#poignant and honest and incredible

[titsthedamnseason]

one of my favorite taylor songs to listen to the first time was happiness because i have a visceral memory of hearing the line “i hope she’ll be a beautiful fool / who takes my spot next to you” and literally gasping out loud before hearing that the next line was basically taylor saying “oh no i take that back sorry” and letting out a little relieved breath and giggling like oh she gets me!

[wiltedprayers]

with my rewatch of the pacific being finally over I really want to urge my bob/mota/gk mutuals who haven't seen it to please give it a go. it's genuinely magical and even though my rankings always vary, a good chunk of the time it's my favorite hbo war show too. so dehumanizing and yet so beautiful. it's brutal in a really honest way. it doesn't shy away from much. it's based on incredible memoirs (leckie's and sledge's being the most prominent) and as such the individual character arcs are the best there are across all shows.

many people compare the pacific to band of brothers because they're unofficial sisters made by the same guys and all, but they're ultimately about different things. the pacific focuses much more on the individual journey through war, family, and solitude. bob is pretty much the opposite, as the company and camaderie between soldiers are its main themes. I think while the first watch of band of brothers is the most enjoyable, you learn to appreciate so many more things in rewatches of the pacific. there's lots of background/secondary characters to focus on as well if that's your thing — god knows we need more hoosier and bill leyden fans.

it's also practically impossible to finish tp and not end up absolutely loving eugene sledge. he's the character ever — there's really no one else like him. his characterization is so good as is his arc. his memoir is easily amongst the best in the whole hbo war universe, its writing incredibly poetic and poignant. once I picked up his book, I couldn't put it down. it's really that good. and the portrayal of him in the pacific by joe mazzello deserves nothing but my praise.

the acting and cinematography are, as usual, excellent as well. besides a few questionable narrative choices, everything really does come together in the end to make tp great tv. I mean it's such a good show. i could talk about it for hours and i'll always recommend it.

[frenchtantan]

Okay, after that mini-date between q!Tina and q!Bagi, I have some gripes to settle regarding how some people have been reacting.

First and foremost, cc!Tina. Miss ma’am, I know you’ll probably never read this, but let me tell you, if I hear you one more time saying you’re not good at roleplay I will SCREAM! You are SO passionate and in the moment, so immersed, and you immediately level yourself with how into it the people you’re interacting with are. You’re not afraid to make your character show vulnerability, fear and sadness. This is PEAK roleplaying skills, and it’s so enjoyable to watch! Please never feel invalidated just because you don’t have a 60 pages Word document about your character. You’re SO talented, and your monologues from the mini-date are incredibly poignant.

Secondly, I wanna touch upon the notion that q!Tina is easily swayed. This has some truth to it, and it did show with q!Bagi most of all. Many times she changed an answer about a question or a topic because q!Bagi had a different one. However, those were all about menial things. “But what about her opinion about the Federation?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s true that the people she’s been hanging out the most with (q!Foolish, q!Jaiden and q!Ironmouse) are either pro or neutral towards the Federation. However, because they are still keeping her at arm’s length, they don’t go into too much details as to the why and how. q!Foolish and q!Jaiden especially have a mutual trust and share secrets that they’d never tell q!Tina, at least not now. As such, while at first simmering in a relatively Federation-friendly climate, it wasn’t such a big focus point, especially since she was so new. Like she said, she lived in blissful ignorance, and the people surrounding her didn’t really do anything to change that.

Then comes q!Bagi. Slowly but surely, they both develop a crush on each other, and as such, q!Tina wants to impress. She grasps at a small excuse to flip her view of the Federation as a way to do that, but again, in that moment, it’s not a big deal. And because they are very shy with each other and clumsily flirt, the seriousness of the topic is still somewhat behind a curtain, even though q!Bagi has been knee deep into the dark side of the island. The terrible truths and secrets, the violence, torture, betrayals, she’s seen it all already, but when around q!Tina, she puts on a brave face and acts all sweet, because it’s clear she likes her a lot! However, she does sometimes let a smidge of truth slip out, which q!Tina unconsciously hears and stores in her memory for safekeeping without thinking too much of it.

Finally comes the turning point. q!Bagi discovers q!Cellbit is her long lost brother, and he reacts badly to it, leaving her profoundly sad. q!Tina is present enough to start to see how complex her crush’s life is, through multiple days. After a setback, q!Bagi decides to invite q!Tina on the mini-date and fully opens up to her. Despite building up to it, this wave of information comes crashing down. q!Tina is hit with everything. But most importantly, she is confronted with how blissful her ignorance was, and she is SCARED, leading to her AMAZING monologue about it. However, this fully awakens her critical thinking, and she actually starts to reflect on the situation! Seriously, I don’t know how people didn’t see that! Multiple times through the mini-date, she not only expresses her honest opinion, but even does so when it CHALLENGES q!Bagi’s. She defends q!Foolish, q!Jaiden and q!Forever, she tells her that one of the Cucuruchos is nice, she questions the idea of leaving the island, the Federation’s desire to harm, and so on. At that moment, she’s not trying to impress anymore, she wants to understand, and suggesting otherwise is highly disingenuous, reductive even.

By the end, there isn’t even a real agreement reached on any of those questions! However, what becomes clear is that q!Bagi did something nobody has truly done yet for q!Tina: she opened her heart, and decided to be completely honest. For a while now, q!Tina had become jaded about who to trust, noticing how much the others were keeping secrets, even her close friends. It upset her, and made her act irrational. Yet q!Bagi, without any second thought, chose to trust her. Not to manipulate her, not to test her, but because she truly wanted q!Tina to know who she was. She did that out of respect, to give her all the keys to make the most informed decision about their relationship. Through some more heart-to-heart, they realize they both feel the same way about the others keeping secrets, and now they know they have each-other, at least for the time being.

This leads me to the third misconception: q!Foolish. Doozers, I love you guys. The past months, you’ve fought tooth and nail to make sure q!Foolish wasn’t mischaracterized by the fandom, and I fully support you for it. However, there is something you need to realize: the other cubitos are NOT the fandom. They shouldn’t know, CANNOT know his POV, or q!Jaiden’s. As a result, the hard truth is that due to q!Foolish’s chaotic nature and seemingly wavering loyalty, NOBODY apart from q!Jaiden actually trusts him with regards to Federation matters. He’s often filibusting, joking around, and deviating when it comes to these matters, he has shown to be ready to arrest people. He CHOOSES to act like that, and since others don’t know his endgame, you cannot in good conscience blame any of them when he does not appear trustworthy. Even q!BBH with whom q!Foolish has somewhat of an unspoken bond, doesn’t tell him everything. I know you all want q!Bagi to have a conversation with him to understand him, but it’s going to take way more than that for any islander (again, other than q!Jaiden) to see him the way you do, much less q!Bagi.

This includes q!Tina by the way. As she said during the date, he’s been keeping her at arm’s length, so she’s started doing the same. He may have good reasons to do so but she can’t know them. Now, as she also mentioned, this has become kind of a mutual understanding of what they’re willing to share, and while it remains so, their friendship is almost certainly not endangered. That being said, if it WERE to come to blows, you cannot fault her if she ends up siding with q!Bagi, who’s shown willingness to cross bridges he hasn’t. Again, this is the worst case scenario. She’s still defending him so it’s suuuuuper unlikely to happen.

