#or at least make him hit himself like that one time at the cinema

[jaypentaghast]

Interview with the Vampire (2022) | Season 2, Episode 3 Imagine you're having a drink and next to your table there's these two guys just..... intensly looking at each other for like 20 minutes

[mioons]

“in the moment — you and i.”

pairing. enhypen ot7 x fem. reader (hcs) ୭ৎ mlist

genre. fluff, first dates wc. 918 warnings. none?

— where they would bring you on your first date. extra. 💋

lee heeseung - arcade

he’s awkward. awkward as hell on his first date. he probably spent a few hours— hell maybe even a few days thinking of where to bring you. he thought restaurants were too cliche. what if he brought you to the movies and you didn’t like what was showing? would you even go out with him again after the first date?

heeseung suddenly remembered you loved plushies, loved every single type of stuff toy. then it hit him. bring you to an arcade and win you a plushie. that’ll impress you!

on the actual date he didn’t win anything and instead you were the one that got him a giant teddy bear. “next time win me that bunny plushie okay?”

at least he knows that this won’t be his last date with you.

park jongseong - restaurant

to be honest jay doesn’t have any experience with love whatsoever, the only thing he knew about love was from those tooth rotting movies and the love songs he makes covers of.

so of course he went with the safest option: bringing you to the finest restaurant in the city.

he offered you his arm when you two walked in, pulled your chair out for you, and even rubbed the back of your hand with his thumb while you were looking through the menu. what a gentleman he was.

after you ate finish, he rushed to the counter to pay before you could. he’d never allow his date to pay.

“thank you for today, i had a nice time with you,” you smiled and placed both your hands behind your back in shyness. jay found you so beautiful when you smiled and he hopes he can make you smile for the rest of your life.

sim jaeyun - cinema

he was scared of bringing you to the cinema in fear you wouldn’t like the shows. but guess what? he still brought you anyway because he already bought the tickets and he didn’t wanna waste his money

the day he brought you to the cinemas, a horror show was screening. “are you sure you can watch that? you can hold onto me if you’re scared,” he teased as gave you a cheeky grin.

“i bet 5 bucks you’ll be clinging onto me first,” you rolled your eyes playfully. “game on sweetheart.”

safe to say you won 5 bucks that day. at least jake knows not to bring you to horror movies if he doesn’t want to embarrass himself anymore.

park sunghoon - amusement park

he can’t sit down for ten minutes without dozing off. and he definitely didn’t want to doze off in front of you—his first date. that would be embarrassing.

the best way to not doze off was to do something fun. and what’s more fun than an amusement park? he doesn’t know.

on the actual date he paid for both your tickets.

saying sunghoon didn’t doze off was an understatement. he was downright screaming his lungs out on every ride; even those that weren’t scary.

by the end of the date he lost his voice but at least he gained a kiss on the cheek from you.

yang jungwon - library

he found out from his friend you loved reading. some might call you a bookworm but you were cute.

he wanted to show you he cared about your interest, your likes and dislikes so of course he brought you to the city’s biggest library. many books filled the shelves but the thing he admired the most was the way you eyes widened at the scene.

one of the things he did was listen to you ramble about your favourite books and how you hated cliffhangers. jungwon found it so endearing.

you two were both in the library till the security guards had to chase you out. what a great way to end the date.

“i’ll recommend you some books next time okay?” you said, which indicated than there were definitely more dates to come.

kim sunoo - picnic

sunoo loves the park, or anywhere with flowers and grass. he thought of bringing you to the park to let you experience the breath of nature.

he prepared a picnic basket with sandwiches, sushi and juice inside. he had everything prepared, even got you a bouquet of flowers.

when he laid out the picnic mat, he noticed how the wind ran through your hair, making you look like a garden fairy. so ethereal he thinks.

he placed a flower in your hair and said, “you’re so beautiful.”

“my little flower.”

ni-ki — cooking class

ni-ki wanted you to bring back a piece of him for you to remember him.

so what a better way to do that than to actually let you bring a piece of cake he made back home? he booked 2 slots for a baking lesson to learn how to make fudge cake.

he didn’t expect you to be so skilled in cooking, even better than him. but to be honest he couldn’t even measure the dry ingredients properly.

throughout the whole class, he kept asking you for help and always throwing bits of flour at you to tease you. he covered his hand in flour and patted your back, making your shirt have a flour handprint.

“god you’re such a kid,” you laughed and swiped a bit of cake batter across his face. “i could say the same to you honey.”

after that date, niki was sure you were the one for him

luvlyhee 2024 taglist:: open! send an ask!

[yurinaa-world]

Could you do Gallagher, Argenti, and Boothill with an actress reader who’s considered the silver screen queen of Penacony, the Robin of film, inspo of Judy Garland and Audrey Hepburn.

“𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝑜 𝒽𝑜𝓁𝒹 𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝒾𝓃 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒 𝒾𝓈 𝑒𝒶𝒸𝒽 𝑜𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇”

💫𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓈: Gallagher, Argenti, & Boothill x Female reader

💫𝒮𝓎𝓃𝑜𝓅𝓈𝒾𝓈: with a reader who’s considered the silver screen queen of Penacony

💫𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈: Fluff, & Spelling Mistakes

💫𝒟𝑒𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃: Silver screen queen = "silver screen" refers to the appearance of the movie screen in the early days of cinema. It often had a slightly reflective, silver-like look. So, a "silver screen queen" is a star who shines brightly on this "silver screen."

💫𝒢𝒶𝓁𝓁𝒶𝑔𝒽𝑒𝓇 "𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒮𝑒𝒸𝓊𝓇𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝒪𝒻𝒻𝒾𝒸𝑒𝓇 𝒪𝒻 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐵𝓁𝑜𝑜𝒹𝒽𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝐹𝒶𝓂𝒾𝓁𝓎"

He remembers you from the start to the glory days, and still to this day you remain glorious since then. There is never anyone in Penacony who doesn’t know your name or face unless they have literally been under a rock their entire life, your face is plastered on every poster in Penacony (Usually it’s always to upcoming movies that all release on the same week).

The rookies at the security office love raving about how good you looked in your new blockbuster movie, even making popularity polls on the bulletin board about which one of your movies you look the most attractive in (spoiler: he rips it off completely and gives those rooks a nice hit).

You always make sure to come and visit him in the after-hours, he usually gets annoyed that anyone shows up or stays past the closing time but he’ll make an exception for you, any drink you like, on the house. Just stay a bit longer, it’s been a while since you last saw each other.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“Should star like you really be drinking this late.”

He worries quite a bit about you, every time you show up, you always drink pretty heavy drinks as if you don’t have a stomach. How do you deal with headaches in the morning? “People drink all the time in Penacony, I’m just the only one in a bar.” Pushing your cup forward motion for another drink from him, which he takes with a huff.

“And who’s the one staying open for you.” 

“I could just drink somewhere else if it bothers you.” he could’ve just closed down for the rest of the day, but of course, you know he’s worried, just what might happen if people see Penacony’s ‘sliver queen’ walking around drunk.

 “And who would take care of you, who knows what creeps are around if you went somewhere else,” he groans while gently handing your 4th, or 5th drink? Who knows, it’s not like anyone’s counting. “If you’re going to drink at least do it at your ‘luxurious’ beach house.”

“It's not fun, I would rather spend all my free time with you.” He just froze at your words, staring down at the little smile you give him, lucky you said that while you were drunk—at least he has something to tease with now—yet he wished for you to say that while you were sober.

“Does anyone even know you’re here?”

 “Not at all.” Seriously, your managers sound more like strict parents, with how you're running out in a blue moon to come and drink. “I should get going before they find out,” groaning loudly while you just chug down your last drink in a single breath, getting off your bar stool before going into your pocket to retrieve your wallet. “It’s on the house…They haven’t started calling yet so you should stay a bit longer,”

“It’s been a while, who knows when I might see you again.”

💫𝒜𝓇𝑔𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒾 "𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒦𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝐵𝑒𝒶𝓊𝓉𝓎"

Have mercy on him, this knight of beauty, he sees the shining stars in the night sky but they can't even come close to the epitome of beauty you are. The way you’re beloved by so many in Penacony, it’s truly a beautiful sight to see (even though he doesn’t understand the dazzling entertainment you provide but it’s a beautiful sight to be able to gaze at.)

He can’t help himself but love every part of you and more, you grace him with your love for him and he shall repay it tenfold like the nimble knight of yours he is.

Small things he may do, a hard day for you, feet sore and slightly injured from the heels you wear (no matter how much padding you wear it still doesn’t help). May he be your assistant, allow him to do everything for you. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Imagen him not wearing his armour

“Is your foot alright, my dear?”

Your day felt like one of those days where everything was just slow, along with the counter of your heel just eating away at you with how much pain it was causing your heel bone throughout the day. 

You just grit your teeth under your smile while the counter of the heel wedges into the back of your foot, leaving a nasty red mark that you didn’t have the chance to take care of, just wincing at the feeling whenever you move your foot.

It’s gotten so bad to the point that even Argenti noticed the discomfort expression while looking at the foot, he couldn’t help but get on one of his knees to take a closer look at your foot—medkit beside him just in case you needed it, groaning in pain when he gently takes your foot, touching your burning bruise—he seemed pretty fixed on the bruise that looked at it for quite a while.

“Quite a gruesome bruise caused on your perfect skin,” He mutters, before quickly getting to work with a bandage to wrap around to put some compression onto it.

Just hearing you wincing and hiss in the slight pain when the bandages were pulled tight, he can’t help but want to comfort that horrendous pain. “My dear, may your pain be taken away quickly.” he smiles up at you while his hand gently squeezes your leg to comfort you.

“I’m grateful, but how will I move around my foot feels so numb?” you smile back down at him, not like you were serious just joking a little, but you should have known better since this Argenti.

He straight up picks you up with such ease and quickness leaving you in awe, while his arms under your legs, pushing you above him as you wrap your arms around his neck to be secure. 

“I shall carry you, wherever you need to go.”

💫𝐵𝑜𝑜𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓁𝓁 "𝑀𝑒𝓂𝒷𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒢𝒶𝓁𝒶𝓍𝓎 𝑅𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒𝓇𝓈"

Well, he’ll be damned, a total heartthrob lady like yourself, as his lady. If only he wasn’t a galaxy hunter, he’d have more time to spend with you and treat you better. Along with the fact your relationship is a complete secret from everyone in Penacony and those from the outside who come to turn to watch, which just makes things a bit difficult on both sides.

It’s hard for you to even meet up since everyone always seems to recognize either of you, Forget any type of date in a slightly populated area because it’s not going to work for the both of you, it just ends up with you wearing a full disguise, from clothes to makeup, the whole nine yards.

Sometimes he can’t even recognize himself whenever you show up at midnight for your small date to walk, scared him to death when you looked like that. Doesn’t matter at all though, he just wants to hold hands while you walk together taking in the view of everything when no one’s around.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“I ain't interested.”

Boothill just brushes you off as if you were dirty, not even bothering to turn to look at you. Yet it shows: you did well with disguise if he can’t even recognize you.

“Only eyes set on me?” You laugh at him, just to turn around and look at you so confused, your voice matches but not your face.“It’s me, Boothill.” Gently smacking his shoulder while he looked relieved. You’ve gotten your disguise down to tea this time. Who knows what else those pretty hands could do?

“Fudge, I couldn’t even tell it was you.”

“I can’t let anyone recognize me,” 

His hand interwoven itself with yours, bringing your knuckles to his lips, and kissing it gently. “What can’t these pretty hands do?” He just starts gushing out compliments, he just feels a bit guilty for leaving you for so long without any contract with him while he was gone.

“Come on, got you somethin’.” Quickly taking you away as if you were both children running to a secret spot in the woods, when he said he had something to show he wasn't joking. It was a beautiful sight, rows of flower bushes, all different colours of roses; all Illuminated by lamps. You usually never have time to visit with it a popular sight to see.

“The roses look like you. I saw them an’ thought you liked them.” 

“I’m surprised you paid attention to your surroundings.” you can’t help but tease a little, he cares you tell under all that steel he’s made out of, even his heart is made out of steel but at least beating (it’s gotta count for something right?).

“I ain’t dumbaxe, I can remember my lover's favourite things.”

if you liked this, consider tipping me on ko-fi! it'd mean a lot!

