#paul is normally a monica

[javelinbk]

Also starring…

John Lennon as Chandler

George Harrison as Phoebe

Ringo Starr as Joey

[wallbeatjournal]

if you had to base a new riverdale season off three movies, which would you choose and why? they could be tonal choices or you can pluck entire elements of the movies and work them in.

ok i broke the rules bc i didn't stick to movies, i went novels and pop culture with it too. and i also kind of embroidered a few references together around each main riff in a way that i think COULD be riverdalian, but these are my 3 selections:

jt leroy (2018). trashy iffy-hot-take kristen stewart/laura dern movie about a very 2000s literary scandal/internet drama run Too Far into irl drama that i think riverdale would know better what to do with. two ideas (this is a jughead plot btw):

put jughead in the dissociated trauma-projecting controlling persona-having laura albert/jt leroy role and rope veronica and reggie and their monetary-business motivations into the scam angle. monica posh savannah knoop stuff and rattling veronica and jughead around in a jar together intensely in a campy way

or step lightly outside the bounds of this script into the real livejournal and myspace based drama of it all and jughead's sometimes-characterization as a guy who needs help unpacking metaphor even though he's swimming in it. make him into one of the many emo band boys (ryan ross?? ryan ross????) who related so so so so sosososo much to the writing of jeremiah terminator and then had a whole crisis when j.t. was unmasked as a middle-aged woman with a metaphorical literary persona.

permissible bonus web-weaves: james frey a million little pieces and oprah, augusten burroughs and running with scissors. we're doing the 2000s obsession with author authenticity is-this-really-autobiographical-if-it's-not-literally-true-or-are-you-shaming-your-family-for-NOTHING questions and scandals. but we're especially doing the emo community freaking the fuck out about blorbo from their novels doing a catfish online to extend the persona just that much further.

the avril lavigne replacement conspiracy theory (linking the wiki even though what i'm REALLY thinking of here is this moving pandemic essay alexander chee my beloved posted that i can't locate now, riffing on themes of feeling like a ghost inhabiting your own life after a major trauma). they can work in some other famous body double / replacement and assassination conspiracies (paul is dead, jfk) too but avril is the main reference and this is a betty plot.

pull in some actual alexander chee images and motifs too maybe, his novels about csa grooming trauma and having complicated feelings about your intimate abusers via like grandiose opera/paris siege metaphors (the queen of the night) and fox demons (edinburgh) betty would eat, i fear, even if they're a step off her normal serial killer media mix. dark betty has the range <3

stephen king's the long walk / suzanne collins' the hunger games / battle royale / state-sponsored brutal murderous game show authority abuse dystopia media homage in general!! especially when it's homoerotic and full of ptsd and institutional abuse, because clearly this is a plot primarily for archie and the lads. imo the long walk ("how bad do you have to hate yourself to join the military" but it's game show horror) and the hunger games ("child stardom is traumatic institutional abuse especially in the era of social media and society simply pretends not to see it" but make it a ya game show adventure) should be the main references, but we could work the academic/art-competition angle of battle royale for kevin. as a treat. ok yeah and maybe work in that arnold schwarzenneger movie the running man too while we're here picking up interwoven motifs at the store. why not!

[sarahaubel]

Star Ac' et pipes à crack.

Je ne vais pas mourir aujourd’hui. Je le sais car j’ai demandé au pendule que Clotilde m’a offert samedi dernier. Par contre le con il a pas sû me donner la date de mon rendez-vous avec la Fin. Vraiment ça sert à rien ce machin. En revanche ce que je sais c’est qu’hier soir j’ai senti sous mes doigts une petite bille dans mon sein gauche, ou c’est le droit. Gauche par rapport à qui. Ça y est je m’embrouille. Bref, un truc qui n’a rien à faire là où je l’ai trouvé. Parce que les billes normalement on joue avec dans la cour quand on a 8 ans, on est pas censés les ranger dans ses nichons quand on en a 35. Enfin en 1972 je veux dire, les billes, parce qu’aujourd’hui j’imagine plutôt les pré-ados jouer aux mikados avec des pipes à crack. Fissa j’ai pris rendez-vous avec Docteur Quin. A une lettre près je consultais une star de sitcom c’est dommage. La mienne a 67 chats, mesure 1m90 au bas mot et fume des clopes dans son cabinet entre deux patients. Je l’aime beaucoup. En attendant le verdict et comme je suis une personne mesurée ce matin je me suis mis en tête de choisir la musique de mes funérailles. On prévoit jamais de mourir à 35 ans mais en même temps mon pote Guillaume il avait pas prévu de mourir à 17 et ses parents lui ont passé l’hymne de la Star Ac’ à l’église. Damn. Mon père adore Zaz. Soyons pragmatiques. Organisons-nous. Que vous dire d’autre avant la fin… J’aime pas les orchidées. Les compo d’interflora me filent de l’urticaire. Je veux être incinérée dans un cercueil low-cost. Gaspillez plutôt votre argent dans une bouteille d’Hennessy XO que vous boirez au goulot à ma santé. Je souhaite que mes cendres soient jetées dans l’océan, celui des Landes de préférence. Mais pas sur la plage de mon camping naturiste favori. Bien qu’imaginer tous mes proches à poil lors de mon dernier envol me fait quand même marrer. M’enfin bonjour les souvenirs pour plus tard lorsqu'ils se feront griller la saucisse au soleil en plein mois d’août, obligés de penser à leur pote morte qui leur flingue un peu le paradis (pas celui d’en haut avec les vierges tout ça, celui d’en bas où les gens sont tous nus sous les pins). Si la casse-bonbon du crématorium, la fille avec les cheveux derrière les oreilles et le tailleur prune de chez Cache-cache vous dit “non mais c’est interdit maintenant les urnes doivent rejoindre une concession gniagnia mesures sanitaires gniagnia un protocole gniagnia”, flanquez lui votre genoux entre les jambes et partez en courant (sans oublier l’urne ce serait idiot). Je serais pas contre une dernière course poursuite en Fiat Punto. L’idée d’être enfermée dans un vase, ça m'angoisse. Au pire renversez-le sans faire exprès “oups pardon quelle maladroite”. Je préfère finir dans un caniveau que dans un tiroir. Et pour terminer si vous pouvez glisser une invitation à Josh Hartnett n’hésitez surtout pas.

PS : Les meufs, on le dira jamais assez, palpez-vous les miches, pétrissez vos tétés, examinez vos loches. Il n’y aura probablement rien mais un jour vous pourrez tomber sur une petite nouvelle, qui elle-même ne sera probablement rien. Dans le doute. Les crabes se cachent parfois derrière les billes.

Ma playlist pour le jour J :

I will survive - Gloria Gaynor

Respire encore - Clara Luciani

Santé - Stromae

J’ai oublié de vivre - Johnny Hallyday

Le Grand Sommeil - Etienne Daho

Breathe - Sean Paul

I Feel better - Hot Chip

Gravé dans la roche - Sniper

Plus près des étoiles - Gold

Je reviendrai - Dick Rivers

Les adieux d’un sex-symbol - Starmania

Cache ta joie - Claudia Phillips

Taking me back - Jack White

Mourir sur scène - Dalida

L’adresse de Josh Hartnett :

Josh Hartnett Entertainment 360 10100 Santa Monica Blvd Suite 2300 Los Angeles, CA 90067 États-Unis

[softpawsxd]

Hey folks! My name's Noelia Reyes Bello (you can call me by the codename "Fluffy Sparkles" if you want! ^^) and welcome to my blog! For you see i'm a web-cartoonist besides an artist, Animator and concept designer who loves being Multifandom geek and eating Chicken Nuggies with Oreo Frapuccinos (which Frapuccinos tastes so great just like the milkshakes)! X3

About me:

Austistic 18-year-old animation fangirl, Cuz i LOVE cartoony fandoms so much UwU...

Non-Binary gal (who uses She/her/He/Him pronouns!)

🇨🇱Chilean lady!🇨🇱

Loves to roleplay (Almost sometimes actually LOL...)