So yeah, that’s about it! TL;DR

q!Tina might sometimes be easily swayed, but keep in mind that when things get serious, she does have a good head on her shoulders and is capable of critical thinking.

While it’s important for the fandom to understand q!Foolish, it’s equally crucial to realize he does not appear trustworthy to almost all islanders because they don’t have the information the viewers have.

[utilitycaster]

Speaking of Laura and Marisha having relatively weak chemistry, which CR cast members do you think have the strongest chemistry (romantic or otherwise) across campaigns?

I've tried to limit this because I could literally name a great relationship for basically every cast pairing at this point, but some of my favorites. To keep things balanced, I've done a sort of circle situation with two pairings per cast member. I also haven't included Matt just because I think it would be weird because as DM he has to play off everyone well, and he does.

Travis and Liam always have something bizarrely intense and it's different every single time and it's never quite romantic (other than Bertrand/Lieve'tel) but it is, frequently, homoerotic. Obviously most present for Fjord and Caleb and particularly their conversation in the Xhorhaus, but the "I want to give you an experience" line in late Campaign VM and Chetney and Orym's conversation in the Heartmoor are two examples.

Ashley and Travis are also always good; Pike and Grog are legendary for a reason, Fearne and Chetney have some extremely fun stuff going on but can also take it to more serious places, notably their discussion after Ashton's shard absorption attempt. and Fjord and Yasha didn't interact a ton but their few moments (I'm specifically thinking their shopping trip around episode 108 or 109?) are stellar.

Sam and Ashley have the same quality I think Liam and Travis have, namely, they are on some level playing chicken with each other and neither will back down. We see this with Pikelan; my favorite interaction is Pike being mad at Scanlan after he returns from his Meat Man era. Pike and Tary and the flashcards to remember VM is also a legendary scene for a reason. Veth and Yasha have some unbelievably funny conversations (I killed my whole family, I'll throw you under a bridge) and FCG and Fearne have run the gamut from poignant (post-Otohan Fight) to ridiculous (Fearne riding FCG around and using them as a thermos; honestly, the latest Otohan encounter somehow straddled these two vibes).

Laura and Sam should be a legendary cast pairing. They tend to play in a similar space thematically and they also keep overlapping in some sort of stat or outlook as well, without ever playing characters who knew each other beforehand. It's uncanny. We had Vex and Scanlan as Vox Machina's Charm (highlight being Vex's reaction during Bard's Lament). Vex and Tary becoming best friends and opening a bakery. Jester and Veth's shenanigans and deep friendship (messing around in that temple in Zadash; Jester confiding in her about Fjord kissing her; that one time where they encountered the syphilis bandits and kept running past each other in the dark; Jester taking the flask; and many more). And FCG and Imogen's early campaign closeness, with Imogen insisting on FCG's personhood and the two of them doing mind and dream stuff together.

Taliesin and Laura, unsurprisingly given the appeal of Perc'ahlia, are always great as well. Their willingness as Percy and Vex to be incredibly honest with each other, even about their darker traits, is commendable. Molly and Jester were fascinating because I don't think he respected her much but he did enjoy her company, and she admired him greatly. Team Cleric was also, naturally, a great duo, and I particularly think of them both returning to their respective thematic wells of closed-offness and recognizing it in each other, but going to other places to open up. We didn't get a ton of Kingsley, but he and Jester seem to get along pretty well! And Imogen and Ashton's standout moment was post-shard, but they also had a really good conversation after All-Minds-Burn, and I think they are able to embrace the tension regarding their different idealizations of estranged parents as seen in the latest episode.

Marisha and Taliesin are also really unafraid to explore conflict with each other, and it enhances their character interactions. Percy and Keyleth's friendship is fascinating because it seems that pre-stream they were quite close, but once the Briarwoods arc hit they often found themselves at odds and played off each other brilliantly. I love Molly and Beau's belligerence as well; that is one of my personal big regrets about Molly's death, and Marisha did a fantastic job showing how Beau was affected. Beau and Caduceus were also really interesting, in that they saw each other as the adults of the team for a while, especially early on. Beau and Kingsley have a great conversation in the Nein Reunited. And I've been pretty open about finding Laudna and Ashton's chemistry fascinating; while I enjoyed it romantically earlier, and would have loved to see how that played out, there's just such a great weird tension now, post-shard, that's hard to pin down.

Liam and Marisha have two of I think the most popular relationships in C1 and C2 and with good reason. Vax and Keyleth complement each other incredibly well, and I find Keyleth's feelings about the Raven Queen and how she and Vax approach them very differently to be beautifully done. Empire Siblings are again a favorite - they're so often at odds early on even as Beau has a lot of empathy for Caleb, and they're both the nerds of the party and among the most politically-minded to the point of working closely together years after the campaign. Laudna and Orym are also fascinating because they have these similar and yet wildly different ties to Vox Machina, and Orym feels for her situation, and they have some great conversations during the Issylra arc, but I actually love the growing tension. I love Orym flat out telling Laudna that this mission is important and he is pressuring Imogen because only she is capable of getting this information. I'm excited for the infiltration that's coming up!

But also because I can't limit myself here's some thoughts generally about cases where it's not every campaign but it's worth watching. The short version is "Travis and Ashley have some kind of chemistry with everyone."

I can name at least one relationship, romantic or platonic, between one of Travis's characters and a character from every other cast member, but I specifically want to shout out him and Marisha, who have zero romantic chemistry and bananas platonic chemistry in not just all three campaigns but also EXU Calamity and Candela Obscura Chapter 2. (He and Taliesin tend to have a fun and different thing going on each campaign and have a lot of similarities as players; Scanlan and Grog's clown to clown communication and Fjord and Veth's weirdly charged hostility are great; and hilariously I am obviously a massive fan of Fjord and Jester but I feel like the Baileyhams each campaign are like either we're doing high romance or we're going extremely our separate ways, which kind of makes sense in that they have extremely different approaches to D&D but also a lot of overlap in themes. Like on the rare occasions Grog and Vex, or Chetney and Imogen talk it's very good but they're certainly not the closest of characters)

Ashley also plays well with everyone. She has phenomenal chemistry with both Marisha and Laura. Beauyasha is readily apparent but also what we saw of Pike with both Keyleth and Vex was fantastic, and Imogen and Fearne are great and have some sparks, and Yasha and Jester had some incredible conversations. I also enjoy Ashley and Liam but have never shipped their characters romantically (and I suppose that was only even feasible in C1 given character sexualities); that's on my list of "could be fun" because they do always play off each other well. I will say, Ashton and Fearne have grown on me as a pairing but Ashley and Taliesin have always like...quietly vibed and had some great moments, and I think Molly and Yasha was (platonically) promising and cut short, and I love the conversation where Caduceus encourages Yasha to tell Beau how she feels, but they've never quite blown me away. I would like to see it though. There's potential.