[obscurecurse]

Not Waving But Drowning (Ep 13)

ok sorry i got distracted by those other details from the ep. but i am once again asking for the KPTS scholars to dissect a kim look and it's this one right here:

(full disclosure the series of gifs for this post is titled like, "ohgodohfuck1, ohgodohfuck2, etc." i have been crying in public all week. and i accidentally dissected this scene in Reverse Chronological order, which is kind of interesting... does someone want to watch KPTS backwards with me? lord knows we've watched it forward enough times.)

i'm going to Posit™ some shit, but i did in fact ask for Your Interpretation...

this scene comes to the audience as a flashback, while kim is feeling emo about chay, looking at the polaroids in his apartment. and because it's got that flashback cinema feel, it almost reads to me like a glimmer of kim's mind, a bit of unreliable narrator? it's as if all of his memories of chay are compressed into a single moment, and its one that he feels he fumbled spectacularly. it's the epitome of their dilemma.

i didn't do a full rewatch for this (lol) but as far as i can tell, there's no other scenes where they're wearing these outfits, which makes it a little hard to place within the timeline. obviously this is before chay finds kim out, before chay is kidnapped, and probably before chay confesses? i reason that it's after kim has realized that chay is just a fan, though. the emotions behind the lyrics of chay's song seem to register as lyrics for Kim.

i think of kim, in general, as fairly composed. usually. he's an idol, well-mannered, and leans heavily on a poker face he's spent his entire life perfecting. (he obviously flips once he hits some threshold, which we see a few times. and then there's the moments where he literally has to turn it off, superseded by survival instincts.)

it's so interesting to me that he walks away here. he walks away when chay confronts him outside of his apartment, too. it's like, he doesn't trust himself, so he removes himself? or it's just muscle memory at this point? (he seems to flee quite a bit. he left home. he disappears himself after he pulls chay from the warehouse. its implied he's been avoiding chay. khun even seems to have a sense of humor about how aloof kim is when they meet in passing. kim continues to strengthen the muscle each time he walks away. walking away does not change things, but clearly he's getting something out of it. or it worked for him once and now it's just a character flaw. anyway)

he didn't even know he was playing with fire but now it burns. kim can't focus while chay looks directly into his eyes and sings to him. he can't sit still:

his jacket (HIS BLUE JACKET) is stained with black brushstrokes.

and perhaps my favorite thing about this scene is the envelope it comes in: we see chay how kim sees him now -> framed by the window of the sound engineer's booth, singing only for kim

my questions: why do you think he walks away here? what is behind that look? is it guilt? (because he knows how this will all later look to chay, and he understands now that chay had approached him honestly) is he barely containing the urge to return the apparent confession in chay's song? is he conflicted, torn by the firm belief that he's wrong for chay? is he considering letting the cat out of the bag, about being a theerapanyakul? is there something specific that kim does not want chay to see or glean from the look on his face? maybe a mix of some of these?

the other point of interest, for me, though not directly related to my query, is the look on chay's face. it's something like rejection or at the very least disappointed surprise? at face value, playing a song for someone you look up to is a very vulnerable act. this is not the reaction he was hoping for or anticipating. but it makes me wonder, also, if chay knows(/suspects) more than we all give him credit for? somewhere deep down he must know how unlikely it is that his idol would engage him, a fan, in this way? i'm not saying he's onto kim, but maybe he's aware something is off about this situation? or, i guess, another possibility is that he's just worried about kim?

[apoptoses]

Have you ever been reading Devil’s Minion and thinking to yourself, “damn, I just can’t nail down a face for Daniel”? Have you watched Interview with the Vampire and felt like neither Christian Slater nor River Phoenix hit the mark for you?

Allow me to introduce you to James fucking Spader.

Look at him! Is that not the face of Daniel, completely fed up with Armand feeding his cigarettes down the garbage disposal?

He’s got the naive and beautiful face but ALSO the defiant yet beseeching thing down! Also he was like 22 here, which is right around the age Daniel met Armand so he’s at peak Healthy, Pretty Molloy here. No wonder Louis decided to take him home!!

“Do you know what a zip code is, or a tax bracket? I’m the one who buys all the goddamned airline tickets. Millions. How are we going to get millions! Steal another Maserati and be done with it, for God’s sakes!”

Spader is the original 80′s pretty boy you’d assume starred as the leading man in some schmoopy romances or schlocky teen dramas and he did that for a minute. Like check him out in Pretty in Pink-

 Is this not peak Night Island Daniel, in his Miami Vice looking bespoke suit ready to head out with Armand for the night?

Look at him snuggled into his blanket in Tuff Turf, like Daniel hungover and forcibly woken up to honky tonk piano tunes!

But the deliciousness doesn’t end at his looks. Because in true Molloy fashion that man said ‘you know what? I wanna make movies for freaks and weirdos only’

In Sex, Lies and Videotape he plays the sweetest pervert who loves interviewing women about their sex lives, video taping it, and then watching them back naked but not actually getting off! He’s impotent, he’s a gentle and lovely weirdo, there’s vampire!Daniel fodder for days in this one.

Crash is a horny flick that defies all explanation and really you need to go in blind if you’re gonna watch this one, but let me just say this: If Spader and his Wife in this film aren’t the most Daniel and Armand coded couple in cinema history I will eat my shoes. Also there’s tons of beautiful footage of him driving around at night with his blond hair ruffling in the breeze.

Your prefer your Daniel with glasses? Oh, perfect, because in Bad Influence he plays a sweet guy who gets into a fucked up situation with a toxic friend and a sex tape!

In Storyville he lets himself be thrown on the floor and lays there submissively before getting involved in yet another sex tape scandal!

Don’t even get me started on Dream Lover, another smut filled romp (with some filthy deleted scenes if you google the uncut version) which has the most Devil’s Minion promo photos of all time-

Like! Get the fuck out!

I could just go all day about his body of work but some of it you’ve just gotta see for yourself. In pretty much every film you’re guaranteed smut with him being deliciously submissive, extremely gentle with his hands, and down for all kinds of kink. And in most of his movies he gets bloody at least once, like-

this is a shitty picture i took of my laptop but look at the blood at the corner of his mouth! Vampire activities!

In summary, let me hit you with a photo dump:

Daniel laying in a cheap motel room during the chase years!

Daniel with delightful 70s hair!

More glasses!Daniel!

Daniel with a half-buttoned 80′s shirt looking so beautiful it’s no wonder Armand couldn’t NOT turn him!

It’s dark, he’s wet, he looks exhausted!

He’s the ideal beautiful Molloy Weirdo and I will not be accepting any other arguments, goodbye!!

[nectariii]

❀ building 13 movie theater headcanons !! ❀

YURRRR !! went to da movies earlier today so i kept imagining specific nanbaka characters in like cinema situations :P cinemations...cinetuations...?? YEAH-

rock is finding a way to smuggle in an outrageous amount of snacks. bro's got candy in his sleeves and chips in his pockets. originally only brought them for himself but ofc the rest of cell 13 beg him for a bite and he lets them cus thats just who he is. despite how much food he brought in he still finds himself missing the beginning of the movie bc he couldn't resist the heavenly scent of overpriced popcorn

nico is a slushy FANATIC. mixin' all the flavors, dumping candies in it n shit. totally the kid in the back of the movie theater slurping the last drop out of the cup hella loud when a quiet, tense moment is going down in a film. hajime's annoyed but stares daggers at anyone who tries to shush him. NICO'S FAV SLUSHY FLAVOR IS THE RED CHERRY ONE !!

uno, bless his heart, is absolutely the person who tries to predict the movie's plot before and during it. and the bad part is he's usually right. also the kinda guy to be scarily good at guessing what the characters are gonna say next lol

jyugo actually likes the movies more than you'd expect. always pockets the 3d glasses just cus he thinks they're cool and he likes that he can spend time with the rest of cell 13 without a heavy focus on talking or interacting. it's also a bonus that it's dark and he can sleep if he gets bored

it took FOREVERRRR to drag tsukumo out to the movies. hc that he's a much bigger fan of media without human actors in it because it reminds him less of his past, so the movie he went out to see with the rest of them was definitely animated. also likes the dark because it makes him feel stealthy, but he has a bad habit of stepping on each and every piece of popcorn or puddle of nacho cheese in the aisles...also insists on using the photo booth whenever he does hit up the cinema cus despite it all he still really likes getting his picture taken

yamato volunteers to wait on the snacks and carry them in while everyone goes ahead to take a seat in the theater. previews end and the movie is 15 minutes in but he still isn't there. everyone thought it was because the food was taking long to come out, but it's just because he forgot which theater to go to and kept circling until hajime and seitarou found him. prolly has trouble locating which seat to go to on his own cus he finds the letters and numbers confusing and hard to see in the dim light (totally not projecting)

seitarou has perfect movie etiquette and tries to get everyone else to follow his example, usually to no avail. his only problem is that he's too considerate of others and thinks he's being impolite when he's really not. the type to take the smallest bite of his food and tiniest sip of his drink so he doesn't disturb anyone. the kind to walk all the way around to the other side of an aisle because he doesn't wanna ask someone to pull back their seat for him to pass. poor guy, he even double-checked to see if his phone was on do not disturb and got shushed because his brightness was all the way up </3

andddd hajime. he's usually the sponsor for these outings since yamato literally can never find his wallet and seitarou doesn't have the heart to tell the others not to drain his bank account by buying ever concession there is. he doesn't let the inmates go wild with snacks and makes sure they behave properly while in there. uno tries to get the inmates to sneak over to another theater and catch the next showing but hajime catches them and makes them pick up the teensy bits of food they left on the ground. he's also the one who has the final say on what movie they actually go to, and even though he says he checks the ratings and plot beforehand because he "doesn't want to watch a shitty movie", it's actually because he wants it to be worth everyone's time and appeal to all of them at least a little bit. dadjime for the win <3

[persephoneflouwers]

Lucky Again

I spent the last few days thinking about this song quite a lot. I haven’t paid much attention to it at first, probably the excitement felt a bit mitigated by the fact we knew the song already, but I’ve been binge listening to the album for a month now and every week it’s a new week obsessing with a different song, so now it’s Lucky Again turn. I haven’t read many analysis or opinions lately, because I’ve been pretty busy, so I’m sorry if this is something someone already wrote about or if it doesn’t really make sense. It does make sense in my head tho, so I’ll hope I can articulate my thoughts well enough to convey the message lol.

I think Lucky Again is a very comforting song, more like self-comforting. It is a love song, but to himself. And since when I started reading at it like this… Lucky Again has been hurting more than any other song in the album. Yeah, I said that about All this time too but yall know what I mean lol. They are very very very personal songs. Louis is so good at writing about himself and being so open to fucking stub your heart with a single word, but sometimes it goes a bit unheard. Not here tho, not here.

Anyway. Let’s start!

You give and give until it's gone away, Just tell yourself you've got another day

Starting with a bang. I usually read deeper than necessary but the incipit feels a bit tough, doesn’t it? He’s saying life can get consuming. It consumes you, your time, your energies, sometimes your feelings. You give and give until everything is gone and you go though your day by inertia, one day after the other.

You've lived that life, you just don't see it yet

Truth been spoken. When you are in your darkest place, it’s hard to appreciate what you have and usually you miss it when it’s gone (oh wait! Maybe you don't know what's lost 'til you find it 🎶)

I see how hard you've worked to be yourself

When I tell you I sobbed the first time this line clicked in my brain. Just imagine Louis saying this to himself… argh! I don’t know how to react. It’s like absolutely amazing he appreciates and values how much he has grown as a person and how many steps forward he has taken and how rough some times were. It’s amazing to see him acknowledging he came out of his own dark places or at least he has tried. I was wondering what Louis meant when he said in some interviews he doesn’t like when people pity him, and I see why. There’s nothing to pity here, it’s just congratulations for how strong and tough he is. Hard work always always pays off.

If you believe that guy is Superman, They're selling tickets at the cinema

The interpretations of this line are potentially endless, but it always hit me for how real it is. It spoke to me like the best way to say ‘it’s bullshit, but you do you’. It’s a recurrent concept in FITF, the disillusionment and the concreteness of reality. He’s not a dreamer in this album, always very optimistic, positive, mature but never not pragmatic. He sounds jealous at some point, like one of those things you say to your partner when they make a comment about somebody else, right? But it’s the way he sets this in a specific direction, he sets the tone with two words: superMAN and cinema. So it feels to me like he is talking about a famous person who usually gets idolised, and by extent fame, popularity in general. I am not a teacher, but I would say this is a rhetoric figure called Synecdoche and I absolutely adore it! So does Louis, by the way. The choice of words is interesting and telling. He’s using believe as something a bit negative here. That’s ironic for an abum called FAITH in the future, isn’t it? But it’s his way apparently. He wants to create a paradox, a contrast and it’s clear since the cover of the album, since it doesn’t strike as a faithful cover to me lmao

Whatever gets you through the darkest night, Just find the light, Out in the madness, hold tight

Now that I’m writing about it, every line in this song feels like a ring of a chain and everyone references the other like it’s 🤯. Sometimes when I listen to songs I imagine how the singer would speak to someone else. For this part, I clearly see future Louis talking to present Louis and that applies to any other timeline, it’s an inception of Louis talking to himself basically. He’s encouraging to keep going no matter what (whatever gets you).

Through the night… isn’t it a-m-a-z-i-n-g how consistent this theme is in Louis songs? He’s been singing Through the dark for months and look at her, coming back in disguise! Self references are hot, but this one gets the cake. Is he by any chance saying «whatever gets you through the night… we will find a way through the dark» etc etc? Love it. 10/10.

'Cause I'm a hard man to lose

This has always felt a bit… weird. Like imagine you go “im hard man to lose” in a song where you are basically saying you are happy you’re together again or something. It feels… arrogant? A bit? And honestly that’s not a ‘songwriter Louis’ move. I just don’t see it. And I know, it’s always about the layers with him, but what if it’s literal this time? What if he is saying “I am not the one gives up, I am not the one losing”? After all, he’s been pretty open here about how hard he worked, he has just said he has to hold tightly.

But I figured it out then made my way back To a life I would choose

He settled it for me in this line. He is not one to lose, that’s how he went back to the life he chose and he says it as proudly as he can because the thing is… it doesn’t matter how crazy it is (the madness and all that) but he would do it again. Despite all the shit, he would do it again. You can take it as a nod to his relationship of course. He changes the line second time with ‘I'm a hard man to find, but you figured it out and I love you for that’, almost pushing for a love story interpretation. But to me it feels more like he is talking about second chances, specifically in his life and work opportunities . The life I would choose part screams career to me and hits you in the face pretty hard if you think of how many obstacles he has been going through since the start of his solo career and even before during the band.