You can also follow me on:

Instagram: DatOnePopTartWolfy

YouTube: Fluffy Sparkles The Pop Tart Wolfy

DeviantArt: PopTartWolfyUwU

TikTok: PopTartWolfyUwU

WattPad: WolfPuppyGal

Twitter: PopTartWolfy05

DerpiBooru: SteakFlavoredNuggets/WolfPuppyGal

Hyperfixations/Fandoms i'm in:

Object Shows in general (Mostly Inanimate Insanity 2 and Modern Objects)

Furry Community

JewelPet

The Henry Stickmin Colllection

Doggyworld

Monica'S Gang

Doraemon

Xavier Riddle And The Secret Museum

Untitled Goose Game (That game is funny, Heh!)

Littlest Pet Shop (2012 version most of all)

Pucca

LazyTown

Breadwinners (Sorry…)

OddBalls

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid

The Mitchells VS The Machines

Funko Pop (although it doesn't count as an actual fandom, I love it so much!)

Ben And Holly's Little Kingdom

Aggretsuko

Unikitty/The LEGO Movie

Animaniacs (Sometimes)

Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi

Disney's Tsum Tsum series

Space Jam (Both the 90's one and its sequel)

Animal Crossing

The Emoji Movie (Sorry again…)

Blue Sky Studios (Mainly Ice Age and Rio)

Elinor Wonders Why

Bluey

Mickey Mouse (Paul Rudish version)

Monster High

And so much more!

Type of requests/art trades that I accept or do:

Digital/tradicional art and/or comics

Animation memes and/or animatics

Easy OC's for me to draw

Any kind of headcanons

Fanfictions (Maybe?)

Type of fanfics that i write:

Normal

Creepypasta-esque/Indie horror

Comfort/Self-ship

Fluff

Crossover fandoms

Werewolf TF

And many more!

DNI/Do NOT interact:

Yucky/Disgusting people

Vore artists

Fetish artists

P3d0ph1l3s and/or z00ph1l3s

Users who traces people's art (🤬Including mine🤬)

Anti-Furry users

Homphobic and Transphobic/Anti-LGBTQ+ people

NSFW users/artists

Racist users (Mostly the ones who says the N word!)

Zionists (You know, The ones whosupport Israel instead of Palestine...)

And much worse...

Art/animatic/animation status:

Art trades: OPEN

Requests: OPEN

DM's and/or Inbox: OPEN

My 2nd/other Tumblr accouts:

@cakecakedoesstuff (🌈My very own DIY account🌈)

Thanks you so much for reading, Have a nice day!

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Hot Nights of Linda (Franco, 1975)

I don’t watch Jess Franco’s films for things like tight plotting, but this one feels especially disjointed even by his standards. This has all the stuff you normally get with his movies, like naked ladies, cool visuals, vaguely perverted goings on, but the assembly feels half haphazard. Franco was known for shooting multiple movies at the same time, and without doing any research into this one specifically, I’d wager this was a bunch of scenes he shot and only figured out how to put it together in the editing room with the help of clumsier than usual dubbed dialogue. The fact that this abruptly piles on the killings at the end and wheels out the lamest narrative device at the very end leads me to suspect this was the case.

To be clear, this is not entirely a knock on the movie, as there are plenty of things to enjoy. For example, like many a Franco flick, this has Lina Romay, and no movie starring her is entirely bereft of enjoyment. Romay plays the sex obsessed daughter or niece of a messed up family, who may or may not have seen her uncle or father Paul Muller murder his wife Monica Swinn after finding her in the arms of a lover. Romay insists to our heroine Alice Arno, who Franco frequently shoots to have her hair glimmer like gold in the sunlight, that she’s a virgin. "I only make love by myself. I do it often." But let us say that that statement no longer holds soon after she says it. And she doesn’t seem to respect boundaries, like when she barges in on Arno taking a shower and starts chatting her up while leaving the front of her sweater vest open. Anyway if you wanna see her suggestively eat a banana like on the poster, you’ll have to wait for an hour. There is also a “hard banana” version where I assume the banana goes places it’s not meant to, even if it may be “shaped to fit”, to take a phrase from online clothes shopping. That version appears to only exist in a horrible VHS rip, so I’m not sure how much you’d see anyway.

Other than that, there is some tenderness between Veronica Llimera as Romay’s childlike sister or cousin and the family’s mute servant played by Pierre Taylou. (I half suspect the character was made mute through the dub.) And Franco produces some stylish imagery, with some nice coastal atmosphere in the outdoor scenes and a sensual zoom from Romay caressing Llimera’s nude body to the same thing seen in a mirror. And while whipping scenes in Franco’s films normally involves ladies, this was one where Muller whips Taylou, so he’s broadening his horizons. Anyway, I’m not sure how well this all comes together, but it’s worth noting that Romay is seen not just in varying states of undress but also in a green robe, which automatically makes this a good movie.

[esoterium]

top 100 characters statistical "which character" is similar to yours personality quiz

**picking five characters i know to add to the list while i take a couple!!*

Nomi Marks (Sense8): 83%

Marianne (Portrait of a Lady): 83%

Inej Ghafa (Shadow and Bone): 83%

Salvatore Romano (Mad Men): 82%

F o x M u l d e r  (T h e X - F i l e s): 82%

Torvi (Vikings): 82%

Baby (Baby Driver): 82%

Ally Maine (A Star Is Born): 82%

Marie Kreutz (The Bourne Identity): 81%

Riley Blue (Sense8): 81%

Elisa Esposito (The Shape of Water): 81%

Buck Vu (The OA): 81%

Alice Cullen (Twilight): 80%

Abby Sciuto (NCIS): 80%

Ben Hargreeves (TUA): 80%

Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption): 80%

Floki (Vikings): 80%

Rogue (X-Men): 80%

Amanita Caplan (Sense8): 80%

Juliana Crain (The Man in the HC): 80%

Ola Nyman (Sex Ed): 80%

Willow Rosenberg (Buffy): 79%

Neo (The Matrix): 79%

Ariadne (Inception): 79%

Guinan (Star Trek: TNG): 79%

W i l l G r a h a m  (H a n n i b a l): 79%

Bonnie Bennett (TVD): 79%

Monica Dutton (Yellowstone): 79%

Sam Button (The Perks): 79%

Frenchie (The Boys): 79%

Robin Buckley (ST): 79%

Marianne Sheridan (Normal People): 79%

W a n d a M a x i m o f f  (WandaVision): 79%

Violet Parr (The Incredibles): 79%

Luna Lovegood (HP): 78%

Nymphadora Tonks (HP): 78%

Trinity (The Matrix): 78%

Jasper Hale (Twilight): 78%

Toni Topaz (Riverdale): 78%

Kalinda Sharma (The Good Wife): 78%

Han Lue (Fast & Furious): 78%

Amélie Poulain (Amélie): 78%

Maeve Wiley (Sex Education): 78%

Cassie Thomas (Promising Young Woman): 78%

River Tam (Firefly): 77%

Omar Little (The Wire): 77%

Morpheus (The Matrix): 77%

William H. 'Shakespeare' Hill (This Is Us): 77%

Jonah Byrde (Ozark): 77%

Chris Washington (Get Out): 77%

Lane Kim (Gilmore Girls): 77%

Céline (Before Sunrise): 77%

Ada Shelby (Peaky Blinders): 77%

Jonathan Byers (ST): 77%

Benjamin Button (TCCBB): 77%

Heloise (Portrait of a Lady): 77%

Lily Iglehart (Sex Ed): 77%

Naomi Nagata (The Expanse): 77%

Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter): 77%

Remus Lupin (HP): 76%

Maeve Millay (Westworld): 76%

Daniel Jackson (Stargate SG-1): 76%

Rosalind Walker (CAOS): 76%

Storm (X-Men): 76%

Hernando Fuentes (Sense8): 76%

Dr. Sean Maguire (Good Will Hunting): 76%

Mozzie (White Collar): 76%

Kinsey Locke (Locke & Key): 76%

J o h n W i c k  (John Wick): 76%

Ekko (Arcane): 76%

Albus Dumbledore (HP): 75%

Inara Serra (Firefly): 75%

D'Angelo Barksdale (The Wire): 75%

Janis Ian (Mean Girls): 75%

Damian Leigh (Mean Girls): 75%

Dom Cobb (Inception): 75%

Michael Scofield (Prison Break): 75%

Jughead Jones (Riverdale): 75%

Darlene (Mr. Robot): 75%

Wyldstyle (The Lego Movie): 75%

Nairobi (Money Heist): 75%

Penelope (The Odyssey): 75%

Aunt Polly (Peaky Blinders): 75%

Penelope Garcia (Criminal Minds): 75%

Joyce Byers (ST): 75%

Will Byers (ST): 75%

Angela Montenegro (Bones): 75%

Maleficent (Maleficent): 75%

Kang Sae-byeok (Squid Game): 75%

Jules Vaughn (Euphoria): 75%

Viktor (Arcane): 75%

Suzuha Amane (Steins;Gate): 75%

Natalie (Yellowjackets): 75%

Jyn Erso (Rogue One): 75%

S i r i u s B l a c k  (HP): 74%

Elizabeth Bennet (Pride & Prejudice): 74%

Black Widow (MCU): 74%

Paul Smecker (Boondock Saints): 74%

Ciri (The Witcher): 74%

Kurt Hummel (Glee): 73%

[bisluthq]

I deeply apologize for the long ass message I’m about to send, but I have been wanting to write this since I listened to the interview you shared and I finally got around to looking up the quotes I wanted to talk about and, well, writing this very long ask.