Marisha and Sam seem to operate in very different spaces and so like...Keyleth and Scanlan, or Laudna and FCG, don't really interact much though they do have some mechanical overlap (Keyleth and Scanlan were good in combat together but didn't talk a ton) but specifically as Beau and Veth they were incredible. This is out of game but I very much enjoy their rapport during the Midst roundtables. Would love to see more.

Liam and Sam are also a fascinating case in that they're obviously very close friends irl but it's only as Veth and Caleb, and as the Grimms in Candela Obscura, that they've played characters who were close. They do have great chemistry though, romantic and platonic, and I'd love to see it explored. Liam and Laura are also interesting in that I love the twins and think they're amazing, and I like Orym and Imogen's relationship but particularly with C2 in the rearview, I just do not see much romantic chemistry between them at all. Bonkers good platonic chemistry though.

Taliesin and Sam are also a fun one in that I do like FCG and Ashton's friendship and their post-shard absorption conversation was a standout, as is Percy's outburst at Scanlan during the Bard's Lament and his friendship with Tary (and Tary's crush on him). Veth and Molly had some good moments; Veth and Caduceus did NOT know how to interact with each other.

[royboyfanpage]

Hello ! I'm slowly but surely getting into Green Arrow comics and Roy appears fairly often but not much enough yet that I can get his personality that well. So, I wanted to ask - and I know it probably changed throughout the years, but - how would you describe him at his core ? What kind of guy is he ? His values ? (Is he into leftist and ecological ideologies like Ollie ? etc.)

Thank you for your help !

Hi, thanks for the ask friend!

I’m gonna answer the easiest question first which is his politics- yes, he very much is a leftist like Ollie. I’m just gonna show this one panel

And I don’t think I really need to elaborate more. He’s just like his dad.

As for who Roy is as a character, I don’t think it has really changed that much, at least before the New 52 his characterisation was pretty consistent. Roy’s always been someone who is very much fuelled by his relationships with others and his love for those closest to him. Most notably his love for Lian has always been a huge motivator for him since her introduction- a lot of the time she’s very much the thing keeping him alive, with at least two instances where Roy refuses to give up because if he died Lian would be alone. He also has similar love for the rest of the Arrow family- he was snapped out of brainwashing because he refused to kill Ollie, he’s always had an incredibly close relationship with Dinah ever since Snowbirds (I would highly recommend reading Arsenal 1998 and Vixen: Return of the Lion for them), he’s fiercely protective of Mia and yelled at Ollie when he found out she was gonna become Speedy, and he gave Connor what was essentially an ace acceptance speech decades before Connor was canonically asexual, for some examples.

He’s also an incredibly forgiving person, and he wears his heart on his sleeve a lot of the time. It’s something that definitely came about more heavily after Lian was born (which personally I chalk up to his acknowledgement that she was gonna change him + his promise that he’d never lie to her- promising to be honest and open with his child made him a more open and honest person in general), and it’s SUCH a crucial part of his character. When Roy has feelings, he expresses them loudly and immediately and then moves on most of the time- which is why when Roy and the rest of the Fab Five were stuck on an island designed specifically to bring up grudges and resentments Roy was really the only one who wasn’t that affected- all of his grievances were in response to things that were actively happening in the moment while others had let things fester for a while. It also does make the few moments were he does hide his emotions more poignant, particularly in his relationship with Donna in Titans 1999 (which I would very very highly recommend you read, it’s the jackpot for Roy Harper characterisation.)

And I know it’s very cliche to say about a superhero because duh, he’s a hero, but Roy is so good. He tends to get the reputation as the bad boy of the Titans, which I do get, but at his heart Roy is a hero through and through, not just because he saves the day but because he cares so, so much and the best example of that is through his interactions with kids/teenagers. The most notable example that comes to mind is Grant Emerson- Roy was really one of the first adults in Grant’s life who genuinely cared about him and his wellbeing, and… y’know what, I’m just gonna show this page off again because I will never stop talking about it

Again, highly recommend reading Titans 1999 for Roy and Grant because they’re genuinely one of my favourite father/son-adjacent relationships in any media ever- also recommend Roy’s Titans run for them, oh and if you wanna know more about Grant by himself you should read Damage 1994 :)

Oh and also Roy is lame. An absolute loser. He quotes Friends to try and flirt with women. I hate him.

[humbledragon669]

S2E1 - The Arrival Write Up P6 - the Present Day from Crowley’s entry to the book shop to his departure from it

Alright, let’s get stuck in – we have an ineffable divorce (of sorts) coming up in this section. Before we get to that though, let’s drop in on our new characters. There are a couple of things I would note about this scene in the coffee shop, and the first is about the soundtrack (shock horror, I know). It’s pretty tricky to say for sure, but it sounds like there’s a lack of background music playing as Maggie enters the café. That changes following Nina’s comment about her “charming personality” – you can just about hear a string arrangement in the background at this point. I’ve tried really hard to identify the song but failed miserably - it’s just not prominent enough, and I can’t hear a long enough phrase to get a grasp on it. I’m pretty grumpy about that if I’m honest, because it means I can’t even say for sure whether it’s just coincidence that the music appears to start playing only after Maggie enters the shop or not (after all, perhaps this is just a CD that happened to be between tracks as she comes through the door). If it’s not coincidental, that would give us another parallel between these two characters and our hero couple, particularly with the music in the previous coffee shop scene being so poignant. As it is, I’m just going to have to leave that as an open-ended question until/unless somebody has better hearing/sound editing skills that I do, and can actually identify the track.

Talking of potential parallels, I find it quite interesting to see the way that neither Nina or Maggie seem to be able to pick up on the cues that the other one gives them. Nina in particular really sucks at picking up the subtext that Maggie is virtually screaming at her, but it is a two-way street. And where else do we see this? Crowley and Aziraphale of course – their inability to “get the hint” from each other is something we’ve seen all throughout both the chronological and release timelines. We’ll see quite a few more parallels between the two couples as season 2 progresses, but I think this is one of the more subtle ones.

The last thing I wanted to say about this scene is going to be a bit more Nina-bashing I’m afraid. Let’s be clear – Maggie has brought this woman an incredibly thoughtful gift. How is that thoughtfulness rewarded? With a look that could sour milk.

And if the look wasn’t enough, the disdainful tone would be enough to finish the job. Honestly, is a simple “thank you” that hard? She makes Maggie feel so bad that she apologises to Nina for bringing her a gift! That one must really have stung. I don’t know if there’s maybe some sort of coded subtext here about consent; if that’s the case, the connotations and irony behind it make my head spin a bit so I think I’ll just stick with my original evaluation that Nina isn’t really that likeable (don’t worry, I will change my mind a bit later!).

Alright, time to get into the weeds! There are two things I noticed about the setting up of the scene in the bookshop, neatly summed up in the following shot:

So first off, we see Crowley removing his glasses as soon as he enters the shop, which speaks volumes about how comfortable he is in this setting. And not only does he remove them, but the way that he places them on the statue would suggest that this is something he does A LOT. I don’t think it’s been confirmed (more that it’s one of those things the fandom takes as cannon), but I like the thinking that the horse statue has been deliberately left or placed there as a convenient stand for Crowley to leave his glasses. It feels right – the demon doesn’t stop to look around for somewhere to put them, it’s almost reflex. And ultimately he doesn’t actually need to “place” them anywhere; he could have put them in his pocket, and just discarded them on one of the surfaces. Nah, the way he deals with his glasses here feels almost like muscle memory.