We were lucky once, I could be lucky again

He’s been using only you/I form til here. Now, I know this we can be misleading. It’s very natural to conceive a we as an us, like two people in a relationship or something, but see… that’s very Louis lol. He writes songs like stories and here he’s storytelling. Sometimes it even feels like a plurale maiestatis! I use it an embarrassing amount of time especially for non-formal conversations, and probably this is my bias of interpretation since English is not my first language but it’s curious the way he switches from a We (in past form), to I (possible future form). That’s why I think the we is used only to help with the story he’s writing about, the past he’s recalling while writing the song.

Before the world had got so serious, Before the time it got away from us

Layers againnnnn! Is this about his past maybe in the band or before that? Is this about… I don’t know, the pandemic? The world got pretty serious in 2020 didn’t it? And stunt-wise things haven’t been looking pretty bright since the second half of 2020 so… yeah. But actually I consider this a description of more innocent times. He seems nostalgic of. Still… he doesn’t seem to be willing to go back then again. He misses simple times, but has faith the future would make him feel lucky again.

It got away from us… is so strong. It’s powerful the way he never really blames anyone for the bad or the wrong. It’s just that time goes away. Very Heraclitus of him with the panta rei and all (an usual recurrent theme in Louis songwriting) and very it is what it is too. He’s very coherent in his songs, I love it.

I meet you at the favorite subway stop, We grab some food then meet the lads for one

Storytelling king strikes again. He’s so good in describing moments from the past. Like Saturdays is a song born entirely from past memories, so I really shouldn’t be surprised he does it in Lucky too, but still! Look, lines like this are seriously meant to paint a scenario in your head and he does it so well. Meet, eat and smoke with friends like a Netflix and chill ante litteram. It’s so straightforward. 11/10.

Look back on a time, I was lucky once, I could be lucky again

I love love LOOOVE the way he uses look back on a time, because he really kinda confirms how all he just did was recalling moments from a past life through lyrical narration.

What a gem of a song.

Also special mention to The unfiltered version of Lucky again with the “I’m lucky/I’m in love” whatever the fuck you meant by that, Louis, that was pretty sick and it should have survived the final revisions.

[tabl3]

I'll have you know that writing this scene in abdicate physically hurt

Horace!”

Skylar shot up in bed, trying to focus through the hair draping around her sweaty face.

She stumbled free from her scratchy sheets, not wincing when her bare feet hit the cold floor like she usually did from the recent loss of her invulnerability.  

Skylar tripped more than walked to the door, tossing it open. She wasn’t sure where she was headed as she traversed the winding corridors, rubbing her arms from the chill. 

She tapped the wall with her palm every step, trying to stabilize herself. It felt strange, not having the familiar sensation of hovering, which would cut the travel by half at the very least.

Skylar found herself following a tiny source of light, a strip from under a set of double doors. She sped up, feeling a swirl of anxiety in her chest intensifying. She crashed into the doors, sending them flying open. 

“Eek!”

Projectiles went flying around the room. Skylar paused, hand still on the doorframe. Horace had leaped off the rec room’s couch, bathed in blue light from the TV. He was holding out one of Kaz’s tofu pops like a weapon to ward her off with, clutching a popcorn basket to his chest. Skylar blinked. She rolled her eyes, flicking a piece of popcorn from her matted hair. It was the day after he’d pretended to be her father at school, and that made things still a bit awkward between them. Or her, at least. Horace seemed unaffected.

“Tofu pops and caramel corn,” she noted. Skylar stepped inside, crossing her arms in a teasing manner. “Good combo.”

“Isn’t it?” Horace stuck the pop in his mouth. Skylar wrinkled her nose, walking further to meet him. “Want some?”

“I’d rather die,” she said cheerily. Horace snickered, making his way back to the couch. He wrapped his favorite big furry blanket around himself once more. He was watching an old-timey-looking movie, shaky graphics frozen on the screen. Horace’s question snapped Skylar away from it. “What are you doing up?”

Skylar jumped. Horace stared at her, a slight frown growing on his face. She shuffled from foot to foot, rubbing her arm. “Uh… nice night for a walk…?”

Horace narrowed his eyes. She gulped. He hummed and shrugged, biting off a chunk of his tofu pop. 

“Kaz is gonna kill you.”

“He remembers who underpays his salary for a job unsuitable for a child,” Horace countered. “He would never.”

Skylar giggled. 

Horace smiled.

“Why are you up?”

“Pinnochio,” he pointed with the pop.

“Who and the what now?” Skylar asked, craning her neck to look at the TV.

“Fantastic cinema,” Horace explained, not really explaining anything in the process. “Met Disney once. Alright fella.”

A beat.

“Huh?”

“Wanna watch?”

“Uh…” Skylar tilted her head, rocking on her heels. “What’s it about?”

“Pff, I dunno,” Horace scoffed. He raised his blanket-draped arm, widening his eyes and nodding toward it. 

Skylar chewed her cheek, moving forward.

She sat beside him. Horace hit play, scooting his arm to be squished between their sides instead of around her shoulders. He offered her the bowl. She pushed it away. Horace put a hand to his heart, sticking out his lip. Skylar laughed fully this time, nudging their shoulders together. Horace shoved back, settling against the couch. She decided to lay her cheek on his shoulder, focusing on the movie. 

She had drifted to sleep there. 

Skylar watched her younger self, feeling a tightness fester in her ribcage. If only she’d known. Known about his fond smile as he gazed down at her. Known he’d become the greatest father she could ever ask for. Known she wouldn’t get even four years with him. 

Skylar made a pathetic sound in the back of her throat, reaching toward the distant memory.

[skekilla]

https://www.deviantart.com/skekilla/art/Runaway-Train-Act-I-Scene-8-903218157

Things couldn’t get any more terrifying.

Desperately, they all scrambled to get out of that horror-show of a theater. Johnny’s heart was racing. The film, the demons, not to mention the already stressful events of the last few days—it all built up a horrible dread, only to be knocked over and become a big mess of terror. Now, not only was he in physical danger, but mental too; that taunting voice with its threats and suspiciously deep insight into not just him, but all of their little party had now sent him into complete mental turmoil. All kinds of horrible things played out in his mind, both memory and make-believe; his past and new friends alike spread out dead, demons tearing at them like dogs, a far off voice issuing commands with glee for them to mercilessly kill. He breathed heavily. He was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack.

He was vaguely aware of the others getting the heavy sliding door open, but all he saw was the way out. They had their escape. He darted between the rows of movie chairs, dodging the ever increasing amount of demons seeping from the ceiling, fighting his way to safety. Please, please, please just let me out of here! Let me out of this crazy place! A yelp escaped him as he finally broke free of the cinema’s confines, having been pushed out by Curtis. The sour sailor was the last out; he’d made sure of that much, practically throwing the other three out before him. Now he was making a truly valiant effort to hold the door shut against the things that flooded into the theater like water into the hull of a ship. It was clear he wouldn’t be able to keep the flood back for long, though; boney fingers of shadow cracked through the frame, prying it open further and further by the second.

Anticipating the break, Johnny scrambled behind a nearby booth seat (they’d found themselves in some kind of bar now). He willed and begged and screamed at himself to calm down. The sound of cracking wood and screeching metal did not make that business easier, though; with one last grunt of failing effort from Curtis, the door finally burst open.

Someone screamed—whether Sally or Orla, Johnny didn’t know and couldn’t tell from his hiding spot. Sounds of an awful struggle took place. It almost sounded like Curtis was actually trying to fight all those things—his constant curses and insults made that obvious. Judging by his word choice, things weren’t going so well. Daring to peek out from the booth, Johnny saw a tidal wave of demons washing over Curtis and into the rest of the car. He was getting beaten. He was losing the fight, and badly.

Johnny had to do something. What… what can I do… He frantically glanced around. And then he saw it. A fine, crystal glass on top of the table he was under. “RT” was engraved in it. Runaway Train. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins. Though still jittery with shock, he stood up, grabbing the glass in his good hand. I’ll show you who’s running away! Aiming as best he could so as not to hit Curtis, he threw it like a grenade into the fray.

And like a grenade it was; it shattered, shards flying in every direction. Hisses and screeches from the little things sounded. For a moment, a shaky smile danced across Johnny’s face. He had done it! He’d finally been really useful. He must’ve gotten at least a quarter of those creatures; that was quite a lot of damage. But then, when their furious, glowing eyes turned to him, he realized now was certainly not the time to be smiling. Without a moment of delay, that quarter of the demons came at him, claws ready and eyes flashing.

Johnny ducked down again immediately. A demon or two lashed out under the table with their little talons. Each slash made him scream as he scooted out of the way. He tried to kick them away on impulse, but his prosthetic leg only flailed out weakly. It didn’t work as planned in any sense; none were deterred, and in fact they only got angrier. They grabbed the leg in retaliation, trying to yank Johnny out from under the table with it. No no no!

“Crazy rhythm, here’s the doorway

I’ll go my way, you’ll go your way

Crazy rhythm, from now on we’re through!”

The demons all stopped to look at the source of the music. From where she must have been hiding behind the bar, Sally had now stood and was singing in her sweet voice. The man under the table now mostly forgotten, the demons’ grips on the prosthetic loosened. Some even let go all together and ran to the bar to get front row seats to the performance. Oh, thank you, thank you Sally!

“Johnny!” Curtis hollered from across the room, cutting into the melody of the song. Johnny didn’t look a second too soon; he was just in time to see Curtis’ pistol thrown onto the seats above him.

Some impulse trained deep into his head made him reach for it, cock it in the blink of an eye, and get one of the things’ heads in his sights with trained precision.

“Here is where we have a showdown

I'm too high hat, you're too low down

Crazy rhythm, here's goodbye to you!”

Then that impulse faded, leaving him to realize just what he was about to do. The Pavlov soldier—conditioned by the reward of living another moment at the firing of a gun—tensed his finger on the trigger, but the sensitive animator from all those years and years ago checked his heavy hand and recoiled at the memory of red and pink splashing everywhere. Even though this creature—this demon—and all the others like it meant to kill him, he just couldn’t bring himself to do the same. He couldn’t do it again.

But he had to do something. He had to get them away from him, or at least, scare them into leaving him be. He realized the easiest way to do it then. I’m sorry… at least I didn’t do something worse. With that apologetic thought, he squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could, aimed down a little from the demon’s head, and fired at what he knew would be its arm. The bang made him flinch. The thing’s screeching afterward made an awful, familiar guilt sink over him.

Before it or its friends could react any more severely than hissing, though, Orla spun in and kicked them all up their jaws. Those who weren’t caught in the whirlwind of her boots scuttled away in fear. “Phew!” she breathed after they were all gone. “Now, up with you! These critters are scraping for a fight and that fancy gun would be just a treat right now.” Despite the danger, she smiled as she reached down to help Johnny out from under the table.

He was much less cheerful about this whole thing. He looked frantically around the car as he crawled up and out. His eyes widened as he saw the mess Curtis was still in. Though the number of his opponents had been greatly reduced, he was still in a jam. “C-Curtis,” he stuttered to Orla. “He needs help- go to him, I’ll shoot from here.” Though the idea of that made him sick to his stomach, he didn’t figure he could be much use in any other way.

Her lively eyes danced, following after his. “Well! I guess I’m finally getting myself a sailor, then,” she said, her grin gaining a flirtatious quirk that dimpled her cheeks. “Take care not to shoot either of us! Wouldn’t blame you if you did, of course; I’ll be reeling around almost too fast to avoid!” Her bragging finished, she skipped off to do as she was told.

“I will,” Johnny whispered under his breath as he watched her go. Though he was anxious about practically everything happening right now, he knew for absolute certain that he wouldn’t shoot anything but his targets. Though you never would have guessed it, he was quite the deadeye. Maybe it was something to do with his years spent steadying his hand to ink frame after frame, but, though he had never shot a gun in his life before going off to war, he had been a crackshot right away when he was put to it. Even with just his one dexterous hand now, he knew he’d still be sharp as death with his aim. He truly hated that he would.

“What's the use of prohibition?

You produce the same condition

Crazy rhythm, I've gone crazy too!”

Tears pricked his eyes as he opened fire from behind the booth seat. He made sure to hit them all non-lethally, but that didn’t keep the memories of pain from creeping closer and closer to the surface with each fired bullet. Each flash of fire, each click and bang, they all triggered his mind like it, too, was a pistol, shooting off recollections agonizing as any gunshot wound. At least it’s helping Curtis and Orla, he thought, trying to reassure himself in any way possible.

He wasn’t lying to himself, to be fair; he was surely helping them. If the demons weren’t driven away outright by the wounds inflicted by Johnny, Orla made sure they didn’t see it fit to fight on any further, or Curtis tossed them back to the doorway. Even when Johnny inevitably ran out of ammo, the mob had been thinned quite enough for the two to get on the winning side of this fight. They were going to survive. They were going to win.

Thump. Bump. Thump.

Deafening thuds came from in the cinema. Time in the car seemed to slow to a stand-still; all eyes turned to the door. Even the demons stilled themselves and brought their beady little eyes to look. Johnny saw something in their shades of red, purple, and yellow change. Something dark and desperate made their pupils narrow to barely slivers of their original size. He realized it was fear.

Suddenly, the door slammed open. Roaring through it, almost too big to fit through the frame, was a horrible creature. While its shape was human in some sense—less vaguely so than the other demons and such, but still much larger than a normal person—it was a ghastly sight. Its dark cloak shrouded it, though from what Johnny could see, there wasn’t actually anything it was shrouding; it had no neck, and its massive, shadowy claws were only really distinguishable by the tears they left in the wallpaper. But most eerie of all was the mask that was where its face should be. It was a ghostly ivory, cold as the moon. Its surface was only broken by two gaping eyeholes, a smaller slit for breathing, and a golden “III” on the forehead. Horns and ears, like those of a ram, curved from it.