“But then I think at a certain point, there kind of, like the relationship with your parents, there does needs to be this sort of break off somewhat for both parties. Where you kind of need to go do your own thing and they need to do their own thing a little bit” - Saoirse (I’m assuming that interview happened in late 2023)

“I have a healthier relationship with home now, because I see it sort of warts and all. And it’s really reminded me of the relationship that I feel like the majority of people go through with their parents. Where they start to grow up and they realize that oh they’re not this perfect being that has all the answers and there are no flaws that exist in this thing” - Saoirse (2023)

“She is 28, she’s not my little baby any more. I often see daddies walking in the street with their little girls and I remember that time and I remember that closeness. Nobody told me at the time it comes to an end” - Paul (2022)

“She’s marrying her daddy. I’ve been telling her that since the age of two.” - Paul (2011)

“In-laws is a big thing. I mean, it’s a very drastic sort of in-laws scenario. Hopefully it’s very rare, but we sort of took it to the extreme. I’ve never had any experiences like this with my in-laws. None that you know, um, nothing this extreme” - Jack (2020)

“She has chosen to never move to LA. She grew up in a small village with her friends with the values we would have given her and that will sustain her. Her boyfriend Jack is a lovely man with similar ethics.” - Paul (2022)

My reading of this is that Saoirse is an only child who grew up working in an industry full of abuse, which meant her parents had to be extremely protective of her. In that interview with her dad, he makes the comment about marrying him after she gets asked if she has a boyfriend, and she looks very uncomfortable being asked that question. But right before that, they were talking about 50 year old men sending her letters or something, and Paul said “I don’t know what they want but I know what I would like to give them”. I think it’s possible that the protectiveness they needed to have over those horrible situations (and the Catholicism) might have made them more protective than normal when it came to her having boyfriends.

Fast forward to now, Paul is sad that they aren’t as close anymore, while Saoirse talks about having to break off from your parents and do your own thing. I also think it’s interesting that when she first got with Jack, she lived in Ireland with Monica and they shared a dog. Then in 2019 she sold that house in Ireland, the same year Jack bought a house in Scotland and they started pretty much living together in London and Scotland (but hadn’t yet bought a house together). It’s also interesting that, while she’s apparently realized her parents aren’t perfect, she still praises Monica every chance she gets and they’re still very close (we see her every time they do a family vacation with Jack’s parents, she was also in a picture with Jacquie on Lucy’s instagram), while she barely mentions her dad and when she does it’s only to say she got into acting through him. We also know he’s never a part of these vacations with Jack’s family.

Then you have Jack implying that, while his in laws haven’t done anything as extreme as drugging him, kidnapping him and stealing his baby, they have done something. He could have some issues with Monica, but nothing really points to that. They don’t seem to hang out just the two of them like we know Saoirse and Jacquie have, but we have seen them hang out and she seems to like Jacquie, so I’m assuming she also really likes Jack (all of Saoirse’s friends also seem obsessed with him ngl). Paul did call Jack lovely, but based on his comment about marrying Saoirse when a boyfriend was brought up and based on Jack’s comment, there must be something there.

I think Saoirse grew up being really close to her parents. I think she started breaking off from her dad before Jack came to the picture, but it’s also clear that she didn’t really let go of her parents (or at least her mum) until she started to become more serious with Jack. Monica still gets to spend a lot of time with them, so while she does probably have all those “slipping through my fingers” feelings, she’s probably really happy for Saoirse and she is part of the family they’ve created. But Paul isn’t. I haven’t seen a divorce mentioned anywhere, so they might still be married, but it’s very clear Paul and Monica aren’t together anymore. He apparently lives with his parents and takes care of them because one has Alzheimer’s and the other one had a stroke. I’m sure Saoirse visits them sometimes when she’s in Ireland, but she seems to spend most of her time in Ireland at the West Cork house, so I don’t think she sees them much. She used to be super close with her dad though, so I think it’s been a mixture of realizing he’s not perfect, wanting to get away from the overprotectiveness, the separation with Monica and Jack coming along. She also seems so much more comfortable with sexuality and sex since getting with Jack. I think she had been growing away from her parents and catholic guilt before he came along, she had also been getting through feminism through Scarlett and that probably changed her outlook on sex as well. But I think the bigger change happened once she got with Jack.

Kind of a side note, it was so weird seeing her reaction to being asked about a boyfriend at 16, sitting next to her dad, right after listening to that interview where she’s openly bringing up Jack, her fianc��, as a 29 year old. I can’t believe she’s almost 30 and about to get married when it feels like just yesterday she was a 16 year old who felt uncomfortable talking about boyfriends 😢 (is my Paul coming through?)

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wishing the tumblr app still had the character limit for asks

I think you’re dead on with this and Jack’s been a really good influence on her!

[crispen-potato]

I SHOULD NOT HAVE WATCHED THE WANDAVISION FINALE DURING MY LUNCH BREAK AT MY DESK.

[mariacallous]

As a rule, political candidates are not reliable historians of the present. In 2012, while in Minnesota campaigning for reëlection, President Barack Obama recounted his “tussles” with obstructionist Republicans in Congress before indulging in a bit of wishful thinking. “I believe that if we’re successful in this election,” he said, “the fever may break, because there’s a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that.” Not to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t been following along at home, but the fever did not break. Still, Joe Biden struck the same note in 2019, while campaigning in New Hampshire. “With Donald Trump out of the White House—not a joke—you will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends,” he said. But, as President, Biden started to see the light—or the dying of it. In September, he gave a speech, in Philadelphia, asserting that “equality and democracy are under assault.” Last Wednesday, he spoke again, a few blocks from the Capitol. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America—for governor, Congress, attorney general, secretary of state—who won’t commit, they will not commit, to accepting the results of elections that they are running in,” he said. “This is a path to chaos in America.”

The sitting President’s party has lost congressional seats in nearly every midterm election of the past century. When it first happened to Obama, in 2010, he referred to it as a “shellacking.” This shellacking season, the Republicans have no shortage of issues to run on (inflation, Biden’s abject approval ratings), and an expanding array of systemic advantages (the anti-democratic structure of the Senate, the widening asymmetry of gerrymandering, the suppressive spirit of several states’ post-2020 voting laws). But there’s at least a chance that, with enough Democratic turnout, all of this can be overcome. So some Trumpist Republicans have been flirting with another anti-democratic tactic: tacitly exploiting, or even encouraging, an atmosphere of political violence.

Trump, of course, has long revelled in threats of brute force, both veiled and explicit. After each new incitement, G.O.P. leaders have gone through the familiar cycle: consternation, equivocation, whataboutism, and, finally, full capitulation. The result has been a normalization of political violence: “January 6th was a normal tourist visit” is the new Lost Cause dogma, and Republicans who dissent are reëducated or excommunicated. It’s impossible to predict how all this will end, and it would be irresponsible to draw too direct a line between the rhetorical climate and any individual’s actions. But, obviously, none of it bodes well.