The second thing about this shot is to do with those damn Eccles cakes. Remember in the last part of the write up I waffled on about how I think Aziraphale orders those sweet treats not for himself but to give to Crowley as a peace offering? Well, here’s another piece of evidence to add to that theory, because he’s placed the plate of cakes (untouched I might add) in front of the statue where he then homes his glasses. And why do I think this is important? Because if he was just holding on to them for Aziraphale while the angel fumbled with his keys, he would probably have tried to give them back to him, or at least put them somewhere in the bookshop that was more Aziraphale’s than his, and this table is clearly “his” because that’s where his little horsey sunglasses stand lives. If that seems to be a bit flimsy as far as evidence goes, I’m not done yet – we’ll be back in a little while.

This next gif has been discussed by a ridiculous number of people, so I’m not going to dwell on it too much, but it would be remiss of me not to remark on it at all so here goes.

MARRIED. THIS PAIR ARE MARRIED. “Do we know a Jim”, honestly. I rest my case your honour (I don’t, there’s plenty more to talk about in this season that lends weight to the theory that Crowley and Aziraphale are already romantically involved at this point, and have been for quite some time).

Side note: how adorable is Aziraphale’s face as he prepares for impact:

Doesn’t it just make you want to go and squeeze his little cheeks and ruffle his hair? No? Just me? Probably not to be fair.

The exchange that follows is the first time in this season that I did a proper belly laugh when I first watched it (and it still makes me laugh to this day). The comic delivery here is so skilful, it’s just an absolute delight to watch. Can’t forget that soundtrack though, it’s beautifully pieced together, and adds so much to the scene. Also the camera work. And the lighting (with the shafts of light that fall through the window onto the horse statue, highlighting the fact that Crowley must be feeling incredibly exposed at this point). Just all of it really. So now that I’ve waxed lyrical about it as a whole, I have a few little things to say about some of the individual elements.

I made some comments about Aziraphale’s reaction to Gabriel showing up on his doorstep which brokered some discussion (which I was very pleased about – please don’t stop!) because the general consensus seems to be that Aziraphale is frightened of his former boss during that scene, and I don’t particularly get that vibe. I do here with Crowley. I mean, it’s pretty impossible not to, isn’t it? Crowley is absolutely terrified. And I think what’s worth bearing in mind that he has every right to be – after all, he’s the one with the memories from Heaven (this will be explicitly stated later in the season, but perhaps it’s something that is easy to forget at this point). He knows exactly how cold and ruthless that archangel can be. And maybe this is nothing, just the result of momentum as Crowley tries to put as much distance between himself and Gabriel/Jim as possible, but does this single frame look like he throws his arm up to protect Aziraphale?

I wrote that as if I was asking a question to which I wasn’t 100% sure of the answer already. Of course he’s trying to protect Aziraphale – see previous point about him knowing Gabriel’s true nature. There’s also this little gem:

Check out Crowley’s left shoulder (his left, not yours). If this is deliberate, it’s a stroke of absolute genius. It’s the tip of the wing from the cherub statue on the table behind him. It almost looks like it’s growing out from Crowley’s shoulder to shield Aziraphale. I don’t even feel like this is a stretch, it feels perfect (and I am more than a little bit pleased that I picked up on it). There’s really no need to worry though – the figure before him is anything but threatening. It took me a minute to realise why this shot of Jim/Gabriel looked familiar, and then it hit me:

We won’t talk about what happens in the film after Puss drops the “cute eyes” act.

There is something going on in this scene that I feel I have missed up to this point, and the only reason the penny has dropped now is because of this expression on Aziraphale’s face:

There’s something almost pleading about it. Like he doesn’t want to do what’s being asked of him and is trying to get somebody else to do it for him. Or more accurately, like he’s asking someone to rescue him. *huge clanging noise of a penny dropping* I can’t believe I haven’t thought about this scene in these terms before. The pair of them all but spell it out for us in the coffee shop when Crowley asks Aziraphale if the situation in the book shop is something he can “help” with (i.e. something he can rescue the angel from), garnering a desperate but silent nod from the angel. Here’s the funny thing about that dynamic now though – at this point Crowley knows he’s cornered.

He can’t very well walk out now, can he? He offered to help, something which he’s been doing for centuries without ever asking, or needing to be asked. How could he possibly abandon the rescue mission that he has actually signed up for already? And how else could he have expressed his intense annoyance at being tricked into this with anything other than with a growl? Maybe that’s what Aziraphale was angling for the whole time – personally I would be getting into trouble all the time if it meant being growled at by Crowley…

Easter egg time! At least I think it’s an Easter egg:

Jim’s yellow feather duster is a pretty close match to the one Freddie Mercury uses in the video for “I Want to Break Free”, which has some very fitting lyrics for Gabriel’s situation. What a fabulous Queen parallel to sneak in for the eagle-eyed! I will confess that I didn’t spot this one on my own - @noneother wrote a lovely post about it here.

Let’s just take a quick look at Aziraphale’s apparent thought process at this point:

That looks like a pretty confused angel to me. As in, he’s really not sure why Crowley has reacted in such an extreme manner to Gabriel’s appearance. And going back to what I said earlier about the memories that Crowley has of his last interactions with the archangel, that would make sense, particularly if he has never shared those memories with Aziraphale. If that’s the case, it might go some way to explain why he can’t understand Crowley’s emotional state, or his staunch refusal to do anything other than disassociate themselves with Gabriel completely. What it also shows though is that Aziraphale has already made up his mind that the right thing to do is help Gabriel, which will become all the more apparent in the upcoming scene. What also becomes apparent is that if he was afraid of Gabriel when his arrived on his doorstep, that is very much not the case anymore. He does appear to give some quarter to Crowley when the demon manages to communicate exactly why it is that he feels so strongly though; you can see it in the little head movement and on his face:

Quick observation here, and again this might be nothing, but doesn’t the shape of that the dressing screen behind Aziraphale look familiar?

They look a bit like wings, don’t they? I only caught this whilst I was writing this, and it could be a coincidence (I doubt it), but let’s just say that it isn’t for a minute – what would that say about Aziraphale’s frame of mind here? That at this point in time he feels very close to his angelic origins? It would explain his somewhat blind desire to help Gabriel – helping someone in need is technically the “right” thing to do after all. Coincidence or not, there’s something else of interest in Crowley’s impassioned speech:

CROWLEY: This is the Supreme Archangel of all Heaven, your former boss, who tried very hard to cast you into Hellfire and destroy you. He is not our friend.

Everything that Crowley identifies as part of Gabriel’s character relates to Aziraphale (former workplace, former boss, former offences against the angel) but all of those things inherently mean that Gabriel cannot possibly be a candidate to be their friend. Not Aziraphale’s friend. Their friend. This is protective Crowley in all his glory. But it got me thinking to about the use of the collection pronouns in this scene in general – I’ve summarised below to make it a bit easier to understand.

