too literally, the only senses she is missing completely are taste and smell. getting those back later leads to adorable situations.

the blood of youth: comparatively low on romance and the fantastical elements are on a similar level as the untamed (although with fancier JRPG-like battle CGI). i recommend it not just because i thought it was really good, but also because it's a great mix of genres. you start out thinking it's gonna be mostly martial arts adventures and then the court drama comes in. excellent cast of characters, very entertaining and exciting. somewhat unnecessarily wordy synopsis here - that doesn't even begin to describe how important the imperial court will be to the plot, heh.

back from the brink: het romance in which one of them is a dragon. :3 also has other creatures in human form! i really enjoyed the romance itself, which is saying something. once again, gender roles are subverted and the way the relationship plays out is also just ... unusual? not very queer, although the two end up in a temporary love triangle situation with an entertainingly odd guy at one point and naturally i ship them as an ot3 now. synopsis here, which fails to mention the amazing animosity between the two mains before they grow fond of each other, or how complicated it all gets.

word of honor: the other c-drama based on a BL novel that nearly everyone who liked the untamed has also watched. it's ... less fantastical but even gayer? very wuxia. sadly it got a little butchered by censoring, so there's an alternative ending (a.k.a. the true ending) that you have to find separately (pretty sure the whole thing has been posted on tumblr tho) and chinese fans have done lip reading analysis of scenes that were dubbed over with different dialogue. despite these challenges, it's very good. synopsis here, both leads are poor little meowmeows who've committed atrocities. there's an ableist subplot i hated but it's not very long. 😬

this one is also quite hard to follow, or at least my partner and i both thought so. lots of factions to keep up with, plus plot-relevant objects that keep changing hands until you're completely confused as to how many there are and who currently has them. 😅 worth it tho.

in conclusion, while i love word of honor and the untamed, i would perhaps recommend starting with something else if BL isn't what you're here for. on the other hand, they did successfully pull me in so make of that what you will.

Heyooooo

I have a chinese drama question and thought you'd be the perfect one to ask!

I was watching a chinese anime, fantasy historical, as you do, and thought 'hey, if i like this so much maybe I should give one of the tumblr propaganda live action shows a try?'

I just don't know where to start, the one a while back with the demon man with the flute(?) and the very serious looking man in white looked really good! But is a good starter show? And uuuuh what was it called again?

Cheers!

lmao i hope you don't mind me answering this publicly. that would be the untamed! it was the show that kicked off this whole ... thing. for me.

is it good? yes. is it a good starter show? hoo boy how do i even judge that at this point. 😳

i'll say this: you're going to be confused. many characters have 2-3 names, there are some plot holes (mostly as a result of censoring or just things getting cut for length iirc), and there is simply ... a lot going on. personally i went in completely unfamiliar with the genre as well, so stuff went over my head and i didn't know what some terms meant etc.

i can probably dig up some helpful posts tho!

i would also love to recommend some alternatives, but i'm not sure what you're looking for. the major genres or genre groupings i have experience with are, roughly, xianxia (focused on gods/immortals/cultivators whose goal is to become immortal), wuxia (deals with the "martial arts world" a.k.a. jianghu, which i cannot sum up in one sentence but basically it's a little more down to earth, although fantastical elements often exist to varying degrees, and it tends to feature characters living on the fringes of society), and historical/fake-historical stuff that doesn't fall under either of these. court dramas can be surprisingly entertaining if you ask me.

a bit of overlap is not unusual, i think, and then sometimes the plot centers on romance within one of these genres.

so do you want romance? is het romance of interest or would you prefer an "as much queercoding as we can get away with" adaptation of a BL novel instead (like the untamed)? which of the genres sounds most appealing? how much do you mind major character death? (very important question 😂)

i can recommend one or two things set in modern times as well, including the absolute mess (said with love) that is daomu biji (the thing with the graverobbing adventures), but you probably don't want to get into that or you'll be here forever. :P

please answer my riddles three give me some pointers and i'll make a guess at which of my faves you'd like best. or i'll just go looking for those explainer posts about the untamed tomorrow.