Late last month, in the middle of the night, a forty-two-year-old man entered the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, by shattering a glass door with a hammer. She wasn’t there, but her eighty-two-year-old husband was; in the moments before the intruder was arrested, he used the hammer to bash Paul Pelosi’s skull. The next day, Hillary Clinton tweeted a link to a Los Angeles Times article reporting that the assailant had spread “far-right, bigoted conspiracies.” Elon Musk—the new owner of Twitter, the world’s richest man, and, these days, a folk hero of the far right—replied to Clinton’s tweet, linking to a piece from the Santa Monica Observer, a gossip site filled with salacious clickbait, which speculated that the assault was not a political attack but a hookup gone wrong. The Observer later took down the story; Musk deleted his tweet, but he didn’t apologize or issue a correction. “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences,” he had tweeted on the day he took over the company, shortly before amplifying defamatory misinformation with no consequences. Trump, days later, mused that “the glass, it seems, was broken from the inside to the out, so it wasn’t a break-in, it was a breakout.” According to the police, this is flatly false, but what difference does that make?

The right doesn’t have a monopoly on political violence, of course. Perhaps the most analogous incident in recent memory is the 2017 shooting, by a disturbed gunman who identified with the left, of the Republican congressman Steve Scalise and several others. After that attack, prominent Democrats expressed unqualified condemnation, and sympathy for the victims. After the attack on Paul Pelosi, some Republican officials issued thoughts and prayers; others, such as Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, found a way to blame both sides (“This is what Democrat policies are bringing, but of course we wish Paul Pelosi a recovery”). Still others (Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas; Representative Clay Higgins, of Louisiana) treated the incident as fodder for fatuous conspiracy theories, or as a gruesome punch line.

It’s a journalistic cliché, but a useful exercise: imagine that all this were happening in another country. A political leader, the object of years of menacing rhetoric, is targeted; the opposition party vacillates between downplaying the incident and playing it for cheap laughs. This is also a country with more guns than people, and more than ten mass shootings in an average week. And one where, year after year, voting gets harder, especially for poor people and racial minorities. How would you rate that country’s long-term democratic prospects?

Last week, Brazil held a runoff Presidential election between Jair Bolsonaro, the proto-authoritarian incumbent, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftist former President. Gun ownership had spiked under Bolsonaro, and the months leading up to the election were extraordinarily tense. The journalism nonprofit Agência Pública recorded more than three hundred incidents of election-related violence, including at least fifteen murders and twenty-three assassination attempts. Lula won, by less than two percentage points, and supporters of Bolsonaro, who has insisted for years that the voting system is rigged, took to the streets, demanding that the military overturn the result. Bolsonaro stayed silent for two days, and even then did not formally concede; he distanced himself from “the destruction of property” and other forms of protest, but did not tell his supporters to stand down. Once he is stripped of Presidential immunity, he could face charges of mishandling public funds and recklessly endangering his citizens during the pandemic, accusations he dismisses. But he may be calculating that he can benefit from mass unrest, and from the perception that there is no way to hold him accountable without tearing the country apart.

If this sounds like the kind of thing that can happen only in a relatively young democracy, consider that nearly every move Bolsonaro has made is one first used by Trump. “This is a path to chaos in America,” Biden said. “It’s unprecedented, it’s unlawful, and it’s un-American.” Chaos? Absolutely. Un-American? Maybe. ♦

[crimefightingspiderguy]

My final thoughts on WandaVision (so it goes without saying if you haven’t finished it, don’t look past Vision)

What I liked:

• I loved the sitcom concept, super cool. And finding out why she hung onto sitcoms for comfort was just *chefs kiss* pay off wise.

• I loved how it started out as a slow build up (but I do think it would’ve worked better to have longer episodes to make things fit better and not feel as rushed towards the end)

• I loved Darcy, Monica and Jimmy’s trio. They were so fantastic together and the actors all did great.

• On the note of Monica, IM SO EXCITED TO HAVE A WOMAN OF COLOR SUPERHERO (especially since she’ll eventually be a main character not just a “sidekick”) 🥳

• I LOVED Pietro/Fietro/Ralph/Uncle P (whoever the hell he actually was). I obviously have some dislikes about the last episode, but we’ll get to that later. I loved how fun Evan Peters was. He really did a fantastic job even though no one knew what was going on with his character, he ate that shit up and left no crumbs.

• Wanda and Visions love story is so much better now that we got to build up to it rather than us just jumping into it (how I felt in Infinity War)

• SCARLET WITCH BOUT TO MAKE ME ACT UP. HOLY JIMMINE CRICKETS WAS SHE LOOKING GORGEOUS AND POWERFUL IN THAT LAST EPISODE

• Billy and Tommy are some of the sweetest children I think I’ve ever seen in a movie/show world and I love them with all my heart and soul and I really hope they do return.

• ITS BEEN AGATHA ALL ALONG 💃🏻🕺🏽💃🏻🕺🏽💃🏻

• “what is grief if not love persevering”

• “we’ve said goodbye before so it stands to reason... we’ll say hello again” IM CRYING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.

• Wanda tucked in Billy and Tommy so they’d be asleep before they were sucked away with the hex 😭😭😭

• “thank you for choosing me to be your mom” 😭

• That second end credit scene with Scarlet Witch astral projecting was so trippy (I love it) and the boys calling to her broke my dang heart.

• overall the special effects looked really cool

• omg Elizabeth Olsen breaking her back to create the hex was 10/10 she’s so dedicated to the motions/physical acting of it all. Also all her crying scenes, it all felt very real and it really made me sob whenever she was hurting.

Things I didn’t like:

• Episode length. I understand they wanted it to go with the length of a normal sitcom, but it doesn’t work when you’re flashing back and forth between the sitcom and the real world. The time got messy towards the end and things felt rushed like the Vision vs. White Vision battle was just boring because it had no climatic energy to it.

• Too many loose ends/wasn’t clear enough. By that I mean, who was Jimmy’s missing person that led to him learning about the hex? (I’m hoping it was Evan Peters’ character, but more on that later). What happened to White Vision? Does Wanda have Agatha’s power now or did she just make it so she couldn’t use them?

• Ralph Bohner? Really Disney/Marvel? Really? You’re telling me you got Evan fricking Peters just so you could stunt cast and fuck with the audience and end it with a dick joke? Not cool.

• Why no Darcy in the last episode other than 2 seconds :(

• Hayward... Thats it. I just really hate him.

• some of the script/lines were a little questionable... like idk a lot of Agatha’s lines once she was revealed as the villain just were lack luster after her amazing intro and they were sort of tacky.

• I didn’t like how they hyped up certain things just for them to not really be significant (like Monica saying she knew a space engineer who could get her in and it was all mysterious, then not even ending up needing the truck they built or the character not really having much of a “wow” show up)

• I’m back to the Evan Peters thing. Why would they hype up his character’s mystery identity for him to just be a random dude named Ralph Bohner??? That’s such terrible writing (obviously I’m not an expert writer, but I actually did internship at a magazine where I had to read submitted stories and judge them and see if they were worthy of publication. And my minor in college was writing. So I do know a little about story telling, and something is off about the way they did this.). It’s either the fact that it’s just plain bad writing, or it’s a misdirect. I want to believe that Marvel knows how much people would enjoy EP in this show and would eventually expect more from him in the MCU. Now obviously, this is Wanda’s show and she decides what makes it on and what doesn’t, so maybe Ralph is the missing person Jimmy was looking for, but Wanda doesn’t know that, nor would she want it on her show. Maybe he really is Quicksilver but they put him in the Witness Protection Program when he came over from another universe? Or maybe he really is just a nobody who Agatha lived with because his house was conveniently close to Wanda’s. Or maybe he is someone of significance because who just has a random headshot lying around with their proof of ownership of their house and other paperwork and then laughs at their name Bohner even though if they’d had that name their whole life they’d be sick of the dick jokes?? Maybe they left it vague enough so they could gauge audience reaction to EP, if it was good they could come back to it in a mutants movie/show (or maybe even Doctor Strange 2 or Spider-Man 3) or if it was bad, just leave it at he’s a random person who already lived in Westview. Idk all I know is if they don’t end up bringing him back I’m definitely gonna be significantly less interested in any morphing of the XMen and mutants into the MCU.