So firstly, Crowley uses those collective pronouns much more freely and readily than Aziraphale does. That is partly because he actually says a lot more than the angel in general in this scene, but personally I also think it speaks largely to his primary motive here, and that is the preservation of life as he knows it, which largely centres around Aziraphale. On the other hand, the angel’s primary motive in this scene appears to be a desire to do the “right” thing, never mind the cost, clearly wanting to employ that forgiveness he claims to be so good at. His use of the collective pronouns is reserved for the more manipulative aspects of his emotional scale – pleading and indignation.

I think it’s interesting that we see Crowley consciously switch to the use of singular pronouns after Aziraphale tries to get him on side by telling him about Gabriel’s needs. A lot of people would see this as being somewhat spiteful, a way to get what he wants, but I think it’s more than that – he’s trying to tell Aziraphale that his needs aren’t being met, and that he’s angry that the needs of another being are being considered so intricately. Let’s put that a bit more succinctly – Aziraphale is choosing to put another being’s needs before Crowley’s. And that particular being has a history of being nothing less than vile to both of them, especially Aziraphale. In true Aziracrow style though the angel misses his cue, only hearing the bit in the sentence where his involvement in Crowley’s life is seemingly dismissed so easily. It’s really not dismissed that simply though – look at how difficult Crowley finds it to say just how much his current situation means to him:

See the little shuddering breath he takes before he says “peaceful”? Or maybe the stuttering hand movement that goes with it? It makes me wonder if there was another word he really wanted to say here but had to stop himself from saying it, forcing himself to choose another one. And then there’s the use of the word “here” at the end of the sentence. Does he mean Earth? London? Personally I think it’s a little more localised than that – I think “here” means Aziraphale’s bookshop. I don’t think I’m the only one that thinks that either – look at the disbelief on the angel’s face as he tries to claim their collective efforts back:

And from here, it really starts to descend into madness. Honestly, I think it’s Crowley that actually starts it – his response to Aziraphale trying to claw back their togetherness is to subtextually accuse the angel of actually working against him. Well done, Crowley, you really flipped Aziraphale’s switch there, and he’s wearing the face to prove it.

Look at that jaw: this angel has made his decision people – if the demon wants to be that spiteful, he can do it somewhere else. But he doesn’t just tell Crowley to leave, does he? He accuses him of failing to fulfil his role as the rescuer, the protector.

And he doesn’t just accuse him of failing, he intimates that it’s something Crowley is actively choosing to do. You can see Aziraphale knows how badly (and probably how hurtful) his words are in two places – the first is right before he says them:

The other is in the middle of the sentence where he tells Crowley to leave – he takes a shuddering breath of his own that you can hear more than see. Honestly, I find it a little heartbreaking. Not as heartbreaking as the look on Crowley’s face after Aziraphale has uttered his ultimatum though.

Oof, that expression hits me hard. There’s so much here that isn’t being said. The slight recoil after Aziraphale finishes speaking, the half gulp he takes before he speaks, the hand gesture- THE HAND GESTURE PEOPLE. The one that indicates there is an “us” involved in this conversation.

And let’s not forget the line.

CROWLEY: Oh really. This is just- this is how you wanna do it?

That feels like such a death-toll of a line to me. The subtext feels like he’s asking Aziraphale if this is how he wants the relationship to flounder. Thank Somebody that Aziraphale doesn’t leave him hanging for an answer, because I think this that would break me, and thank Somebody else that when he does reply, his true feelings are painfully apparent.

And it’s not just his face leaking emotions here – let’s look at his instinctive choice of words:

AZIRAPHALE: I would love you to help me.

Not “I would lovefor you to help me”, not “I’m asking you to help me”, or “I’d like you to help me”. Not even a stubborn “I want you to help me”. No, he says “I would love you to help me”. He’s said too much. Crowley’s expression tells him as much.

For once it seems like he gets the message too, because he changes his phrasing:

AZIRAPHALE: I am asking you to help me take care of him.

Because you never know who could be watching or listening do you? After all, Gabriel could be right outside the door listening in. I feel like Crowley is on the verge of caving here, desperate though he is for the angel to hear his frightened pleas, but he’s not given enough time. Why doesn’t Aziraphale know by now that if you push this demon too hard and too fast, he’s going to run? There’s even a noise in the soundtrack here that sounds like a snake hissing – I don’t know if that was the intention, but it definitely gives me the sense that this is Crowley reverting to his expected demonic traits.

Right, final time I’m going to talk about this, I promise – we’re going back to the Eccles cakes.

There they are, front and centre of the shot as Crowley leaves the bookshop. They are in fact the only things totally in focus in that shot. We’ll see Crowley make a conscious effort to retrieve his glasses from the horse statue, but the Eccles cakes will stay there, abandoned and untouched. This was actually the shot that made my mind up about these – Aziraphale got them for Crowley. He was supposed to eat them and be all calm about the matter. But of course he didn’t – he probably thought he was going to get to watch his angel eating them later that day as a reward for his playing the knight in shining armour. I’m kind of glad he didn’t eat them to be honest, otherwise we might never have gotten to see the Apology Dance…

That feels like a good place to stop for this part. It has taken me way too long to get through this small section, but I have to say I was kind of expecting it – there’s always so much to say about the angsty scenes in this show, and what with this being the first episode of the second season, it was also going to have a bunch of narrative set-up to talk about too. It’s interesting that I’ve already written more words for this episode than the most words I wrote for any single episode in season one, and I’m only about two thirds of the way through. My methods are either getting more refined or I’m waffling far too much – please do tell me if you think it’s the latter, because I’m really enjoying this journey with you all and I don’t want you to be bored!

So with that, and as always, questions, comments, discussion: always welcome. See you for the next one!

[fallstaticexit]

after just reading the latest post i just have to send you an ask. i don't even know how to articulate the way this story is making me feel and the absolutely unbelievable ways you find to tug at the heart strings. your writing, framing, pacing, generally the way you're using this ridiculous game to make a story that feels as poignant as a movie.. it leaves me speechless every time. i hope you know how incredible of a storyteller you are and how much your work impacts others. thank you for making and sharing it <3

Oh my 🥹 thank you sooooo much omg. I’m just so happy the sims exist and I have this outlet and this amazing community to share and express myself in through storytelling, it really saved my life if I’m being honest. And I greatly appreciate you and everyone who enjoys reading them as much as I love sharing them ✨

[paperstorm]

Andy I’m losing my mind, these passages from your tag for 1.10:

They lay on the hood of Carlos’s car, the metal of it warm underneath TK and the sky incredible above them. “It’s beautiful,” TK says.

“You’re beautiful,” Carlos tells him.

TK chuckles. “Shut up.”

And

“I’m gonna call you beautiful, and you’re gonna let me. That’s one,” he says eventually.

TK licks his lips. The ugly voices that always get loud whenever someone compliments him in a way that makes him uncomfortable begin their chatter in the back of his mind. Hot, he can handle. Sexy, no problem. Something like beautiful feels so much more poignant. But he wants this, wants to be honest and wants to be brave enough to let Carlos see him, so he says, “That one’s hard for me. But I’ll try.”