Johnny jerked back behind the booth seat. He pressed his hands over his ears, trying to drown out the horrible screaming roar it let out. What was that thing?? Panic and fear all slammed down on him at once. Even the other demons were running away at the sight of it; what would they be able to do?

Another tortured scream erupted from it. It almost sounded… afraid, itself. Afraid? What’s got something like that afraid? he couldn’t help but wonder.

Wood and glass smashed just behind him; doubtless, the thing had destroyed the booth just behind him. If it was continuing on like this—lashing out in fury at everything in its way of escape—then… “I’m next,” he whispered to himself. “No. No no no no-”

Though he scrambled from the booth as fast as he could, he wasn’t quite quick enough. Johnny’s own screams mingled with the masked creatures’ as the force of it ramming through the back of the seat sent him flying to the carpeted floor. Pain thumped through his body, but the immense fear beating on his brain was what really made him buckle. He didn’t have to worry about getting up, though. The distressed panting just above him made it clear that if he tried, he wouldn’t be able. He’d probably die if he did, in fact. The thing had fallen over him in its struggle to escape. He was trapped under it. He was within the grasp of death.

So, this is it, he thought. This is finally how I die. He squeezed his eyes shut. In an instant that felt like a lifetime, he thought of himself. Growing up. School. The studio. The war. His ma and pa, may they rest in peace. Polly. Though he had lived through so much suffering and indignance and guilt, he supposed, looking at it now, there was a point to it; maybe not something pleasant about it, but it was better than it all being over. He didn’t want to die, especially not like this. But, he figured resignedly, this was it. Maybe my life wasn’t the greatest. But… at least I had one. And to think I never saw how wonderful that is. Not until now, anyway.

He awaited sure death like this. However, numbness never came. Neither did darkness. Not even pain—not more than he already felt, anyway. Slowly, Johnny turned his head and opened his eyes to see the creature above him, to see why he hadn’t died on the spot then and there.

The answer was immediately clear when he looked. The blade of a large, working shovel stuck through its chest. The thing had been impaled. The shovel twisted, causing a guttural screech to be extracted from the creature. Finally, the scream died away and its body faded into shadow and mist. All that remained of it was the mask, which fell on Johnny’s back.

However, Johnny was quickly distracted from the death of the thing by what was revealed when its hulking form dissolved. A man, holding the shaft of the shovel, stood over him. An old, ragged coat hung over his broad shoulders. Eyes burning with cold fire peered down at him from under a wide-brimmed hat. A grim smile was etched into his face. Johnny’s eyes widened. It was the man from the forest car! The man who had held off that demon and allowed Sally and him to escape! He was frozen in shock, not sure how to react to this strange and foreboding man who had saved his life twice now.

The stranger chuckled to himself, breaking the silence that had suddenly fallen over the room. He reached down, picking that horrible mask up off Johnny. Then, slowly, he straightened up and looked around at the other three passengers.

Do something, Johnny! Come on! With a gulp, Johnny forced himself to speak. “Wh-wh…” he stuttered. “Who are you…?”

His burning eyes settled once again on him. He blinked, and then his smile grew to a grin. He chuckled again. “Your mercy,” he rasped. He stuck his shovel right into the floor beside Johnny’s head when he was done speaking. Its blade cut through the carpet into the wood.

That terrible feeling of dread returned to Johnny. He pushed himself a few feet away from the man, but not nearly far enough for him to stop looming over him.

“I think we oughta run,” Sally murmured, glancing between all her companions.

“No point,” the stranger said as he took a booming step, closing the distance that Johnny had gained from him. His smile chilled him to the bone. “You’re only running to a worse fate. I’m the only way any of you are getting off this train.” He pulled his shovel from the floor, held it in his strong grip, and turned it to aim its cutting edge right at Johnny’s heart.

[turtlethon]

“Invasion of the Krangazoids”

Season 7, Episode 25 First US Airdate: December 11, 1993

Krang creates six clones of himself which cause trouble throughout the city.

We’re into the final three episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season seven. “Invasion of the Krangazoids” is another story from David Wise and first aired on the same morning as “Combat Land”.

The Turtles emerge from the cinema after watching “The 47 Loyal Ronin Go Hawaiian” and are dressed as if they’re ready to go wild on spring break – I assume the Hawaiian shirts were supposed to be thematically in line with the movie they were seeing. Whatever the rationale was, while these disguises won’t fool anyone the Turtles do somehow manage to pull off the look. Raphael spots some tank treads on the road nearby, and the team assume they’ll lead to one of Shredder’s amphibious transport modules. After alerting April to a potential story in the making, they head off to investigate.

Bebop and Rocksteady are raiding the factory of Lightfoot Heavy Industries when the Turtles intervene. The battle that follows spills into a large bakery next door (which literally has a sign outside reading “LARGE BAKERY”), and soon descends into a food fight, with dough and icing used to defeat The Boys. After Bebop and Rocksteady escape in their module, the Turtles are greeted by April, who has arrived in her news van to film the action in progress. 

Later, in the Technodrome, Krang laments the lack of good help available to him in carrying out his schemes: Shredder is fixated on getting revenge on the Turtles, the Foot Soldiers can only carry out basic tasks, and Bebop and Rocksteady are... Bebop and Rocksteady. Wishing there was someone more like him that he could rely on, Krang is inspired to create six clones of himself. The new Krang-a-likes are provided with their own colour-coded bubble walkers and each have a loosely defined personality trait: the baby blue one is... aggressive, I think? The pale yellow Krang is neurotic, the purple one is vain, aquamarine Krang is depressed, the dark grey clone seems to consider himself the mastermind, and greenish yellow – somehow we’ve already run out of colours – is... I’m not even sure, possibly some kind of fun-loving goofball.

Krang orders the clones to board one of the transport modules and perform a raid in the city to obtain supplies he needs. The duplicates question why they should take orders from him, but the original Krang has prepared for the possibility that his creations might turn on him (it wouldn’t be the first time such a mutiny has happened, as anyone who remembers Alpha-1's reign of terror can attest.) Using a control panel, he has the bubble walkers perform a series of routines to demonstrate his power over the doubles: if he wanted to, Krang could even have his new army set their in-built weaponry against each other and blow themselves up. Now convinced to do their master’s bidding, the clones head off to carry out their mission.

While all this has been going on, Shredder has been hunched over a computer panel, demanding that the Technodrome’s equivalent of Chat-GPT come up with a scheme that will defeat the Turtles. When this fails, he instead turns his attention to a TV broadcast, where April recaps the recent defeat of Bebop and Rocksteady at the bakery by the Turtles. Noting that April is always on the scene whenever his plans are foiled, Shredder believes he’s hit upon an idea that will finally take out the green teens, and summons The Boys.

I guess April has just been standing outside the bakery talking to the Turtles throughout all of this, as they’re still there in the next scene. (Seriously, in the time since the bakery incident Bebop and Rocksteady had time to travel back to the Technodrome, Krang created his gang of clones, and as we’re about to see, the clones have now arrived in the city: you’d think all of this would have unfolded over the course of at least a couple of hours.) A radio message from Burne informs April that “some weird alien brain” has been seen carrying out a raid at A-1 Scientific Supplies, and so Channel 6’s star reporter heads off in her van alongside the Turtles to investigate what on paper sounds like Krang at work.

The Turtles arrive on the scene and spot a transport module nearby, which Michaelangelo splits off from the team to examine. Meanwhile, the others head into the A-1 building, and are confronted by the baby blue Krang, who uses his walker’s weapons to force our heroes into a strategic retreat. Nearby, Mikey faces the aquamarine Krang, who goes on the attack with a saw-blade weapon. Not wanting any part of this, he runs off to re-join the group.

Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello reveal that they just saw Krang inside A-1's offices, which doesn’t line up with Michaelangelo’s assertion that he encountered Krang next to the module. A radio message from Burne informs the team that Krang is currently at Lightfoot Heavy Industries. Evidently Burne, at least, is full of it: as the Turtles begin to consider the possibility that there may be more than one Krang, all six of the clones appear in attack formation in front of them, concluding the first act.

Seeing that the odds of being able to defeat a team of heavily armed Krangs is slim, the Turtles and April escape in the news van. Back in the Technodrome, the real Krang watches these events unfold, and orders his duplicates to focus instead on their given mission.

Our heroes arrive in the car park of Channel 6 and head upstairs to investigate, the back doors of the van unlocked and April’s news camera left up for grabs. Unbeknownst to April and the Turtles, Shredder’s mutant henchmen are nearby, ready to act on the orders given to them earlier. That means it’s time for a...

BEBOP AND ROCKSTEADY WARDROBE UPDATE: Today, The Boys are dressed as on-site service technicians, each wearing a beige jumpsuit with orange trim, blue goggles, tan gloves and white caps. As instructed, they place a special component inside April’s camera. Moments later Vernon emerges and questions the duo as to what they’re up to. Spotting a vending machine nearby, Bebop spins a tale about them being from “The Department of Snacks”, tasked with handling an impending vending emergency. After Rocksteady gets in Vernon’s face the reporter agrees to step aside and allow the pair to go about their business. (Somehow, despite having had countless interactions with Rocksteady, Vernon doesn’t recognise that he’s currently talking to the mutant rhino even when they’re nose-to-nose: maybe he should get his eyesight checked.)

After Vernon leaves, Rocksteady tears the front of the vending machine off and helps himself to the snacks inside. Bebop points out that the phony job was only an excuse to get Vernon off their backs, but his buddy is too hungry to care.

Upstairs, the Turtles work with April to devise a plan, intent on taking out the bubble walkers to disarm the Krang clones. The alien brains go on to carry out another raid, but as they do so something unexpected happens: their tentacles begin to change shape, evolving into small hands. The Turtles confront the greenish-yellow one as he approaches a transport module while carrying some scientific equipment. Far from being left immobile after being relieved of his robot body, the diminutive villain uses a pair of newly-formed legs to escape down the street. A hundred and sixty-seven episodes in, and I think the sight of a Krang scurrying around on little baby legs must rank up there as one of the most oddly unsettling visuals in the history of the series.

Before the Turtles can even come to terms with what just happened, further problems arise. April attempts to film the unfolding events on her camera, but thanks to the module installed by Rocksteady and Bebop, being caught in its sights causes Leonardo to vanish. In a particularly bone-headed move, April’s first response to this is to peer into the lens of her camera herself, and inevitably she too immediately disappears.

If you’re dreading another “Camera Bugged” scenario where our heroes get trapped in an absurd VHS world, fear not: instead April and Leo are teleported to the zoo of all places, where Shredder and his mutant henchmen are waiting to take them captive. April’s mistake has resulted in her being transported with the camera, meaning the original plan to capture all four Turtles wasn’t entirely successful, though Shreds is willing to make do with what he has.

Donnie, Mikey and Raph are confronted by the Krang Gang once more, and are forced to escape in the news van after being fired upon. Returning to the transport module, the clones speculate as to why their bodies are changing, figuring that it may be the result of a quirk in the process that led to their creation. At this point, they officially tell the original Krang he can take his job and shove it, as they no longer require his bubble walkers to get around.

The development of the clones is happening disturbingly quickly, as in the next shot they’re standing around in the street, each now having grown a bipedal, reptilian-looking body. The group discuss their current lot, bemoaning how unsuited they are for the world they’ve found themselves in. It occurs to them that with the thermal equipment that was stolen for Krang they can set up shop underground and begin the process of heating Earth until it becomes a more comfortable place for them to live.

Donatello, Michaelangelo and Raphael discuss the circumstances around the clones growing bodies, noting how odd this is given that the original Krang doesn’t have one, though it’s acknowledged that he used to prior to being banished to Earth from Dimension X for his war crimes. This backstory has only ever been vaguely alluded to in the series, likely because anything that doesn’t revolve around what the Turtles are doing right this minute might risk losing the interest of the small boys that made up the bulk of the show’s viewership; Season three’s “Four Musketurtles” did show a group of the alien brains in bubble walkers, which seemed to contradict the idea of them being stripped of their original bodies as a punishment, though as I speculated in that episode’s Turtlethon entry that could be explained away as the group all being punished with the loss of their original forms prior to Krang’s own banishment to Earth.

More speculation follows: Donatello suggests that the latent DNA remains in the clones to allow them to grow new bodies, in the same way that some lizards are capable of growing new tails. The inference here seems to be that the forms the clones are taking on now are akin to what Krang used to look like. Donnie’s tracking device picks up on unusual thermal readings underground, a sign that the Krang clones are up to no good. While grappling with this issue, the Turtles also consider the loss of Leonardo and April. Shredder uses Leo’s Turtlecom to inform the team they only have thirty minutes to save their friends, though Donatello is insistent that they deal with whatever’s happening underground first.

The Turtles head into the sewers, approaching an adjacent rocky underground area where a thermal device is seen rapidly sinking into the ground. Donatello explains to Mikey and Raph that if it melts into the Earth’s magma, the entire city will be turned into an enormous volcano. Before the team can do anything about it, they find themselves confronted by Krang’s clones – now dubbed the “Krangazoids” by Michaelangelo - who have grown to the point where they tower over our heroes.

Act three opens with the Krangazoids confirming their plan to heat up the city using the thermal device. The Turtles fight back but only barely avoid being eaten by these fearsome new foes, and yet again are forced to flee the scene. Following their exit, the clones begin to fight amongst themselves, each convinced that they should be appointed leader of the group.

Turning their attention instead to the rescue of Leo and April, the team consider how to successfully defeat Shredder. An off-hand comment from Michaelangelo about the weapons installed on the bubble walkers provides Donatello with inspiration, and so the trio set about planning their attack.