Lastly, I just wanna say the actors and actresses all did fantastic (especially Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany). They all play such complex roles this time around and it really showed how passionate they were about this project. I loved them all so much and they truly brought this show to life (yes it has flaws, but it was their first attempt at a MCU timeline show, and the actors did what they could with what they were given so none of my criticism go towards them). I really enjoyed this overall (and I’m genuinely sad to see it ending) and I’m looking forward to seeing Wanda being a bad mamma-jamma in Doctor Strange 2.

[insanelydeadlybookcollector]

Soooo now you've watched all of S1-4, when do you think Mondler startted fancying each other? Like, specifically for each of them? Do you think it was always there, or on and off? I count you as the internet's Mondler expert so I'm v interested to hear your thoughts! x

First off, thank you. That's really sweet. This is a huge question and I want to do it justice. Let me know if this makes any sense.

We'll start with Chandler.

I think Chandler has had a crush on Monica almost the entire time he's known her. It might have started as simple friendship but somewhere in those early years as they teased Ross he realised she laughed at all of his jokes and have him all of his attention. No one has ever done that for him before.

I think it happened slowly for him but he's always been aware of it. He knows the reason he doesn't like doesn't like her dates, and even Rachel at the beginning, because she deserves better and she doesn't see him. He tolerates them, of course, and won't say anything about them not being good enough, she deserves better than that. But he can't help but wonder if he'd be better for her than Paul and Alan and Fun Bobby.

Chandler has always found himself dating women that are similar to Monica and that's no accident. He has a type, yes, but it's not strong confident brunettes, it's her. He might not doing consciously and I don't think there's any malicious intent, but every woman he dated reminds him of Monica a little and that's why he's attracted to them and why it won't ever work. Look at Janice and Joanna's personalities and Kathy's haircut.

So, from the beginning he's been aware of his crush on her. It comes and goes, flaring up again when she's hurt or upset or wants to spend time with him above anybody else. He won't ever do anything about it, doesn't want to ruin their friendship, he's never had a family like this one and losing Monica would be the worst in itself but it would also mean losing everyone else. But sometimes he wonders if they could cross the line, if he could put his arm around her on the chair and know it meant something, if he could make certain she would never cry again because of some loser date. Sometimes he wonders if he should be feeling this way, if she can see it, if she might ever feel the same way, and every so often he'll offer him himself, but until London she hadn't taken him seriously.

I think having him crush on her for most of preMondler without intending on doing anything about it most of the time (I don't want to taint those beautiful friendship moments) makes things like Chandler adamantly believing they're "meant to be together" make sense and justify why he thought London was "the most romantic night if his life" and was so upset that it wasn't them finally admitting to themselves they felt something more in The Truth About London.

Monica's a little more difficult.

She definitely had a crush on him the first time she met him. She undoubtedly thought he was attractive and funny and the first person who really, even off-handedly believed in her. Of course he ruined that with a hurtful frat comment and she tried to hate him. And it was easy when he wasn't in her life, but seeing him again made her heart race.

And then she cut off his toe. She's not sure how, but that's when they became friends. Clearly, he was embarrassed by it, but he never blamed her. He would laugh about being teased at school, not sure how his friends had found out, and roll his eyes over the table at her at her doofus brother and it was nice to have someone agree with her that he wasn't God's gift like he thought he was. It was nice to have a friend like him, easy to talk to and constant.

She had thought something might happen between them when she told him the apartment across from her was for sale. She knew it was expensive, it wasn't passed down from a family member, so she thought maybe there was another reason he'd taken it. They had dinner together and walked each other to work and shared their lunch breaks in local cafes and played pool in the bar but nothing had ever happened. They teased and they touched in the most intimate ways, his fingers on the bare skin of her arm when he wanted her attention, but nothing ever eventuated. She started thinking maybe he didn't feel the same.

So her crush for him lay dormant for years. A few times it reared its head, always at the wrong time. She would see him running lines with Joey, playing with Ben, listening to Phoebe talk about her grandmother and her heart would just clench, stopping for a second because she saw him. She saw who he was and what he was capable of and Aurora didn't see it and no one else seemed to want it. It wasn't a crush so much as it was love for him and all he does silently for his friends but because so much time had past and nothing had ever happened, she brushed it aside as anything but what it was.

There were times when she would think he was teasing in the daylight but moonbeams and streetlights shining through her window would make her see the shadows on his face when she thought about the way she had snapped or laughed when she rejected him. In those hours she worried that what she was feeling was that old crush coming back and not merely concern for her friend. She worried he would stop asking and she worried that she didn't want him to.

She had even thought, giddily, that the night they had kissed at Joey's party would eventuate into something more. She often lay awake with the ghost of his lips on hers, his tongue tasting hers and wondered how the universe could be so cruel as to not let him remember it.

It was on their trip home from the beach when he sat on the opposite side of the cab that Monica realised it might be more than merely friendship. He didn't want to touch her, didn't want to press his shoulder against hers or let her rest her head on him and it hurt, deep in her soul, wondering if he would ever offer himself to her again and vowing she would say yes the next time he did. But he'd dropped the subject, she'd asked him to play cards but he didn't out and out ask her the way he had a few days prior and she did her best to let him know she would say yes but she's not certain he got the message.

And then came Kathy. She'd never seen him like that, desperate to be loved by the woman he thought he lived, worried he was hurting his friend. And then doing everything he could to make sure she stayed in his life once they were together. While they were together she had worried that Chandler would leave her, move out to Hollywood to be with this woman who didn't love him back but it was worse after they broke up. He had no time for her and she had no time for him with work and the wedding and giving Rachel advice and taking care of Phoebe and she was mad that he'd won her apartment. They were further than ever before from each other. But then he'd look across the table and hand her part of the paper, or host a pretty good party, or barge into her personal space like he always would and everything was normal, the same as it always was. She's not sure who initiated it but they started spending more time together than ever before. She'd come over for breakfast and he'd plant himself on on the same chair as her when she watched a movie to relax. They made sure they had time just the two of them like they always had, sitting side by side on the orange lounge before everyone else joined them in Central Perk.

Only she knew things now. She knew that he loved fiercely and desired loyalty and was near and tidy and determined. He fought for what he wanted in little ways and protected himself by closing off from everyone but her. She knew he went weeks simply cuddling with a girlfriend and was both so truthful and so good in bed a girl came rushing over to thank her for the lesson she'd given him, not that it really mattered. It was things she already knew, mostly, but maybe the first time she'd seen them all at once.

She'd realised then, somewhere late in season four that he need for him to not be sad, to always be on her team, to sit beside her and help her with groceries, it was more than friendship and she wanted to know where it could lead. And she decided she would once they got back from London.

In short, they've both always had a crush, there's always been something magnetic between them. Chandler's always known but tried to fight it, tried to hide it because he thinks she deserves better, and Monica let her crush get burried under her career and her desire to value his friendship above everybody else's. But she'd always felt it too. And I genuinely think one or both of them would have acted on it in season five even if London didn't happen.