“We’ll work on it,” Carlos says understandingly.

And then this from your newest fic for 3.15???

Carlos draws him into another kiss, whispering, “You’re beautiful,” into it.

TK makes a small noise, and for only a second it seems as if he’s going to argue, or make a joke out of it. But then, instead, he looks up at Carlos through his delicate eyelashes and whispers, “Thank you.”

This growth for TK?? With (yes I counted) TWENTY EIGHT FICS IN BETWEEN????? You are the absolute master on god you need to be writing best selling novels but I’m so happy you’re here with us

Thank you for noticing 👉🏻👈🏻🥺

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

New photos from an amazing new Vanity Fair article with much more in depth information about the upcoming Andrew Haigh movie, All of Us Strangers, starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal!

Sex and strangers have long been intrinsic elements of Haigh’s filmmaking. In Weekend, a one-night stand provides the impetus for a spellbinding saga of longing and intimacy; HBO’s Looking charts the growth and regression of its single gay San Franciscans through raw, honest portraits of their sexual experiences. Yet in All of Us Strangers, it all hits differently—becoming more emotional, more revealing, definitely more mysterious. “I’ve been more objective in how I’ve shot sex scenes in the past,” Haigh says. “Here, I really wanted to feel the subjective nature of having sex and what it feels like—the nervousness and the excitement and the physical sensation of being touched by someone else, and what that does to you.”

The two performers at the romance’s center bring that intention to beautiful life. Scott inhabits a character just coming to terms with his buried shame, while Mescal takes on a more enigmatic figure who unveils himself carefully. The actors commit wholly—sweetly, deeply, explicitly—to the intensity of the physical connection that develops between Adam and Harry. “There was chemistry between the two of them literally the second I saw them together,” Haigh says. “Both of them were pretty fearless. There was no sense of them being afraid of approaching those scenes. They knew how important they were.” That importance particularly relates to Adam’s greater journey in All of Us Strangers. It’s no coincidence the sex feels unique, even special, with Harry. That bond proves inextricably linked with his posthumous family reunion...

There's so much more that I want to quote, but this is the most important part to me.

Scott’s skill as a performer serves as the real glue. His work is openhearted, incredibly poignant, and dramatically rigorous. And somehow it’s his first true lead role in a film, following years of lauded stage work and that fan-favorite turn as 'Hot' Priest in Fleabag. “This whole film sits squarely on his shoulders, and he clearly had it in him, but it’s beautiful to see it,” says Broadbent. Haigh adds that Scott “hasn’t had this kind of central role—and I always felt like he should have that central role.”

[ghoul-foolery]

Riata - The Ghoul x Lucy MacLean

-

Two times the Ghoul used his lasso to wrangle Lucy MacLean, and one time she actually liked it.

No Smut, only kisses.

-

Lucy was thirsty. Very thirsty. So thirsty that it was overwhelming. So thirsty that it became real dang difficult to think of much else despite how desperately she tried to keep her mind busy. If she wasn’t being held hostage by a dastardly noseless man (she was), and still in the vault (she wasn’t), she would be able to commit herself to a number of things to keep her troubled mind occupied. She could go train; do her gymnastics, or her fighting, or go to shooting practice. She’d be able to brush up on the latest chapters being covered by the MacLean family book club, or prepare a lesson plan for an upcoming history class. Without her typical go-to’s, she had taken to mentally reciting lines from her favorite movies but it was getting harder and harder to focus. What should have been the opening lines from The Man and His Dog turned into her reviewing the symptoms of dehydration.

Dry mouth (check). Trembling (goodness, her hands wouldn’t stop quaking). Thirst (she was so thirsty). Her captor, the awful, awful man, made a bit of a game out of her predicament. He would mosey to a stop near decrepit, poisoned water sources and taunt Lucy.

“Bet yer thirsty, huh, sugar?” he’d drawl. “All this water and not a single drop for the poor little vaultie to drink.”

On some occasions he would go out of his way to splash the water source around. The ripples broke the greasy stagnation, made the water look a little less putrid, and more palatable. Sometimes the Pip-Boy’s Geiger counter would join in on the torment with a poignant click, click, click. On one occasion it prompted the undead-looking cowboy to release an alarming cackle that would have been befitting a movie villain. Dastardly, indeed.

The click, click, clicking, the endless taunting, and the relentless sun were a most formidable tag team and Lucy found her resolve breaking far sooner than she had expected. The water looked more like waste product than it did actual liquid. It was a puddle nestled in a questionable container, tucked away in the middle of some dilapidated buildings. She lamented not drinking from a broken toilet three stops ago. That water at least looked somewhat clean. Her knees gave way, nearly collapsing into the sand before she dipped trembling hands into the water and took big greedy gulps. It tasted sour and acrid; nothing like water. It left an oily coating in her throat that made her gag. Lucy swallowed down the sensation, desperate to keep it down.

Out of her periphery, the man had stooped down beside her. He looked disgustingly smug as Lucy met his eyes. He was alarmingly proficient with baiting her into getting angry, and getting her to take verbal snipes at him. Thankfully this particular back-and-forth was brief, as the noseless man was swept away in a coughing fit. During their travels, he had been incredibly stalwart in his management of her. He hadn’t let his guard down once; not even when he went to relieve himself – and to be honest, good for him, because Lucy had been more than prepared to make a grand escape attempt the second she heard his fly unzip. The coughing overtook her captor, dragging him into a hacking, drooling mess. His guard was finally down and Lucy made a run for it.

By the time she reached the end of the block of destroyed houses she could still hear him wheezing for air. She took a hard turn down another sand-packed street, and performed a hood-slide just like the ones she had seen in some of her dad’s movies.

But then she saw the ditch; the fudging massive hole in the ground where there should have been more buildings, maybe a city, maybe people. It was a void in the earth and the sheer force of shock she felt upon seeing it slowed her progress to a complete stop. That’s when the rope appeared, dropping clean over her head before cinching up tight at her waist. Lucy didn’t even have enough time to be properly perplexed before she was yanked off her feet and tumbling butt over tea kettle through the sand.

Desperation kicked in. Lucy had been a good hostage. Though she admittedly could have tried harder at being amicable, she had been polite. She addressed him as sir when she spoke to him, and thanked him the one time he had let her go to relieve herself. All in all, this situation withstanding, she had been a dang good hostage – but not any more. His gnarled, mottled hands ended up near her face, one of the fingers dipping into her mouth as she screamed and struggled against the tight lasso. In a fit of rage, Lucy bit down with every ounce of force she could muster. She tasted salt, grainy sand, and then her mouth flooded with a wave of hot copper.

Lucy MacLean had bitten off her assailant’s finger. Beyond the surprise at her own ferocity, she expected him to lash out and maybe finally kill her but her captor didn’t even hint at the pain. If anything, he said something that could have maybe been praise…?

He still cut off her pointer finger, though.

//

The Mojave was hell on earth.