The Turtles use the news van to barge into the zoo: though a group of Foot Soldiers are waiting for them, Donnie, Mikey and Raph emerge prepared with laser weapons nabbed from the walkers. Leonardo is soon freed and goes on to engage Shredder in a sword fight, as Donatello reclaims the teleportation equipment.

Shredder and The Boys escape in a transport module, but not before Donnie is able to place one of the teleporter components inside the vehicle. The other Turtles are confused as to why Donatello is so happy that their enemies got away, but he’s insistent that all will become clear soon.

With lava beginning to bubble up from underground, the Turtles leave April to confront the Krangazoids one more time. Still armed with the bubble walker lasers, the green teens round up the clones, and after momentarily losing April’s camera work to get it back. Michaelangelo uses the camera to transport the Krangazoids into the transport module, which by now is back in the Technodrome. The creatures confront Shredder and The Boys, tossing the module around. Meanwhile the Turtles work to open water valves which help to counteract the lava, cooling off the city once more.

The Krangazoids corner Krang in the portal room, but he convinces them he can send them to Dimension X, a world where they can live in comfort. The group are thrilled at the idea and rush through the portal, but this is a ruse on Krang’s part: instead he’s banished them to “The Dimensional Limbo”, doomed to float in a void of nothingness forever. (Perhaps they can pay a visit to Baxter while they’re there.) The Krangazoids again begin arguing among themselves, but the scene ends abruptly without any kind of real payoff: I suspect this is yet another case of an ending being cut for time, something that has been a regrettably common occurrence this season.

Our heroes are janky as all get out in the concluding scene, awkwardly walking down the street and remarking about how they need to make a point of destroying Krang’s cloning machine the next time they visit the Technodrome: the last thing they would want is to encounter six Rocksteadys, six Bebops, or worst of all, six Vernons. That last possibility becomes a reality – sort of – as they pass one of the show’s favourite locales, a TV store where a bunch of sets are on display in the window with the volume loud enough to be heard from outside. Vernon is seen reporting on recent events across the different TVs, noting that while the Turtles were said to save the day, he finds that hard to believe; though he hasn’t been cloned, for the green teens the sight of half a dozen Vernons is bad enough.

By the standards of season seven, “Invasion of the Krangazoids” is a by-the-book TMNT adventure, drawing upon tropes and ideas explored many times throughout the history of the series: clones, teleportation, food fights, Shredder kidnapping April (or any of the Turtles), and a plot to heat up the city have all been done before. This late into the run, I’m fine with that. It’s actually something of a relief to have a more routine adventure appear this far into 1993’s offerings, one that allows the Turtles, Shredder and the rest of the core cast to “play the hits”. Unlike many of the episodes which preceded it, there’s little in this one of historical significance, beyond a small amount of insight into Krang’s past. At this point, however, I think an episode allowing us to take a breather ahead of the approaching big finale was sorely needed.

A common issue that TMNT suffers from is that as each season approaches its conclusion the quality of the animation takes a hit, with time and financial constraints presumably leading to corners being cut. We start to see that again here, issues exacerbated now as a new overseas studio (Dai Won Animation, who had previously tackled outsourced episodes of Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters) has recently been appointed to handle the visual side of things. I strongly suspect that the decision to go with this team was motivated by budget cuts initiated by CBS, and that the sudden departure of James Avery around the same time was also connected to the purse strings being tightened. Nevertheless, the show will soldier on, with two more adventures remaining this year, the next of which will be “Combat Land”.

[adultswim2021]

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! #5: “Chunky” | March 11, 2007 - 11:45PM | S01E05

This one is a little unusual in that there’s no notable “hosting” segments from Tim & Eric. We start with “Sports”, a Euro/New-Wave song that celebrates athleticism with it’s single repeated lyric: “sports”. The song is accompanied by dumb clips with what I assume are supposed to be poorly-translated names of each sport. This ends with “helmet touch”, which is actually a clip from a mostly-deleted sketch called “Dumbellz” found on the DVD. It’s a Jackass-style stunt/prank show. More fragments from this missing sketch are used later on.

The main sketch of the episode is Carol and Mr. Henderson, where Eric plays an obese woman vying for the attention of her mean boss, Mr. Henderson, who is an unremarkable bald man with a bit of a gut himself. She has a nightmare where he cruelly leads her on and then throws coffee in her face while calling her a cow. This inspires her to get in shape, so she works out and loses a tenth of a pound. It’s a little uncomfortable when fatness appears to be the main punchline, and this comes close. Eric mentions in passing that he had a female friend who found this episode hard to watch. “hit too close to home” was the phrase he used, I believe, and I don’t blame her! Could this be the reason that Tim and Eric nominated this episode as their worst episode when Adult Swim did a “worst episode” marathon?

Worth noting: I can recall outtakes from this segment on the DVD (which I forgot to seek out as of this writing) that were very funny. Tim sidling up to Carol’s cubicle to flirt with her (filmed for the above-mentioned scene) He’s a fount of disgusting things to say to large women.

T’ird is a sister product to the B’owl, but this time it’s a turtle combined with a bird. The gimmick is that it’s a toy you can throw very far away and it’ll sluggishly take it’s time returning to you with little autonomous turtle legs. While you wait for it to return, you can accomplish various chores. It’s the answer to the problem of a normal frisbee: throwing one back and forth is too involved and you can’t multi-task during it. This one’s a touch weaker than B’owl but it’s still very good and a worthy follow-up. 

Next up is a clip from Crystal Shyps, a schlocky sci-fi movie by Glen Tenis, who would recur later in the series. Danny Mothers, a “borderline” host of a movie-related news magazine show interviews Glen about his movie. I remember the Danny Mothers character appearing in still photos promoting the show, and thinking “oh man, that guy looks great”. Who would’ve guessed that his usefulness would be stripped from him thanks to Steve Brule and On Cinema? He came back at least one other time for Tim and Eric Nite Live, and then was quietly put down. His name lives on as the handle of a seemingly-official Youtube channel which only uploaded promos from Awesome Show.

Anyway, the main problem with this sketch (other than Bob’s “borderline” performance which probably could rub some the wrong way) is that they are trying to make a sketch about a bad movie, and the difference between bad movies and what Tim & Eric regularly produce is negligible. It’s almost like a normal Tim & Eric sketch but you have to come up with jokes that call attention to that joke, just to differentiate it. Tim & Eric are great at coming up with conceptual flaws, but when it comes to recreating technical flaws it seems hypocritical or toothless.

There’s a brief ventriloquist act from “Horsey and Virgin”. It does it’s job: to unsettle the viewer for roughly a minute. There’s also a Spiderweb Attack prank on Tim (reading “Mouth Magazine”, a prop from a sketch that also went unused). The Spiderweb Attack was originally part of the aforementioned Dumbellz. This was meant to be comeuppance for Tim’s “Olive Prank”, where he tied Eric up and threw olives on him, eventually pushing a few into Eric’s mouth. Eric hates olives!

The episode ends with a nice song, about Mr. Henderson and Carol finally having a nice moment. It still involves coffee getting thrown in her face, and a coffee pot smashed on her head by coworker Larry. Mr. Henderson screams at Larry, who apologizes profusely. But it’s no good: “Lar, you blew it”. Mr. Henderson finally says that he loves Carol, leading into the nice song about them being in love. I love the way he says “FRENCH kiss”.

I guess I can see the case for this one being structurally less sound than the episodes that came before, but there was a time when I REALLY loved this episode about as much as the others. The audio commentary for this one is pretty pessimistic, which could be painting my view of this one. But I don’t think this episode is their worst. Not by a long shot.

MAIL BAG

Borderline is a nice, funny, but still relatively gentle way to joke about someone being on the spectrum. Nice! I'm going to use that one during Christmas.

Merry Christmas, by the way!

David Libel Heart's head might as well be up in the scoop of the Big Dipper. He's just that weird. What are your five favorite Big Dipper songs?

oh... fun!

5. Princess Warrior 4. All Going Out Together 3. Wet Weekend 2. Meet the Witch 1. Faith Healer

I’ve run through Big Dipper so much that I tend to skip them when they pop up on my playlist, but these songs I’m usually in the mood for.

One time a friend of mine called “Princess Warrior” “Bam Thwokish” as an insult, and I lightly defended it as “actually I think it’s pretty good”. Later I looked at my most-listened songs on my iPod and not only was “Princess Warrior” my most listened to Big Dipper song on my iPod but it was also literally my MOST LISTENED TO SONG PERIOD.

To be fair: I didn’t have the iPod for that long, and the effect of diminishing returns with the classic catalog was probably already setting in. Also: I was listening to it over and over for a reason, because I had an idea for a thing and I liked imagining the song being used in the thing. I don’t wanna say what the thing is, but I used to Think Big.

The usage of "outsider artists" on Tim and Eric was always a sticking point with some people. While I generally think they enjoyed their presence and weren't out to humiliate them like they were a wack pack, a lot of tim and eric fans (frat guys) didn't get the memo. I remember a video of some dudes prank calling Billy Crystals and it was infuriating. They basically drop the premise and call him a fag immediately.

I think I forgot to mention this, but I remembered surfing YouTube once and stumbling on a version of the “doo dah doo doo” recreated by jockish-looking high school students. It was jaw-dropping how bad it was. They seemed like they were somehow bullying nerds the way they were performing it? Like the look on their face was the same face they did to cruelly taunt guys in their class they deemed to be total spazes. It’s fairly easy to replicate Tim & Eric’s style in one way or another, but usually some puzzle piece is missing and you realize that it’s extremely important to have Tim & Eric style content only be made by Tim & Eric.

ANYWAY: I remember when Sam Hyde was feuding with Tim, it caused Tim to sorta admit that he might have gone too far with some of the “outsider artist” stuff. It rarely comes off as malicious to me, but there are certain moments that come off a tad cruel. When Tim & Eric went on DLH’s show and just ignored his questions to do bits, for example, that was the first time I thought that there may have been some intentional meanness thrown in there.

It's funny if you ask DLH about anyone else on the show (especially the celebrities) he just has nothing but effusive praise for most of them (he loves Zach!) but Tim and Eric he has nothing but bad things to say about them. Maybe he's on to something! Tim is friends with Fred Armisen after all.

I wonder what it really is. DLH sorta seems to perceive T&E are adversaries more than allies, I think he thinks that they are spitefully not giving his phone number to Zach so he can be in Hangover 4. He sincerely thought that Robin Williams stole the role of Mork from him. I believe him that he may have auditioned for it.

I am pretty sure Tim & Eric aren’t literally child-molesting Satan-worshiping Hollywood fake-friends, but if they are it’s just a lucky guess on DLH’s part.

[makahimetenshi]

Two separated ways - Chapter 8 - Arthur Maxson x Female Sole Survivor x Paladin Danse Fallout 4 Fanfic

I already have the amount of chapters the more I write, so its going to be a full complete fic

If you are very very very delighted with one fic and want a continuation I didn’t write or post you can donate me at least $5 bucks, most of this fics have next chapters I don’t finish because lack of motivation but hey a $5 is a $5, I see a few reviews and comments that fics that are abandoned months laters receive comments of wanting to know what happens next. Here it is, I finished my handling with you all, enjoy the fic

So…what he should expect today?

Definitely not sex because he wasn’t a doll to be used.

Hell no he wasn’t going to fill a void for rejection, he doesn’t have this type of problems  for anyone and isn’t interested at all to adopt them

Remember Arthur, you didn’t fuck her enough to adopt any problem. But the thing is that your manlet brain makes you attached to a certain woman when you repeat sexual intercourse and its good. That’s why it makes you go to Paradise Falls in the first place when she wasn’t even contacting you because she clearly was trying to get Danse in her heart shaped bed.

He sighted, repeating himself this time no get fucking attached again. I mean apparently she didn’t cheat on him despise not having anything but wasn’t fucking him with the heart, have some other man in mind, and that hurts his pride.

Arthur also think they have something growing…

His mind keep asking why the hell he was answering the call, why he was going to this date, of course she was going to try to seduce and convince him that he got all wrong, she didn’t explain to him enough, that she didn’t feel anything anymore for Danse…and sureeeeeeeeee try to fuck him, again.

Oh my gosh he almost cum inside that day, he avoided a big one.

So whyyyyyyyy was he going today? Why did he dress and arrive a ventibird?

He didn’t want sex today, wasn’t sure if he wanted her at all but he did want a child with her!

This was confusing.

For some reason the ventibird didn’t land in the same area from the last time, but now at the top of the bowling building, now the brotherhood did an improvised helicopter port. When Arthur move down he find some metallic stairs to go down the street but at the same time he cover his eyes with his arm to avoid sand and dirt getting on his face from all the wind and bustle from the ventibird he crashed against something, someone.

A pretty thin woman with a Laundered blue dress, huge skirt flying up moving with the wind.

His heart drop inside his chest at the same time she also cover her face to avoid getting hit by something and her black curled hair flying around, she picked up his hand and moved him down the stairs to stand on the street.

Once the wind was off, Arthur take a look around.

-Well well look at that –he said surprised about the good organization and movement.

There was tents, yes, its true, but they didn’t look raggy, or dirty, or unpolished, nono, they were decent sales post with clients, people passing by, brotherhood soldiers walking as security and even paying for the services around the tents

-Elder –Nora call, with her beautiful red lips at his side- are you really dressing like that?

He stop for a moment and then look at his boots. He was in his black suit and coat as usual.