[williamaltman]

The truth about Wanda's family and ScarletVision in WandaVision:

So, it has been a while since the show aired, but to this day, I think a lot of people don't quite understand the logistics of all that happened. Mainly, in regards to the existence of Vision and the twins. A lot of people still think that they're "not real". What exactly counts as real might be a bit subjective, but they're not "fake" in the sense that a lot of people seem to think. A lot of those misconceptions seem to come from the fact that in the comics, Wanda's twins are said to "not be real". This comes from the fact that their souls come from a shard of Mephisto's, and after Pandemonium comes to take those shards back, they're gone. In the show however, as we know very well, there's no Mephisto. So how do the twins exist? According to Agatha in episode 9, the Scarlet Witch is a being capable of "Spontaneous creation". Right before, she says "Your children, Vision, this whole world you created... This is chaos magic, Wanda." So how do the twins and Vision exist? Simple, Wanda created them. They're not fake. They're not "an illusion". In fact, it is established many times that everything inside the Hex is REAL, not an illusion. As per Monica, in episode 5: "It's not an illusion, Wanda is rewriting reality" "Wanda's twins are hers. Everything might look fake on the TV, but everything in there is real" So why do they disappear without the hex? If they're real, shouldn't they stay alive? Again, Agatha explains: "You tied your family to this twisted world, and now one can't exist without the other." Wanda's mistake was that the creation of Vision and the twins was made a part of the same spell that created the Hex. So if she takes down the hex, she takes them down along with it. It seems like a lot of people miss the fact that, Agatha explains the situation clearly to her, and then offers to make a deal with her: If Wanda gives her her power, she'll correct the flaws in Wanda's spell and allow her to live happily with her family. The whole time that they're fighting and Wanda is shooting her power at her, Agatha thinks she's doing that as part of their deal. But we then learn that Agatha was lying, as she then tells Wanda: "About our deal... Once a spell is cast, it can never be changed. This world you created will always be broken." Which also explains the criticism of "Why didn't Wanda just keep the hex at her house?". She can't. The spell can't be changed. She either keeps it as is, or undoes it. No in-between. Now, more in regards to ScarletVision. I've seen some takes about their relationship in the show that are... Wrong, or at least questionable. >"Wanda is having sex with an illusion of Vision/a mind-controlled Vision/forcing him to be with her" Vision is not an illusion. He's a real person (synthezoid) with his own life and mind and free-will, exactly like the original Vision. The reason he disappears along with the hex is already explained above. Wanda is not mind-controlling Vision, or forcing him to do anything. Because he and the twins were created inside the hex, they don't need to be mind-controlled to fit in on the sitcoms, and they're also straight-up immune to Wanda's powers as shown when she tries to make the twins sleep, and as said by the creators in many interviews. In episode 5, there's the "You can't control me the way you do them" "Can't I?" which a lot of people misunderstand and take it as Wanda having control over Vision. But she doesn't. Her "Can't I?" is referring to what she does next: Rolling the credits, to end the episode. It doesn't affect Vision's mind at all. It also just doesn't work, as Vision is able to stop the credits when he continues to argue with her. And as we find out next episode, even changing the decade doesn't take away Vision's memories and knowledge of there being something wrong in WestView. >"Do Wanda and Vision have sex? Can they?" This one is kind of a tangent, but, I've seen a couple arguments about the scene in episode 2 where they go under the covers in bed. First of all: Yes, they obviously had

sex. The implication of the scene is pretty clear. Vision makes a suggestive face to Wanda and tells her to turn off the lights, right after she turned their separate beds into a double bed. The reason they have separate beds is that couples in actual 60's sitcoms did. Because them being in the same bed, implied, well, sex. There's just also no other way to interpret them going under the blanket and moving and turning off the lights especially after the faces they make at each other, so I'm not sure why there's even an argument about this. And yes, the fact tha Wanda gets pregnant at the end of the episode DOES help with that. Yes, Wanda gets pregnants with her powers... But that's not the story she wants, she wants it to be as if she and Vision can just naturally have children. So, when she has sex with Vision that night, that should be the point where the twins are really "conceived." >"But how can they have sex if Vision is a robot and doesn't have a-" Just think about it... Vision, with his powers, can create his own clothes. Full-on outfits. His whole costume and a cape. He's able to change from that to his casual turtleneck outfit. He can even alter his whole body to look human. It's just logical that he's also able to create a penis. Besides that, Paul Bettany and even Lizzie got asked about that and Vision's sex life a bunch of times. And every time they have said that, yes, Vision can change his density, Vision can create a penis, they do have sex somehow... Note that, when Wanda does get pregnant, they don't question anything about how "But how can she be pregnant if we don't do that?", but rather just "How is she months pregnant in a matter of 12 hours?". It's true that Vision as a synthezoid shouldn't be able to impregnate her at all, but if Wanda got pregnant without them even having sex AT ALL, that would definetely be more of an issue rather than just how fast the pregnancy has advanced. >"But that doesn't matter, cause Wanda's pregnancy is psychological". No. How is it psychological if the children are actually born? I guess the logic here is that both the pregnancy and the twins she give birth to are fake, and "an illusion", but that has already been established as NOT being the case. And then part of that comes from misunderstanding the storyline in the comics. Wanda's pregnancy was not psychological. She actually got pregnant and unlike the show had a normal 9 months pregnancy. The idea that the twins were fake originally came from them being shards of Mephisto (which was a retcon btw). And then, when Bendis came to write House of M, he wanted to frame Wanda as being crazy and unstable. So he emphasized the idea of them not being real to make it seem like part of Wanda's mental issues, and also went with the narrative that a pregnancy and babies created through magic were inheretly not real. But that's only the interpretation of one write in a couple stories. He also said "chaos magic" wasn't real, and then other comics dismissed that and said that it was. And then, they turned out to be real enough that they were able to be reincarnated into Wiccan and Speed. So, even in the comics, Wanda's pregnancy isn't exactly fake or psychological. Even if you still see it that way though, the show is NOT like the comics. It has its own logic, which, to come back to the beginning, is that: Wanda's powers make her capable of "spontaneous creation". She fully created the twins and Vision as living people. She made the mistake of tying their existence into the hex, so when she undid the hex, which was a spell that ALTERED REALITY rather than created illusions, they were gone along with it.

[rkorlov]

Thoughts on WandaVision as I’m watching...

BEWARE OF SPOILERS, if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read any of this, ok?

First episode: Paul and Elizabeth have such good comedy timing together, and lots of chemistry. I wish we could’ve seen so much more of them in the Avengers movies but I’m also glad we got the series.

Wanda and Vision being confused on what they’re doing, where they come from, when’s their anniversary makes you wonder in a magnificent way without giving right away the answers and that’s nice. It makes you think: was this Wanda? Was it someone else?

Wanda’s comment about Vision’s indestructible head and me chuckling at the moment she said it because ARE YOU SURE, HONEY?

It hurts a lil bit, let’s keep watching.

Second episode: Wanda telling Vision how this is their home now and she wants to fit in. Well shit.

It’s the second time I see ads, in the first episode it was a Stark Industries toaster. Now, it’s a Hydra watch... huh.

Everything being black and white except for the toy helicopter (red and yellow) and the blood stain (red) in Dottie’s hand.

Geraldine knowing her name when she shook Wanda’s hand.

Shit, so many questions so far and I haven’t finished watching the episode yet.

OK, OK, HOLD ON. I WAS STARTING TO FEEL THAT “FOR THE CHILDREN” WAS GOING TO BE IMPORTANT BECAUSE REPETITION AND THEN WANDA APPEARS PREGNANT. THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE.

Who in hell is that beekeeper and why everything just rewinded and turned back into color after he appeared? AAAAAA.

The voice asking Wanda who’s doing this to her, shit.

Third episode: Let’s carry on, I need answers.

Not only the intro changed but also they changed decades. Everyone’s hair is styled differently, the clothing is and that song: “All great expectations lead to complications”... you’re gonna screw everyone over, ain’t ya?

“I can’t wait to be a proud papa-ya...” oh Vision.

Wanda losing control over her powers because of the pregnancy, oh well darling, here we go... 

Now Wanda wondering if their neighbors can tell who they really are and Vision starts to doubt it as well and it gets rewinded... darling, this is staged for sure. Everytime THEY are the ones about to figure it out something happens.

And Hydra has a soap commercial, why am I not surprised? They’re like roaches, get underneath everything.

The doctor’s comment about small towns being hard to escape says it all by itself.

WANDA HAVING TWINS AND REMEMBERING PIETRO. MY HEART HURTS.

Geraldine knowing Pietro was killed by Ultron, now that’s interesting. Her being new in town, having no home, having the symbol of whoever’s watching on Wanda and Vision. Inte-fucking-resting. Then her having to rush home aka being thrown out of the simulation.

Fourth episode: It starts off with the people coming back to life from the snap... shit, shiT, SHIT.

Oh so it was S.W.O.R.D watching over Wanda all along.

FUUUUCK, I JUST REMEMBERED CAPTAIN MARVEL WAS A THING AND MARIA RAMBEAU WAS CAROL’S FRIEND AND HER BABY GIRL WAS MONICA. OMB. AAAAA how I love it when everything starts to tie up.

Darcy Lewis, YAAAS.