If Lucy could turn back time to when she was at the Santa Monica observatory, right to the exact moment when the Ghoul said, “You comin’?” she would make sure that she said no. Heck, she would make sure to say fuck no. There had been enough chasing down Hank MacLean to last her an entire lifetime. Quite frankly, her father wasn’t the man she had thought he was and chasing him across the desert just made her dislike him all the more. The only highlight to the excursion was that Lucy and Ghoul were on the same team; she wasn’t a hostage and the Ghoul had prepared for the journey. They had food and water, but they were forced to adhere to strict rationing. While they were able to hunt and forage for food, the nights they didn’t manage to find something were lean, and the thirst was constant.

On one day in particular, a handful of days into their trip, when the sun was at its zenith and being particularly brutal, Lucy’s throat started to chafe. There wasn’t enough moisture in her mouth to swallow and soothe the ache but out of habit she kept trying. It left her throat feeling grittier than sandpaper. After one particular attempt to swallow down the pain she nearly choked when it felt as if her throat had stopped working. Her pace slowed almost to a stop and her hand moved to cup her jugular.

Marching diligently a few feet away, the Ghoul whistled to get her attention just before tossing a small stone in her direction. Lucy managed to catch it, but only just barely. It was smaller than her palm, and close to the size of the old hard candy that Betty used to give the kids in the vault. The stone was brilliantly white on the edges with pockets and grooves tinged an earthy brown. This particular excursion with the Ghoul was significantly less hostile. The first couple of days were awkward, and strained, but Lucy soon grew comfortable in his presence. He was still a bit too rough-and tumble, and a little too prone to anger, but he had grown far more patient with her. The ghoul still liked to push her buttons though, getting a fair bit of amusement with getting her worked up. So when he tossed the rock at her, she was almost completely positive he had done it to see her flinch. Just as she was priming herself to make an exaggerated show of rolling her eyes and throwing it back at him, the Ghoul tossed a similarly size stone into his mouth.

“Go on,” he said, the rock tucked into his cheek. “It’ll help. Just mind those perdy teeth’a yers, princess.”

Though Lucy was skeptical, she plopped the pebble on to her dry tongue. It tasted like nothing at first, and then she began to salivate. It was salty, with tinges of something earthy, and carrying the grit of the Mojave sand. Groaning in relief, Lucy gulped down the precious moisture as it pooled in her mouth. The ache in her throat received a modicum of sweet relief.

“It stops workin’ after a while,” he continued on, giving her a sidelong glance. “Doesn’t do much for dehydration but it stops ya from breathing through your mouth.”

“Thank you so much,” Lucy said in earnest. She mustered enough energy to send him a thankful smile. “Where did you learn that?”

“Ol’ trick I learned back in boot camp.” After a beat of silence he added, “Don’t choke. Don’t think I won’t eat you if you die out here.”

Boot camp. Did that mean he had been with the Brotherhood of Steel? She knew better than to ask outright. The personal questions were usually what got him annoyed the fastest.

Lucy tucked the rock into her cheek, feeling the stone clack against her teeth. “One of these days I’m going to ask you everything I want to know about you, and you’re going to give me answers.”

“Sure, I’ll letcha know.”

“You will not.”

“No,” he agreed on a huffed breath, a small twitch of his lips belying his amusement. “I will not.”

“Because you like arguing, and getting a rise out of people?”

“People? Nah, sweetheart. Only you.”

They fell into a mutual silence, trudging onward through the sea of sand. The Ghoul was right. The pebble stopped assisting with saliva production maybe an hour later. The grating thirst returned, and it returned with a vengeance. If she could go back she would say no. If she could go back, she would return to her vault and have a luxurious shower and a hot meal. If she could go back—

There was a structure jutting out of the sand in the not-so-far distance. It shifted and flagged under the waves of the beating sun, but Lucy was almost completely sure she could make out the jutting slab of tin on the roof.

“Holy moly,” she rasped, slowing. “You see that?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“Can…” she didn’t like asking the Ghoul for favors. Didn’t like the idea of him seeing her as a weak link, but she was desperate for a break. “Can we stop there for the night?”

The ghoul had already changed trajectory, picking up his pace as he said,“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

Lucy tailed him, matching his pace and feeling a fresh kick of energy when they grew close enough to the shed to determine that it wasn’t just a mirage. She got a little ahead of herself then. A little ahead of him, too. Once it was confirmed that the structure was real she moved to a jog, and then an all out run. They found shade. They found shelter for the night. Through her excitement, and the sound of her own rampant breathing, Lucy could hear the Ghoul call out to her.

“Easy, darlin’. Let’s check it out first.”

While she could process that she had heard his voice, her sun-fried mind was unable to properly process the words. Running through the sand made her legs burn, her mouth was watering with exertion. They could have a fire for the night, a properly cooked meal! She could make out the shape of a door against the old wooden structure, and could see the way that sand had built up over the bottom of the frame.

The Ghoul called out again, his voice sharper, “Goddammit, Vaultie, slow down!”

But still, Lucy ran. When she reached the shack she stuttered to an uneven stop, reaching for the door. She grabbed the handle and pulled for all she was worth. The door resisted under the weight of built up sand, and so she pulled harder, throwing her weight into pulling the door open.

A bone-chilling hiss shot out from the shack, followed by something guttural and shrill. Something lunged from the dark of the shack,

“LUCY!”

All she could do was stare, even as she acknowledged the danger before her. Lucy was off balance after fighting with the door, and her mind couldn’t quite work out whether to right herself or make a run for it. The creature that emerged from the darkness was human once. It had been like the Ghoul once. The feral ghoul was much more gaunt than the others she had seen. Its bony fingers looked too much like claws, and the skin of its face was long gone, exposing skull and teeth. And she could do nothing else but watch as it came at her with both. Lucy closed her eyes as she braced for impact – and then something wrapped tight around her ribs, and she was being yanked backwards.

Lucy fell into the burning sand in a heap, her cry of surprise being washed out by the abrupt sound of a single gunshot. When she opened her eyes the dead feral ghoul was at her feet.

“Fucking hell, Lucy–”

“—I’m sorry—“

“What the fuck were you thinkin’?”

“—I just—“

“Just tryin’ t’get yerself killed?!”

“—no, no—“

The Ghoul drew breath to continue berating her but the wind suddenly vanished from his sails. His shoulders deflated. He closed his eyes, and huffed, “Fuck, girl.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, squinting up at him. The sand was far too hot to be laying in, but she was almost afraid to move. “I didn’t– I wasn’t thinking–”

She expected a short, angry rebuttal but all he did was cast a look about the desert. Then he looked at the dead feral. He gave a tug to the rope, it cinched tighter, digging into her skin and probably bruising. He moved past her and into the shack for a moment, then returned, holstering his weapon.

“Get in there and sit the fuck down,” he ordered.

They stayed in the shack for two nights before setting out again.