-What do you mean? It is safe here doesn’t? –she sighted and quickly place a Wrapped cap on his head, moving it down his neck, right, it was a good idea to camouflage anyway

-You are the elder and we isn’t just a brotherhood camp, theres a lot of people –she whisper covering his face to the nose at least- I know most of the people doesn’t know how you look but you aren’t dress like a normal folk

-But it is safe here or not?

-Give me your coat, lets just cross the street to the cinema shall we? –he rolled his eyes and give her the coat, Nora pick his arm between hers and place the coat in the middle, he blushed at the image of having a kinda prewar wife on a dress hanging on his arm but then reminded himself why he was here…

Wait why is he here again?

She was attentive surely, looking at every side, it was such a simple task, crossing the street, even surrounded by brotherhood security in the towers and post, in every corner there was a brotherhood soldier but still, she obviously watch for him.

Arthur took the little moment to appreciate the good work into making it a transitable steet but full of life and…work…

The merchants, travelers, caravans, sellers, customers, even the braminhs walking by their owners with the rope in hand…She made it, she achieved this peace in this place were before it was an abandoned land full of raiders enslaving innocent people.

He take a breath in, she did, it was her folder, her plan.

The Twiring of lights above the stalls illuminating everything for some reason made it look magical. Like some kind of peace he only see in dreams.

But he can see from the way her shoulders were tense, and how she came prepared with a hat to cover his identity that it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough for her, it was still wastelands trash.

She actually open the hudge and heavy door of the cinema, surprising Arthur, both get inside and she closed, this time, with keys.

-Its only 20:30hs, theres still time, I arrived early –she sighted and lean against a wall- I would like to walk around, I haven’t see it finished.

-Maybe in another day when you don’t look like so elder, much more casual –what the hell was wrong with him?- tonight its bussy around, I didn’t expect that much of people, which means I have to remove some business plazas to maximize the walking distribution, its not good for the security having that much traffic

She was working, always working, her mind was always planning something.

-Doesn’t look like, why is it empty? I know its early but I hoped –he didn’t know what to hope honestly.

-Its my cinema silly, I booked all the seats just for us

That sounded wrong for Arthur.

-Its not exactly your cinema

-Oh right, I forget, it’s the brotherhood cinema, yeah, ill guess youll do such a good work making this place operative and profitable –the man rolled his eyes, tired, what was this all about?- besides I watch by myself all this 100 movie tapes to check which ones were in good state or no so I control the damn schedule

-Why did you call me Nora? –he spit- are we alone this time for real? You can call me Arthur

-Alright –she said walking off the entrance, the man followed her surprised that now there was a lot of fluffly seats organized for multiple people to sit around in direction where the proyector was pointing. Not much seats because the room wasn’t as big anyway

-Car seats? –he asked.

-Yeah, I wonder why they make this place a car cementery to make walls only.

-Because raiders are stupid

Silence, it was still early, and she wasn’t even looking at him

-I wanted to apologize –she said walking around searching for something- and talk

-Can I sit? –he said and leave his coat aside taking also off the cap, sitting in one of the car sears looking in front of him at the white wall were the movie will be displayed. They smell good, and looked clean with the lights off, makes him wonder how much abraxo and brushes  take to leave them this verbose- Danse talked to me

For some reason there was noise were she was, but he didn’t want to look at her.

-Did you believe what he said?

There was noise like when someone is cooking what the hell

-Which part?

-Everything, I know he badmouths about me

-Is that how you call it? –gosh he was in the middle of a couple fight because his lastname was desired.

-Well I don’t think im unbalanced for having standards

-How about the part you were high over heels after his ass for 10 years? –she made a silence even  with whatever she was being noisy- you have been his sister for more than a decade and don’t know he was my friend since I was an initiate? I knew it even before you came for your proposition to me

-It was noticeable?

-Very, I even ask him once why he didn’t approach you –again, silence- responded me like you cook unborn babys in your free time –which makes him wonder with the smell in the air- what are you doing?

-Not unborn babys that’s for sure –she came walking in her high heels and in that pretty dress with a pan on her hand, Arthur looked at her grunting in his insides, she really looked like a prewar wife- popcorn

There was corn seeds along with grease and salt.

-What its that?.

-Corn seeds cooked with sugar normally, but I didn’t find refined sugar or neither butter, so instead im using Brahmin grease and salt, not everybody is a fan of salty popcorn but I work with what I have.

-Never ate it before.

-Really? I do my investigation and it isn’t that weird it’s a thing passed on generation by generation to this days in all america

-Only eat corn boiled entirely

-Well, wastelanders cook popcorn  as a threat, a candy, and it is, a chip or snack –Nora shut her mouth, maybe it was a poor wastelander snack and he didn’t experience it ever, he was protected since childhood- back then when you go to the cinema you can buy this and eat it while the movie plays, it was a thing everybody do

-That’s interesting –he said and she came back to prepare the hotpot.

-Im sorry- she said out and loud for him to listen, and then shut, leaving the popcorn cook under the lid of the pan- I should contact you sooner to clarify things.

-That doesn’t change your feelings for him-he sounded upset- that’s what you should told me sooner

-Does that really…affect you? –now the man step and look back, she was looking at him

Arthur felt annoyed, played. Like it was so easy to not feel anything…

-Are you really asking me that?

-Well I thought you were just…-she ran out of words trying so hard to not say playing with me because it would be uncomfortable- joking around about the pregnancy thing

-Were you joking around!? –he ask raising his voice

-Im not! I really want to get pregnant and continue what I left pending with Nate and my son!

-And how the hell that cant affect me!?

-Well you never did specifically what needs to be done for that, right? –she sounded nervous, and distraught.

Its true, he never took too seriously the part of cumming inside or not to get her pregnant, in any case he pulled out specifically to not get her pregnant NOW.

His fingers pressed on the car seat annoyed–Are you really that much into Danse? Still?

Something started to sound, loud, like shooting, Nora see the change on his panicked face and ran towards him placing a hand on his chest to calm him

-Its okay its okay! It’s the popcorn! The seeds explodes and open! Its normal! Its not shooting or anything! Its just a sound! –he look at her nervous little smile stranged, and then look down at the hand on his chest.

And breath out, he missed to be touched there, by her hands, Arthur pick up her wrist and then lean down his head to look into her eyes- answer me, Nora

-Eh? –she asked, feeling her legs tremble at such intense gaze.

-Are you still into that man so much?

Silence, the popcorn sounded in the background but she hesitated to form words in her lips.

-I don’t want to –she answers breathing from her nose- I shouldn't right? after being repeatedly rejected over ten years but I still am –at hearing that the grip on her wrist grew tighter-kinda, a little, in the deep down at least, I don’t want but I cant run from it, not for now, not yet and I now its stupid from my part

The man let go her wrist and looked away, pressing his lips together defeated trying to hide his disappointment-We should watch the movie –he simply said, coming back to his seat, Nora came where the popcorn was and turn the heat down, taking off the lid to let it cool at room temperature and search for a bowl with paper to dry off the grease.

She turned off the lights and prepare the projector for the movie to start playing, the man wonder where the sound came from but avoided to look at her.

It wasn’t going to work. No matter how much he waited it would be useless. He cant give more than what he already has.

He was at the top of this world and she even has more than him. It wasn’t intelligent to became attached just because she fucked him good.

She sit by his side with the bowl of one of the most peculiar foods he had ever seen

-Its edible –she said without any energy on her voice.

Arthur picked one, it was soft, melted in his mouth, wet, and salty, can taste it in the salt and the grease.

Thing is that even if she was seriously dejected, the hand traveling from his mouth to the bowl encounter her skin more than once, since she was holding the bowl and it took Nora a few bad looks only to put the bowl at a side on another seat and climb on his legs. Of course despite everything it took Arthur just one second to accept it and place his hands on her hips.

Even with the  movie playing on the background, the sounds and the music weren’t enough  to distract him from the view.

Gosh she looked beautiful.

-What do you want from me then? –he said with a raspy voice, out of breath, remembering the last time they were together in almost this exact situation under more happy circunstances.

-A baby –she said feeling suddenly aroused by that pair  of words

-What if I just let you go? –for a moment she stay in silent, with her eyes lost in the background, looking at the projector, the man looked at his back but there was nothing there, she was just zooning out.

-Will you ever want something from me? –she said and he leaned his head against her chest, feeling it warm and cozy, like he needed to be there-something more

-I don’t know, will you accept it? –his lips talking against her boobs gives her tickles- why should I bother if I don’t know if you are willing for that to happen? Im not going to purposely hurt myself knowing what I know

Her hands cupped the back of his head, caressing  slowly, giving him little massages under his skult with the tip of her fingers, relaxing and making the mans head woozy in relaxation.

-Did you hope for anything to happen before all of this?

He stop for a minute, smelling on her chest, taking some air, enjoying like it was the last time he would be able to do it.

-Yes, I was

Goddamit.

This would be a good moment to say I like you. But now it  sounds like a terrible idea.

Not to this woman, not to someone with feelings for someone else, no matter the condition of that relationship.

-Then im so so sorry –she said gently moving his head backwards, pushing him and then raising his chin moving her thin hands bellow his jaw, caressing his beard and cheeks while getting lost into his light blue eyes- do you want me now?

Not really.

But yeah, why not.

He nodded and close his eyes, surrending, Nora close her hands around his cheeks and kiss him deeply, the man felt something burning on his mouth but still let her all while her hands moved down on his neck wrapping around his veins, looking for the zipper, making the man felt something deep down when the sound of the zipper cut the air in half going down.

It didn’t pass much before they were fucking, Arthur not even touching her ass but just playing with the fabric of the skirt over her hips loving the shape of her curves, that light and extense cloth getting between his fingers, he wasn’t even able to see between the darkness, the flashing lights and the skirt but he can feel it all and it was good, so good but…

Nora  was gripping the hairs on his pectorals with her fingers as if she really needed that grip, using his chest as support so she could move her hips up and down repeatedly, spreading her legs out to the sides of the car seat, taking him all. Gosh she loved his chest, it was beautiful, well shaped, hard, warm, masculine, had a really really nice essence but…

Why none of them were really turned on!?

He wasn’t as hard and she wasn’t as wet as any other days, it was becoming uncomfortable with a burning feeling between both parts when moving and trying to make it better took so much more work than she wished for it to became comfortable and it wasn’t working.

-Im sorry –he said picking her hips, stopping her in his place- its just isn’t the same as the other days –Nora stopped, looking up for a moment, trying to swallow some tears of frustration but…he was right, then she hold on his shoulders and nodded taking a breath out.

-You are right –she said defeated, placing a hand on his chest and getting up, sitting at the side, Arthur quickly stand up to fix his suit up and close it-sorry –she mumble while fixing her dress and underwear, annoyed, her body didn’t collaborate but it was true it wasn’t comfortable anymore, it wasn’t a nice feeling, not even for the pleasure.

-I should go –when he said that she shut her eyes and close her legs, yeah, why not.

-Okay –when it was the last time she felt so collapsed? Humiliated? He was not doing that on purpose at all but the whole set of unfortunate events makes her blood boil

-Thank you for the popcorn, I never tasted it before –said Arthur finishing with the neck of his suit and picking again his coat-  im heading back to the Citadel –was she coming back? Its been almost 3 months since she came to Paradise Falls to work…2 months and some weeks surely

-Ill open the  door –said the woman getting up from the seat waving the keys around. Yeah, funny time is over- Find some brotherhood soldier around, they are aware of your presence here and will help you with the ventibird, don’t worry, they are waiting for you to ask them for anything so I ordered it

She will not accompany him to the ventibird? Fuck not pleasing a woman until the  end had severe consequences.

He said goodbye but she didn’t respond, just look somewhere else, zooning out, was she offended? Terribly offended?, as soon the door was closed he heard a loud crash and a scream inside. Feminine rage.

That sound make his spine  shiver from heads to toes fucking hell he was always dodging bullets with her, but for some reason he didn’t want to. He didn’t want anymore.

He wanted them both to be well.

[rcreveal]

Movie Night

Day 16

Summary:

NanoMutt Prompt a day Challenge: How you said I love you: over and over again until it became babble. Aziraphale hosts a movie night with an adaptation of a favorite Jane Austen book.

Work Text:

“Mr. Fell, they delivered one of your packages to the record shop,” Maggie calls as she comes into A. Z. Fell book shop.

Crowley is lounging in the atrium, and rolls his head over towards Maggie to say, “He’s upstairs.  Bustling.  You can just put the package down over…”  Crowley waves a languid hand indicating the floor, the desk, and several piles on side tables, “anywhere it won’t fall over.”

Maggie is turning to go, when Nina comes in rolling a movie popcorn maker, “Hey, Mr Fell, another delivery turned up at my shop!” she looks over at Maggie and Crowley, “What’s he up to now?” she asks somewhat suspiciously.  Crowley shrugs and Maggie says, “I haven’t seen him to ask...”

When Aziraphale sails into view at the top of the stairs, looking down delighted at having three people to tell about his wonderful plan.

“Marvelous! I wanted to invite you all to a cinema movie showing tonight!” Aziraphale beams around at them all.

Maggie looks sweetly supportive. Nina looks skeptical, and Crowley looks pleasantly blank.

“What movie?” asks Maggie while Nina tries to give her meaningful eye contact, while mouthing,”no”, and Crowley still looks pleasantly blank.

“Pride and Prejudice!  The Keira Knightley and Matthew Madfadyen version!  I’ve got popcorn and fountain drinks laid in for the full ‘theater’ experience, ” he burbles on, taking the package Maggie hands him and opening it eagerly.  Looking a little perplexed, he opens a clear case and unfolds yard upon yard of Egyptian cotton.  “That’s not my movie screen…”

Crowley has poured himself upright and padded over to feel the material, “Nah, it’s the new sheets.”  