S.W.O.R.D, the FBI and special forces from all corners investigating upon this little unexistent town that Wanda Maximoff created in order to overcome her grief from having lost everyone she loved. Yaay, we love us Marvel destroying us emotionally. Thank you. Fifth episode: “She’s gone, she didn’t belong here” HOLD ON, YOU HAD PREVIOUSLY SAID SHE HAD TO RUSH HOME.

Wanda not being able to control her babies with her powers is kinda weird. Need to know more about that.

Agnes breaking character and asking Wanda if they should start from the top definitely asks for suspicion. Vision being able to tell immediately this is weird it’s the weirdest of all because Vision is supposed to be dead, and Wanda remembered he was dead last episode, so how is HE able to tell this is all made up?

THE TWINS ALL GROWN UP ARE SUCH CUTIES.

Wanda stealing Vision’s body is not the question in here, the question is why did S.W.O.R.D have it of all people? Was that in the Sokovian accords, if Vision died his body went to them? That’s not normal, especially not because Tony came back, he would’ve taken care of Vision and not in that way.

OK, NOW I THINK I KNOW WHAT THE ADS MEAN. The toaster of Stark Industries was because a Stark missile burnt down Wanda’s home. The watch of Hydra was because for a great amount of time, Hydra controlled her a Pietro. The Lagos add of the paper towels speaks of how there is a mess and you need something to clean it up. Lagos was the place where Wanda accidentally killed people while she tried to stop Rumlow. SHIT, SHIT. All of the ads are past events of her life.

“You can fix anything, mom. Fix the dead.” BOY, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANNA GO THERE?

Now, Wanda can control everyone but her sons and Vision... that’s something definitely of interest.

MY BOY EVAN SHOWING UP. AAAA. I’ve been waiting for this moment ever since they got back the X-Men, my heart. My heart is happy.

Now, since Wanda is definitely warping reality, I do think this is the start of the multiverse. This is definitely Pietro. Not a recasting, this was her not fully controlling her powers and creating this.

Sixth episode: To start off, Vision is not actually Vision, or if he is, he can’t remember a thing. Probably that has something to do with Wanda bringing him back to life but she even erased the Avengers from his memory. She got rid of everything.

Pietro being completely aware of his role in this reality and why she called him, and then Wanda remembering he is also dead. Now I’m confused because I do think he has something to do with breaching realities but I’m not sure. lol

The people standing near Ellis Avenue being frozen and them being out of reach of Wanda’s circle making them stop all they’re doing. That’s insane.

Now, the twins having Pietro’s and Wanda’s powers. Billy being fully connected to Vision knowing he needs help. Then Wanda stopping time and being able to extend her reality in order to save Vision. This was not only visually incredible but hell, the display of Wanda’s powers grow more and more each day. This is gonna be insane.

[since0202]

New chapter of Taking Time coming Wed/Thurs

Chapter Thirty Eight: Double lives without the compromise

Chapter Thirty-Eight teaser:

They’d been at their homework for over three hours at this point and Noah had been incessantly texting them from the karaoke bar to come and join him and some friends. They were adamant about getting this assignment done before the weekend though since the freshman mixer was scheduled for the next night and the plan was to get absolutely obliterated.

They’d been at their homework for over three hours at this point and Noah had been incessantly texting them from the karaoke bar to come and join him and some friends. They were adamant about getting this assignment done before the weekend though since the freshman mixer was scheduled for the next night and the plan was to get absolutely obliterated.

“You’ll be responsible for murder, Beez,” Maya said as she collapsed onto her book. A non-committal noise sounded from Beez’s desk. Maya had been doing well over the past few weeks as she settled into her new routine at Columbia. She was taking a full courseload and the immense amount of work that afforded her gave her enough of a distraction from the growing ache in her stomach to act like a normal teenage college student.

She and Paul had missed each other a few times that first week as Maya settled in. But after the first week, she was constantly chattering away with excitement about her classes, her friends, and New York to Paul. They video chatted almost every night before he left on rounds and Maya would smile as he’d walk her around their house, Jacob waving from the couch or out in the woodshop. He met Beez over video chat that first week and only prickled slightly when Noah waved from Maya’s doorway as he headed out back to his dorm.

Paul didn’t look too bad—a little paler maybe—but the distraction of renovating the house and travelling to Seattle for work more and doing extra rounds seemed to be keeping him even. Maya could tell he was in a little bit of pain though every time they saw each other through the screen.

Beez was talking under her breath at her desk now. Maya stared off into space with her cheek laid on her textbook. Her classes had definitely been more challenging than any coursework she’d completed in La Push, but Maya hadn’t realized she’d been craving something like this until it was thrust upon her. She was thriving even if this particular assignment was dragging her through the mud. Maya had always enjoyed being challenged intellectually and the atmosphere college provided her set her alight with new determination and fire to succeed. She knew after just her first week of classes that she had made the right choice to leave the reservation, even if that meant leaving Paul.

Paul. Just the thought of him sent a pang through her stomach and settled uncomfortably between her legs. She’d be lying if she didn’t admit that his absence was overwhelmingly felt, especially at night. He infiltrated every moment of her dreams and punctuated her waking hours. She made sure not to dwell on him too much when she was awake because the ache would come roaring back to life, but she couldn’t help seeing his warm, smiling face, or his broad, muscular frame in her dreams. More than once, Maya had woken in a sweat after a particularly active dream where she’d felt his sweltering body on top of hers, his lips trailing down the side of her face to her neck, his hand placed expertly between her legs and shoving them apart for more access. To say she missed him was an understatement.

As Maya let her mind wander to her most recent dream of Paul for just a moment—she was back in Santa Monica with him and his hand was gripped tightly to her waist, his thumb working at her center as she bounced on top of him, panting and exhausted but so full of him. She bit her lower lip, swallowing a smile before she heard Beez shout,

“This doesn’t make SENSE! Come on, BEEZ!” Maya heard the distinct sound of her pencil rebounding off the wall and clattering to the floor. A knock sounded at the door and Maya jerked up, looking over her shoulder toward it. “That better not be fucking Noah come to drag us out of here. I’ve almost got it,” Beez revised her earlier confusion.

Maya laughed and dragged herself up out of her chair, tightening the lopsided messy bun on top of her head and pushing back the sleeves of her dark blue, oversized Columbia sweatshirt. She’d bought one for Paul too. “I’ll tell him to get lost,” Maya said as she padded over to their door and yanked it open. The air felt sucked from her body though as she was overshadowed by the immense frame of—

“PAUL!” Maya all but screamed as she hurled her body into his. She heard that deep, familiar laugh wrack his body as she squeezed her arms around his neck letting out a sigh of relief into his neck. His arms were gripped down around her body, the hot expanse of his massive palms spreading pools of warmth within her. She let out of a huff of excitement, not realizing tears were springing to the corners of her eyes.

She pulled back to look at his face, bringing one hand to the scruff of his cheek. The dark circles were apparent under his eyes, but the joy that spilled from them was enough to send her into overdrive. He looked at her like that. Like there was nothing else worth looking at. With another huff of elated breath, she closed the distance and pressed her lips to his full ones and drank him in and the world disappeared for a moment. Maya was gripping him so tightly that her hands started to hurt and when they pulled apart breathless, she eeked out, “What are you doing here? You’re a week early!”

Paul nudged his nose against hers, his hands tightening around her possessively, “I’d waited long enough. I needed to see you,” he said and the color of his voice somehow turned the brightness up in hers. She let out a small laugh that made his eyes shoot to her mouth momentarily before he said, “Miss me?”

“So much,” she said as one of her tears of joy escaped the corner of eye and drifted down her cheek. He smiled and Maya’s heart ratcheted up as he brought his lips back down upon hers, flooding her mouth with the taste of forest, of home, of him.

[tcm]

Shelley Winters: An Extraordinary Actress By Susan King

When Shelley Winters died at 85 in 2006, much was made of the fact that the two-time Oscar-winner went from a va-va-va voom sex symbol to a matronly character actress. In fact, the Los Angeles Times obit stated she was a “blond bombshell of the 1940s who evolved into a character actress best remembered for her roles as victims, shrew and matrons.”