Nina tips her head, “Mr Fell’s bed was already huge before, how much more space do you need?” 

“Well, sometimes I like to sleep with my wings out and Crowley’s gotten into the habit, too.  It’s so nice not to have to keep them winched in all the time, if that makes any sense.  I imagine it’s rather like taking off your corsets after a long day,” replies Aziraphale a little self-consciously.

Nina and Maggie, women for whom underwires and intense amounts of elastic had been a part of their lives for a long time, look at him thoughtfully. “Mmm, wrong era, but, yes, I do think we have a notion of what you mean, “ replies Maggie before Nina can say something sarcastic.

“I like all those period pieces, sounds fun!” says Maggie, and steps over to ask Azriaphale where the screen will go.  While Nina whispers to Crowley “Is that where he got the idea for the ball? Pride and Prejudice? All that sappy Jane Austen stuff?” asks Nina.

“That Jane Austen was living a double life!  The mastermind double agent and diamond thief” said Crowley overly jovially.  More quietly he makes an appeal to Nina, “Don’t leave me.  Plus, I’ll bring rum and at least we can have rum and coke and popcorn, please?”  He sticks out his hand and they shake on it.

“See you tonight at 8!” cries Aziraphale.

During the movie, Crowley surprises himself by having quite an enjoyable time, mostly due to his strongly held belief that he can talk all during this showing since it’s not actually in a theater.  He gets shushed several times for yelling things like, “Do you have any idea how uncomfortable those clothes are !” and, “Thank God for milled jersey knit fabric, am I right, angel!”  But as the movie progressed he was drawn in and yelling at the characters that they were only fooling themselves and to get on with it, and “Ger off, you git!” with one piece of popcorn sailing over and hitting Mr Collins square on the forehead when he was trying to propose to Elizabeth Bennett.  Nina is also having much more fun than she expected.  

By the time of the happy resolution, they are in a rather silly, giddy mood, partially because it was Nina pouring the rum and cokes, so it’s no wonder that Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand, looks mock seriously into his eyes and intones, “Mrs Darcy, Mrs Darcy, Mrs Darcy,” over and over again until it becomes unintelligible in both their chuckles.

Maggie’s giggling and Nina can only shake her head at the hopeless romantics.  Next time, she would choose the movie.

[msclaritea]

Mads Mikkelsen Shares Theory On Why He’s Cast As Bad Guy In U.S. Films – Deadline

"...The actor was quizzed in a Marrakech Film Festival masterclass on Saturday about the fact that he tends to be cast as a flawed hero in Europe and the bad guy in Hollywood, such as Marvel supervillain Kaecilius or Le Chiffre in Casino Royal.

“It’s quite simple. It’s the funny accent. It’s as simple as that. It used to be Germans, then it was Brits; then the Russians, and then for some reason they fell in love with the Danish accent. That’s definitely part of it,” he said.

Then if the Americans see something they like, they have a tendency to try and copy it, right. But I’ve been lucky enough to do different villains in different universes. There’s a big difference between Marvel and James Bond… but I never think about it too much. In Denmark, we don’t divide it into bad guys and good guys, we tend look at more complex characters.”

Mikkelsen is a recipient of the honorary Etoile d’Or career prize of the Marrakech Film Festival this year, which is also holding a gala screening of his new film and Denmark’s Oscar entry The Promised Land.

The masterclass saw him talking to a packed cinema filled with a young, lively crowd of predominantly aspiring actors and filmmakers.

One young actress asked Mikkelsen for advice on acting in a non-mother tongue film.

“I’ve done quite a few films in different languages, none of them I speak or at least not fluently,” he said. “The trick the first time I did anything in English was to rehearse it and rehearse it and then, once you shoot the scene that’s it, it’s over. Don’t think about it anymore. If there are mistakes, if people out there are going, ‘Oh my God, what an accent’. So be it. That’s all I could do.

“Forget it once you get in there, focus on the scene. You cannot be on stage or in front of the camera, focusing on the language. The worst-case scenario is you can fix it later in the ADR sessions later on.”

The actor said that it was important that the director was on the same page and willing to accept an accented performance.

“If they anticipate a perfect language with no accent whatsoever, you should tell them to find someone else.”

1. Who fell in love with Danish accents? I thought Le Chiffre was French!

2. Americans copy things. Why are foreign actors attacking Americans, so much lately?

3. Studio host doesn't matter. James Bond is a British franchise, through and through, from beginning to end. Americans have nothing to do with the making of Bond films.

4. Isn't Mads Mikkelson so lucky? It's very easy to tell people to shrug off criticisms of using a foreign accent, when he nor any of his characters have been attacked over an accent. He's never once been called out for an imperfect accent, when imperfect, some of them have been, as he admits. Very lucky.

[oylesinei]

this!! i agree with all of this. ALL OF THIS. and i will share my own opinions too.

firstly, it didn't give pjo vibe to me. not in the slightest. the whole point of pjo was simply a kid trying to figure out and survive in a world of mythology in the modern world in A UNSERIOUS, ALMOST IRONIC way. the whole series is goofy, unserious and fun. the show is too serious, too take itself seriously. While a thing that I didn't understand, because they sadly didn't pass a classic, cringy disney channel show.

Was the budget a problem? I don't think so, since they had 15 million dollars per episode (ofc i might be wrong, but i remember news like this, or saying that it was one of the highest budgets disney shows😭, correct me if this wasn't the case.) and still the cgi was some of the worst things i have ever seen in tv, the constant avoiding of showing Grover's legs and riptide transformation (which the word of riptide didn't even pass once). Seriously, I don't know where their money went when they clearly couldn't make a single spider because it was a "production nightmare" How they are going to do all the monsters in later seasons, I honestly have no idea.

I agree with the creator of this post for saying that the movie's lightning, effects vs (well, at least first film) was better compared to the series. I re-watched the first movie when I am done with the show, and i am just saying that it was clear that it was made by someone who is doing what they are doing. The lightning of the movie, the camp, the music, the characterizing of Percy and Sally, was so much better. The fandom just complained and complained about their age and incorrect plot but it was giving percy jackson vibe. IT WAS FUN AND ENTERTAINING.

And doing praises and praises to the show for following the most general plot of the books doesn't sit right with me, I'm sorry.

Aside from the fact that the show was undeniably boring, I almost fell asleep while watching ( like seriously, I don't understand how they can make pjo boring, they must really put extra effort,) the writing was bad. Simply bad. They completely ignored the most basic rule of cinema "Show, don't tell." Like, they are telling that Luke and Annabeth are like siblings, oh they are so close, but we never actually saw them interact. They are saying that Annabeth's afraid of spiders, and not even Annabeth is the one who says it. Luke is. And there's nothing to show her actual reaction for her fear of spiders. These are just examples.

I agree with it too for things that have been said for the camp, because it felt simply fake to me. Like, it was too... ORGANIZED. I don't know, it was aesthetically pleasing, but definitely wasn't what I had imagined while reading. Now, I don't really want to compare the movies, but I actually liked the camp in the movies tho... Like there was a scene archers throwing arrows and it's almost hitting Percy. Or how Percy falls down in the Capture of Flag... I don't know, the first movie is really entertaining to watch.💀💀

The gods. What in the world that Hades, the god that Percy almost pissed himself with when he first met him and, the fearful and indimating god of Underworld, looks like a goofy-ass highschool english teacher. Seriously, what was wrong with the gods? They were supposed to be indimating and we were supposed to feel the divine aura the moment they came to the screen. Every time a god shows up in the books, it is a grand moment. I wished they could do the opening scene of Poseidon in the movie, that was really showing how powerful beings they are. The gods in the show are a joke. Other than Dionysus, they were a joke.

Sally and the softening of Gabe and their relationship. Now, that's what happens if you choose disney to adapt your work. Why was Gabe, an asshole we all hated, softened? Why was he just a loser man who hates his life, instead of abusing the disgusting man he was? Isn't him a part of trauma in Sally's and Percy's life. Even if we passed that, why was Sally staying with Gabe in the show? When he was clearly making her son uncomfortable asf. They didn't even bother to explain the reason she had stayed with him and some people still saying that it was a perfect adaption. stop lying atp😭😭

And of course, one of the biggest plot-holes I have ever seen on TV. Missing deadline. Like, I can't actually believe that they threw the whole point of the first book into the trash and expected everyone to not say anything about it. "Zeus can wait" The whole point was that they were in a hurry because if they missed the deadline, there would be civil war between the gods. But of course, our most beloved show just ignored it.

Now, I'm finally moving to the characters. First, I have nothing against the actors, because I know that they are actors, real humans, and getting freaking paid about it unlike some people. This isn't an attack on the actors, and i made my warning, and if you are still going to take it somewhere nasty, it just means that you can't read correctly. 😭😭

First, I will start with Percy. You know how Percy fucking Jackson was in the books, right? Sarcastic, short-tempered, trouble-maker, care-free, loving etc. There's a lot of verbs you can describe him. But mostly, he is FUNNY. He isn't SERIOUS. He isn't looking like 😐 this whole time. He is not a know-it-all. In the show, he is boring. Simply boring. No reaction of anything literally, just furrowing his brows and trying to look confused with the whole situation.

In the books, a lot of people learned the mythology with Percy too. He was new to this world, he didn't know the monster's name, he was just clueless as we are, and it added MYSTERY to the plot. While in the show, apparently, Percy's a son of Athena, know-it-all, because Sally taught him greek mythology. Wasn't Sally trying to keep Percy away from this exact world in the books?

Show Percy is just a younger version of Jason atp and I stand by it.

They seriously butchered him a lot. Sad that the bar of adaption on fandom is lower than Tartarus.

Now, Annabeth. Annabeth was at least tolerable compared to the butchering they did with Percy, but still annoyed me with how much they changed her character in the show.

Now, the book Annabeth is a complex character, at least for a children's book. Her mother is Athena, yes, she is intelligent and powerful at very high levels... She is a character that stands between the classic generalizing of smart characters , marble and emotionless but she has this soft, vulnerable, childish side of her. She shows emotions through the series. She isn't some stone-faced, flat stereotypical smart character. She cries over Cerberus, the most famous example. With the fandom miss this part of her character, and decides to turning into a stone-faced badass character, the show made it worse in my opinion. She just came out MEAN in addition. With the same problem with Percy, she is just like this 😐😐 the whole time. Luke is showing his betrayal to the camp, and she is 😐. And for all of you, Annabeth Chase wouldn't pull out her dagger immediately to Luke Castellan at the age of twelve. She would be in tears if she ever saw him like that. And I'm sorry, but crying isn't some flaw or weakness. She is canonically an emotional character. Why are you taking all of this? And yes, she is powerful asf and can kick everyone's ass, but nobody told me that Annabeth was a strong female character when I first read the books.

And it really confused me that the writer's idea of a strong female character isn't really the feminist movement they think it is. The books came out in the 2000s and still has that strong female character without making her a disney-type, stereotypical smart-girl, badass heroine with no flaws and fears and oh, she is sooo powerful.

And I also want to make a comment about the restaurant scene with Ares. Probably the scene that frustrated me most and this was how i finally understand what's lacking with the characters and how they butchered all of them.

Now, aside from the fact that we all know book Grover couldn't resist those french fries ( also, did i ever mention that he didn't chew cannisters for once, i don't know it is such a simple and unnecessary things but i think the details like this are the things that gave the book's spirit. Otherwise, anyone can follow the general plot and call it a day, and well, that's what they did.)

Percy's and Annabeth's characterization is switched up in the show and no one can change my mind. In the books, Percy is the one who makes snarky comments to Ares, not Annabeth. Percy is the impulsive and short-tempered one and he isn't definitely just standing like 😐😔🤨 the whole scene. He does it, because he doesn't know how powerful the gods really are. He doesn't know anything about this world and this mixed with his anger and sarcastic personality, he is the one who gets in the argument with Ares. Not Annabeth, him. Percy's is the careless, impulsive one. Not her.

While, Annabeth, wouldn't have done it in millions of years when she was twelve. She was raised in the world of the gods. She is careful like the child of Athena. She is cautious around the gods, because she KNOWS how dangerous the gods are. Percy doesn't know. And in the show, her being the one who gets into arguments with Ares doesn't make sense but i guess it was just another stupid attempt to make it one of Annabeth's badass moments. And yes, the cautious daughter of Athena gets in arguments with The God War because she couldn't keep her temper and she is soooo braveeee. Yes, of course.

Anyways, i think the show sucked truly. Just another cringy disney show to me. There was this tension they shot it so they could get over it. No effort, but it's a common thing with the new shows.

Also, please don't say stupid and laughable things like " uncle rick made it, so we aren't allowed to complain." The product of the media is always open to criticism. Also, just because Rick made it doesn't mean it is good. And just because Rick is a good writer, it doesn't mean that he is a good director too.

Normalize the bad show erasure.

Note: If anyone thinks that Sally Jackson would listen Olivia Rodrigo, they are very wrong. Sorry Olivia, i love you but that's the truth.

Note2; a pjo show that takes place in the early 2000s, with fleabag style for Percy's monologue, it's in my dreams😔😔

To the anon that sent me an ask about asking my thoughts about the tv show, Im so sorry but something happened and I think it got deleted 😭 But dw I would still answer it here-

So this would be a critism post and I want to make it clear that everyone is free to reblog and comment their thoughts freely, while being kind. Critism is valid and its not rude, but any bad comments or hateful remarks to any actor, especially child actors, would be deleted. I dont like blocking so dont make me please!

Okay to start, I would be so honest and say I did not find the show successful and I did not like it. I would explain all the reasons, but did it make me feel nostalgia a bit? Yes it did. Did it make me cry at the end? Yes :) I would add pros at the end. But first:

Cgi was really bad, I mean that claiming scene would be a laughing stock in a few years. Chimera? Nope- Medusa's hair also looked better in that movie in 2010. Also they avoided showing Grover's legs so much, also didn't even show us riptide's change...They got 15M per episode and if these are the results, then it is a problem. Background of Percy and Ares's fight- so so greenscreen. I wish Disney can take things seriously.

Lighting was so dark, especially for the lighting thief. Which was such a humor filled book and it was way too colorful. Why make it all so dark and lifeless?

Also humor? Way too low for pjo. "But we are not reading Percy's mind!" Yet, there were so many jokes in the books that could have been add, but they didn't. Yes there are some good jokes (pinecone fate) but to the standart, I expected to laugh way more. Its pjo!

Changes? Well to be honest I am a person who keeps book and show separate, I dont think they are the same at all. So I dont complain about the changes at much. But most of the changes were pointless to me and so many things left unsaid. I wish they didn't make Gabe way too soft. Children's show, yes. But then again, what would you do for later seasons if they cant even show Crusty's dead. Sally's real reason to marry Gabe never get explained, why? 4 pearls, why? Missing deadline? Totally pointless. Not mentioning Riptide's name? Chiron might have say it. Love tunnel? Now its a long one. Rick explained they couldn't do spiders and its hilarious, you gotta do sea monsters man- And instead of a chance to see an actual comedy: live on Olympus and Annabeth losing her shit. We get to see such a early scene of Percabeth drama. Why changing one of the funniest scene in the books to drama? You needed more edits for view or smt? Hephaestus falling over to the speech of friendship was nothing but cringe to me. Moving on, Thalia's acting to Annabeth. Why she is not nice to her and Annabeth had to earn her love. The point was Thalia to remember Jason and taking Annabeth under her wings immediatly bcs of it. Medusa's scene- Instead of us laughing to trio's silly behaviours and falling to her trap like little kids would, we get to hear a monster-hero talk. Yay another speech! Ovid's side of the story also bothered me. Greek mythology, why adding Ovid? Just us to sympatize with Medusa. Lotus Casino scene- We could have watch them have fun and going crazy but noo- they had do add more drama with Hermes. Did not see the point of his appearing either. Why is he there? I wanted to see them being children...And wanted to see the magic of the place!

Now if I move to characters, Percy's I know it all side is just annoying and adds no suspense to the viewers. What's the point if he knows everything already? "But his mom taught him!" But guys, remember, the whole point of pjo was: us to learn with Percy! We were learning the Greek myths with Percy, who is new to the world. They go somewhere and Percy immediatly: "You are Crusty, my mom told stories about you!" 😑 What a relief then! You tell us. Percy's sudden bravery at the end? Dude, he has 5 books for that.

Annabeth turning to a stoic child soldier? Suddenly goody-two shoes? Where are her emotions? Her fears? Her flaws? Her fricking love of architecture? She doesnt need to know everything to be smart girl. She had ADHD, she is 12! Ofc she was supposed to fall in traps. We should have watch her blushing as Luke talks, getting all wet by Percy in the toilet, she was supposed to our little girl. She is not just a badass queen yet, please. Give her personality back. Why she only smiled once at the end of the series? And not having a childhood, not even watched a movie? You guys cant be serious- She grew up in chb! She picked up strawberries, she played games and she watched movies when she was little, remember? She was not in legion... She is one of the most emotional characters, should we remind this to Rick and writers? She cries, she has feeling! Dam she was crying when they left Cerberus! She was a trouble-maker, she stole clothes, remember? Her portrayal was awful...

And about the Gods- Just..."He is trying to make them look awful at the beginning" Then why the hell it was only Athena? Almost turning her to second Zeus- Are you kidding me? You make her suddenly a child killer, when in the books she was nothing like that. Why making her worse, when other gods(Poseidon, Hermes, Hephaestus,Dionysus,Ares,Hades) seem way more human and nicer? You cant tell me he tries to make them worse when they are portrayed like that! No sir- Hephaestus is nice enough to release Percy after a friendship speech. Poseidon is suddenly a perfect dad, he is not sorry that Percy is born. Ares is just a dumb twitter bully, where in the books he was threating them to no end. And fricking Hades?! I am sorry but Hades like that- He should have been scary. But no, he is just a lonely cool guy. I thought he softened after Nico. Cant wait for the development now...

Other than that, one of my most important things: vibe. Sorry...Like I said, it was way too boring for pjo. Even that horrible movies had more vibe! Gimme the vibe!

Pacing? Has a problem and I hope they fix it. Episodes being too short? Also another issue.

Now for the chb, I was hoping to see more activity. Why the camp is not full of noisy kids running around, playing hide and seek like in the books, training wild around the areas, camfire and silly songs? Where are our children screaming and being ADHD demigods? Instead they play chess in the cabin- Please, give more life to chb.

Finally, for the things I liked:

Riptide song!!! That song is my favourite thing in the whole show- Like its soo good.

Seeing Sally's struggle to raise Percy. Also a plus for me. Because I was curious. Also adding Poseidon to the scene was okay. I loved that parts.

Young Percy did awesome and he was such a good actor :)

Percy's dreams were good, I loved seeing them. Congrats! Andd, child accurate cast. It was important. But I wish they hurry so then we wont have it anymore 😭

That was it! Like I said, I find it a bad show, as a fan of 12 years. I waited this for so many years. I was dreaming this. But sorry, bad show is a bad show. At least it did give me some nostalgia and it did make me cry at the end :) I hope they improve because it would suck if they get a cancel before season 5. The bad thing is, I feel they knew we pjo fandom wanted a show for years. And they knew we would eat the crumbs. Its just not fair, you know. They would like it anyway, type. They are not taking it as seriously as they should. With that budget, look at other shows with that budget. I know, its still a kids' show. But I dont think its an excuse for them to upset the fans who waited this long...

Thanks for the ask anon! And like I said, feel free to add your thoughts :)

[braveandsnipe]

braveandsnipe's 2022 tokusatsu retrospective

in which i take a trip down memory lane and talk about all the toku i watched this year!

Kamen Rider

This year I completed 5 Kamen Rider series: Drive, Ghost, Ex-Aid, Zi-O, and Zero-One!

Kamen Rider Zi-O (Dec. 2021 -> Jan. 2022)

Started the year with an ending haha. Out of the 5 series I watched, this was the one that took me the longest to complete. At the time, I had only watched Wizard, Den-O and Build, so I didn't understand every reference in the show. I honestly wonder if that makes a difference. On one hand, I couldn't be mad at the show if they botched a "tribute" cause I didn't know any better, but on the other, maybe I would've enjoyed it more/been more motivated to watch if I knew more of the returning characters. Overall, I enjoyed the series. I thought it was very fun, even if it didn't necessarily stick to it's own mechanics (which in of itself is a huge flaw, but that's discussion for another day) and it's slow decent into a Decade AU™. I love Woz, and the main 4 group is one of my favorites. The 0.5 episodes we're also gold, I loved the self-reference humor. As for things I wish it did differently, definitely making Tsukuyomi a rider earlier. And I didn't particularly enjoy the final episodes (although that could've been because I stayed up until 4AM and had work at 8AM).

Kamen Rider Drive (Jan. 2022)

Inspired by the 2018 hit Kamen Rider Zi-O I decided to watch Drive not to long after. It wasn't really a season on my radar, but I was intrigued by Chase. Initially, I did enjoy it, even though the first 12-ish episodes did drag at times. But after Gou comes and especially the 001 arc, it got way better. Looking back on it now, while I still like it, I don't like it as much as I did when I first watched it. It's solid, but I wouldn't say any character stuck out to me or with me once I finished. Similar to Zi-O, I wish they made Kiriko a rider. I'd argue, she potentially could've made a more interesting main than Shinnosuke, given her relationship to the villains (creator). Maybe could've gotten an interesting family dynamic out of it.

Kamen Rider Ghost (Jan. 2022 -> Feb. 2022)

A more polarizing entry (on twitter anyways). I wasn't really going in with any expectations good or bad. The first 11 episodes were hard for me to get through, but after that, the show does get a flow going and became easier to watch. Similar to Drive, none of the characters particularly stood out (except Alain) for me, but I liked the supporting cast of Ghost better than Drive. I wish they did a bit more with Makoto because (at least concerning the show, no extras) he just feels like he's there. Sure, he has a connection to the other two riders, but he himself never does much besides look out for Kanon or the others. (Maybe he did more than I remember, but I haven't rewatched. I do think his V-Cinema delve more into his character, so maybe I'll get around to watching it). I liked Alain's arc the most, him and Ms. Fumi were iconic and episode 30/31 made me so sad (I cried at work). And Takeru was a fine protagonist. The only thing I didn't really like was how they killed him off 3 times (4 counting Heisei Gen.)

Kamen Rider Ex-Aid (Feb. 2022)

I did not go into this series expecting the impact it would have on me. The main reason I watched it was to finish out the second half of Phase 2 (Drive -> Zi-O) before Zero-One. Honestly, while this is the series out of this list I rewatched the most episodes of, I don't particularly love it. Coming off of Ghost, the beginning of Ex-Aid was really refreshing, and I liked the conflict and connections between the 4 riders. It started falling off for me once Parad became a rider and the introduction of Masamune. I really don't know why I dislike Parad, every time he's was on screen I just got annoyed. And then I didn't like what happened during the finale. But with the bad was good, ie: my namesake. I really don't know why I loved Hiiro and Taiga as much as I did at the time. In a sense, I think I related to certain parts of their respective personalities (which is probably not good...), but otherwise it wasn't like their characters storyline took off until the mid-30's of a 45 episode show. In retrospect, while it it a bit rushed given the timeframe of the show, their story was still really compelling to me. I haven't talked much about V-Cinemas and extra content (mainly cause they're mostly harmless but not much to talk about), but allegedly Ex-Aid only got 45 episodes so they could get the V-Cin. trilogy, and boy do I hate that because the Brave and Snipe V-Cinema was bad. Surprisingly, it didn't hit until my spontaneous rewatch where I realized how dirty it did the characters. In short, Ex-Aid: High-Highs but Low-Lows

Kamen Rider Zero-One (Apr. 2022)

The final series I watched before never finishing a series until this month. Similar to Ex-Aid, I think Zero-One has some really good highs (some of my favorite characters and moments from the franchise), and really bad lows. The writing of Zero-One (in terms of implications) isn't the best, and even arcs were pretty hit or miss. Like a lot of people talk about how the job wars arc was drawn out, and initially I disagreed because I didn't find it that terrible, but thinking back to it, I remember making a post that was like "the most interesting thing about the past 10 episodes was that Fuwa had a chip in his head" so I guess there wasn't plot development. I liked how a lot of the early episode felt like a tour of the town Aruto lives in and we get to meet people (workers) in the community, almost like a carrer fair. Looking at the episodes in a vacuum, I think they're quite nice. I really liked Metsuboujinrai, probably my favorite villain group. At first I thought Horobi saying Jin was his child was going to be a throw away line or like resolved relatively quickly, but it wasn't. The reveal that Horobi was a father-type humagear, and in the final episodes where he slowly was coming to terms about caring for Jin are some of my favorite moments. In episode 42 (?) when Jin sacrificed himself, even though I knew what was coming (the whole "your the only father I ever had" line), I still cried so much during the scene. It was very well done. Ikazuchi and Naki were good support characters, I'm glad each of them have some funny/iconic/good scenes. I wish they had done more with Yua outside of Gai. I feel like Gai gets more to do than her despite her being the tertiary introduced in episode 3. The whole chip in Fuwa's head thing was also weird (I don't have the words to explain it right now). I liked that Fuwa liked Aruto's jokes because their similar to the ones his dad made. I think Aruto is an interesting character to be the main, it's kind of weird he was just thrown into the company, and a bunch of other things I'm going to leave for another day. I don't think Gai needed a redemption arc, but I teared up when he got Thouser back. (Wow I had a lot to say)

2. Super Sentai

I didn't watch that much Sentai this year, and only completed 2: Seijuu Sentai Gingaman and Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger

Seijuu Sentai Gingaman (~May 2022)

I kind of forgot I watched this lol. Overall, it was better/more fun than I was expecting it to be.

Bakuyuu Sentai Abaranger (Nov. 2022 -> Dec. 2022)

I started this one day because no one (my teachers) decided not to show up to school. I ended up enjoying it a lot. I like the team dynamics, and it was solid at balancing silliness and seriousness. I think having the motws be made from forms of art (painting and music) was cool and made for some cool designs/abilities.

3. Ultraman

This year I finished the trifecta and watched 2 Ultraman Series: X and Orb.

Ultraman X (Aug. 2022)

I watched this for totally legit reasons…/ It was alright, but it kind of just felt like the same thing (formula) for 20 episodes. I did like the 24 hours at Xio episode and the Ginga S crossover. I also think this series had some good effects and the fact that their car turns into a jet is so funny to me.

Ultraman Orb (Sept. 2022)

I liked this series better than X. It was more interesting and I feel like there was more intrigue and a story line. The unfolding of the connection between Gai and Naomi was great and overall I liked the one episode plots

4. Power Rangers

Since I've watched most Power Rangers, I only finished the latest series this year. I sometimes forget power rangers is a tokusatsu lol.

Dino Fury (Feb 2021 -> Sept. 2022)

I said a lot about what I thought about the show on my other blog. Generally, I think it has good idea, but the execution of them is hit or miss.

(wow this kind of fell off at the end)