But truth be told, Winters was always a character actress. However, when she began in the acting in Hollywood in the 1940s, the studio system typecast actresses and actors on appearance. In fact, she once noted she often played the “the bad blonde bimbo usually going up against the sweet brunette.” In fact, before she got her big movie break as a tart waitress who is murdered by Ronald Colman in A DOUBLE LIFE (’47), she was playing the comedic character part of Ado Annie on Broadway in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!.  And speaking of A DOUBLE LIFE, Winters brought a depth to the character that other ingenues of the era wouldn’t have had the ability to play.

“She was a serious actress,” said Diane Baker, who made her film debut opposite Winters in George Stevens’ acclaimed THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (’59) for which Winters received her first supporting actress Oscar as Mrs. Van Daan. And it was her role as the zaftig middle-age Van Daan that was her watershed film – the movie in which she segued from glam roles and moved into the forefront of the character actresses. “I believe Shelley exemplified what it was to be a Method actress,” Baker added.

Winters initially had to work hard to convince Hollywood she was a serious actress. Oscar-nominated Sally Kirkland, who knew and worked with Winters from 1962-2006, recalled the lengths she went to convince director George Stevens that she was more than a sex symbol in order to play the dowdy pregnant Alice Tripp, who is murdered by her boyfriend (Montgomery Clift) in A PLACE IN THE SUN (’51).

“When George Stevens made an appointment to meet her at the Hollywood Athletic Club, she made her hair brown. She’s flattened her chest, got a dowdy coat. She sits there for an hour because he doesn’t recognize her. Winters went to these ‘extremes’ because she’s smart enough to know she can not be a blonde bombshell. He agrees to test her and then hires her. She gets her Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Of course, that relationship with Monty Clift was profound to her.”

She also excelled in the gothic thriller THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (’55), the only film directed by Oscar-winning actor Charles Laughton. “I don’t know whether this is a well-known fact, but she felt Charles Laughton really taught her acting,” said Kirkland.” In fact, before she made NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Winters had taken a Shakespeare acting class with the British actor. “He took her under his wing,” noted Kirkland. “During my entire time with her from 1962 until she died, she would talk about Charles Laughton. From her point of view, he was her mentor.”

Winters also respected Lee Strasberg, with whom she studied at the Actors Studio in New York and later became a well-respected teacher there. “She loved Lee Strasberg,” said Kirkland. “I loved Lee Strasberg. I studied with him from ’64 on.” (Winters got Kirkland into the Actors Studios.) But Kirkland noted that Strasberg was “a very hard man to have a relationship with. He was very closed off in the sense of communications other than when he was critiquing. I think Charles Laughton had a really personal relationship with her. She had him on such a pedestal. She said he taught her more than anybody.”

After THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Winters left Hollywood for the Actors Studio and soon was appearing on Broadway in A Hatful of Rain with Ben Gazzara and Anthony Franciosa, who would become her third husband. Winters played the pregnant wife of a Korean vet struggling with heroin addiction.

“I was a teenager and saw it on Broadway,” said Kirkland. “It just blew my mind. I said, ‘I have to do that. I have to do what Shelley’s doing.’ Unbelievable impact on me.” Winters also impacted Baker. “While we were on DIARY, if something happened, she didn’t stop the scene,” Baker explained. “One time, something happened to the chair when she was in a scene. The chair went down the stairs. She didn’t say cut or stop acting. She went down the stairs to bring the chair back up and kept going.” Baker recalled that Winters wasn’t “Hollywood” in any way. She had a table at the Silver Spoon on Santa Monica Blvd. Just a normal simple little lunch table where she sat and had people visiting. She used to have her little group of people who were friends who would chat and talk.”

Stevens treated Winters with sensitivity and understanding, Baker noted. “He went along with her creative needs. I think that’s why he brought her onto DIARY, because she was the combination of nerves, humor and at the same time tragedy. She would pull it off.’

“I think she was just a mensch,” added Baker. She was more than a mensch to Kirkland. “I studied with her. I was her assistant. I taught her all her lines in LOLITA (‘62), A PATCH OF BLUE (’65), THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (‘72). I basically did everything she needed help with. She always wanted a young actress, kind of a protégé; I always wanted a stage mom. My mom was fashion editor for Life at the time and didn’t have time to be a typical mom.“

When Kirkland was working with Winters as the actress preparing for A PATCH OF BLUE, for which Winters won her second Oscar for playing the harridan bigoted mother of a young blind woman, she gave Kirkland a gold friendship ring. “It said, ‘To Sally from Shelley. I love you.’”

Winters had to gain nearly 40 pounds for her final Oscar-nominated role in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE for her sweet performance as a former competitive swimmer. She never was able to lose the weight. Though the quality of her films was a mixed bag until her death, Winters still gave some great performances especially in Pau Mazursky’s NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGE (‘76), in which she plays the ultimate Jewish mother.

“Paul Mazursky was her friend,” said Kirkland. “Paul was an actor/director/writer at the Actors Studio. He would come over to the house when I was there, and he would talk about the project.” Kirkland said Winters would use music to get her into character and emotional scenes. “She loved opera,” Kirkland noted. “She would put on something like La Traviata and that would always make her cry. Paul, brilliant that he is, kept it in the movie, kept her Method acting exercise in the movie. So, when you see NEXT STOP GREENWICH VILLAGE and you hear opera, you’ll know that was one of the secrets of Shelley Winters’ acting was always to have opera playing.”

[blazedfired]

Final thoughts on WandaVision:

I bawled my eyes out. It was sad, it was emotionally deep.

The outfit was fire, except for the sleeveless arms. I think it looks a bit weird that the rest of her is covered except for the top half of her arms.

The residents of Westview were completely justified in being mad at Wanda. She used them as puppets. Dottie/Sarah couldn’t even hold her daughter. However,

Wanda didn’t realise just how painful her manipulation was. She thought she was giving them a better life. When she heard that they were having her nightmares and had her grief, what did she do? She immediately let them go.

White Vision scares the bejesus out of me.

I hope I don’t have to see him ever again, but even I know that’s wishful thinking.

I laughed myself to tears when Hayward was reprimanded by Darcy. But I was a bit disappointed by the way SWORD was handled. Like, what’s going to happen to Hayward? Is he just going to jail?

They didn’t go into Monica’s powers in depth enough. I know they had limited time and the show is about Wanda, but I wished they had a little more of her using her powers.

Billy and Tommy deserve the world. Wanda made sure they knew nothing was wrong and that they’d be asleep before they vanished.

I didn’t really like Agatha as a villain. I just thought she was there to occupy Wanda so Vision could deal with White Vision.

Agatha is going to be an important character later.

I don’t think the Ralph Bohner thing is going to be the end of Evan Peters in MCU. I’m probably wrong, but they hid him far too well for him to just be tossed to the side. And why was he in Witness Protection? Why did Agatha choose him of all the residents in Westview? And how did he have super speed?

I don’t think Wanda is a villain, but she should’ve faced some sort of consequence for The Hex. She did, unknowingly, torture people for weeks on end.

Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Well, we know that Wanda can create, but only temporarily. That’s why when the Hex went away, so did Vision, but her kids? They were part her. She used hex magic to create them but they still had to share some of her genes. Vision was an extension of herself, conditional to the hex, an allusion. But Wanda was pregnant. Billy and Tommy are anchored to Wanda, so when they “disappeared”, only their hex parts did. The reason why Wanda could hear them in the post credits scene was because they still exist. They’re still anchored to her, to reality. Wanda just needs to find them and make them whole again.

White Vision is probably going to return to normal Vision eventually.

Who was the aerospace engineer?

They went so in-depth into side characters like Norm and Dottie that it felt a little jarring that they didn’t have bigger roles.

I liked the action and the SFX. It was brilliant. I think most people were disappointed that it wasn’t more action packed, but really it’s just because they were pissed none of their theories got proven right. When has Marvel actually coincided with fan theories? Hardly ever.

Mr. Paul Bettany. You said “snitches get stitches”. What do liars get? Hmmm.

Overall, I think the episode was amazing. I went in knowing that very little of my questions were going to be answered. That’s what a lot of fans failed to do so they were left unsatisfied. We got an in-depth look at Wanda’s psyche and that she doesn’t hurt people on purpose. It covered Wanda’s grief in a way that made it relatable to people. If you had the power to bring someone back, wouldn’t you do the same?