//

Upon getting to the other side of the Mojave, the Ghoul and Lucy ran face first into the wasteland’s golden rule: thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time. Their trail had gone cold a month or two ago, and the duo had ended up involving themselves in an insurmountable amount of bullshit. The only real plus side was that there were more than enough caps coming their way, and it afforded them luxuries that Lucy once took for granted. They were able to secure room lodgings for days-long stays. They were able to afford bathing accommodations, warm food, and mostly clean water. Having a few creature comforts seemed to pull the Ghoul out of his perpetual state of fight-or-fight, but he seemed to grow even more protective of his vaultie.

Whenever they purchased lodgings they shared a room. The one time Lucy offered to buy a second room for a couple of nights he had adamantly refused. Despite having several meal options - different types, different locales - they still took every single one of their meals together. Some of their evenings felt downright domestic, and that suited Lucy just fine. The only problem was that the remnants of Nevada itched at her curiosities. Lucy wanted to go to the casinos to see, and play the games. Lucy wanted to learn the card game everyone and their sister was playing. Lucy wanted to go to the bar and try her first drink, she wanted to have dinner in the old restaurants and experience the community they were staying in. The Ghoul was very staunchly opposed, but Lucy couldn’t hold it against him. The area was apparently flush with slavers, and he obviously didn’t want to take any chances before they managed to figure out the next step in their journey…

But sometimes Lucy’s curiosity ran a little too rampant… Which was why she snuck out of their hotel room when the Ghoul was taking a bath.

The Ghoul had very begrudgingly agreed to treat Lucy to dinner down in the hotel restaurant. Lucy was jittery with excitement. During some of their more recent jobs she had found a lovely baby blue floral sundress, and she had been looking for a reason to wear it the second she tucked it away in her pack. Dinner would be the perfect opportunity. Lucy took her turn in the bathroom to get gussied up. She got washed and managed to coax a couple of lazy curls into her hair.

When she was finished, she exited the bathroom. The dress was a little worn, but it fit well. It tucked in close at the waist with a flattering boat neck. It was just a shame that she couldn’t find better shoes, and had to stick with her clunky worn traveling boots. The accessories were limited to her pistol and holster. The Ghoul gave her a brief once over, then pushed past her with a terse, “Gimme a minute.”

Lucy gave him maybe two minutes before she wrote him a note telling him that she would be waiting at the bar. After making it down the rickety stairs Lucy took the quickest of detours to the hotel’s game room. There were a couple of people milling about, sitting at slot machines and idly pushing buttons. She took in all of the colorful lights, the ringing bells, and the strange synthetic music, and then she went straight to the bar located in the restaurant area. The place was probably brilliant, once. Decked out in rich reds and opulent golds that had faded poorly.

Perching on one of the many vacant stools surrounding the bar, Lucy offered up her friendliest smile at the bartender and ordered a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla. The woman had a kind face, but tired eyes. She set the bottle in front of Lucy, letting her keep the cap. The dining tables around the bar were sporadically filled, some people nursing drinks, others nursing plates of food. There was a little disappointment. She was expecting lively chatter and community, the room felt more like a ghost town. That is until the stool on her right became occupied despite the rest of the bar being open.

“This seat taken?” The man asked. He was rough-looking, with scars scattering up and down his neck and chin. He had dark short cropped hair and was adorned in miss matched armor. Despite his mean appearance, Lucy decided that his voice was kind.

She greeted him with a polite smile as she joked, “I guess it is now!”

There was no problem with sharing in some company until her date for the evening appeared, but the man’s friendly demeanor only put her on guard. The questions he asked were gently prying, asking where she was going and where she came from. Lucy politely skirted, silently acknowledging that there was a time not too long ago that she would have answered with a too open honesty. The Ghoul was to thank for her ability to acknowledge that even innocent questions could lead to dangerous ends.

But then in a matter of minutes her guard was down, because the man had pulled out a deck of playing cards, and had pulled the bartender in for a game of Caravan. Noticing Lucy’s interest, he offered to teach her how to play. Of course she accepted. The Ghoul was taking a while anyway, so what was the harm? The man and the bartender took turns explaining the set up, and then they dealt the cards. Lucy wasn’t sure when the man’s arm draped over her shoulder, and she wasn’t sure when the man had started sitting so close, but that was how the Ghoul found them.

“Well,” he said by way of greeting. His slow drawling voice immediately set Lucy on high alert. “Isn’t this just fuckin’ cozy?”

Lucy and her card partner glanced back. He snorted, “Easy, man. Plenty of other seats to choose from.”

The Ghoul shifted, kicking one of the legs of the stool. “That’s awfully funny, ‘cause I think I want this seat right here.”

There was danger in the Ghoul’s voice, an underlying threat. Sometimes it seemed like he leaned into the molasses in his voice to keep people off guard. Like if he let his accent thicken and his voice move a little slower then people wouldn’t anticipate just how explosive his next move would be. Lucy cleared her throat, placing her cards face down. No one needed to die over something so mundane.

“Thank you both so much for trying to teach me, but I do believe I’m late for a dinner date with my friend here.” She turned on her stool and went to dismount just before the man grabbed her arm.

“You don’t have to go anywhere just because this ghoul doesn’t have any fucking manners—“

The Ghoul’s gloved hand shot out faster than lightning. He palmed the stranger’s head and slammed it down into the surface of the bar. It was done with so much force that the cards jumped and scattered. The stranger’s drink toppled and the glass shattered. The bartender back pedaled, holding her hands up in surrender though she looked deeply amused. Lucy hopped down from her seat and got between the Ghoul and the man before the violence escalated even further. As the man wailed his pain, curling in on himself and grasping his head, Lucy placed her hands on the Ghoul’s chest and gave him a gentle push backward.

“Hey,” she said earnestly. “Hey let’s go, huh? We can grab something to eat and go sit outside, or back to the room?”

“Fuck you, you fucking ghoul!” The man raged. “You fucking piece of shit—“

“You promised me dinner, remember? Come on, ignore him,” Lucy said softly, trying to keep her voice low and gentle. The Ghoul’s eyes lowered to Lucy. “Let’s go get something to eEEEEAT—“ in a move that was just as fast as his assault on the man, Lucy MacLean was picked up and tossed over the Ghoul’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Then he did a sharp pivot and marched away. “Hey! Hey, put me down!”

“Hush.”

“No! This isn’t fair!”

She griped and complained their whole way back to their room, and the Ghoul let her. He did not put her down again until they were in their room and the door was shut.

“What the fudge—“ no, no this time she needed the big guns. “What the fuck was that about? There was nothing happening, nothing untoward. They were just showing me a card game while I waited—“ he was moving across the room towards his bed where he kept his things, his back to her as she raged. “— and then you come in and just attack him?”

“He was sittin’ awfully goddamn close to just be showin’ you a game’a cards.”

“And that’s a crime?”

The Ghoul’s back was still facing her, but he had stopped rummaging through his pack. His posture straightened, but he did not look back towards her.

“And if he wanted somethin’ more from you, vaultie?”

“That—that isn’t a crime either! Now. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back downstairs.” She turned on her heel. She fumbled with the lock and pushed the door open. “Look, I don’t want to fight okay—“ she started into the hall just as that gosh dang honda knot dropped over her shoulders. It snapped shut at her waist and she was pulled backward. It wasn’t enough to send her careening to the ground, this wasn’t the violent wrangling she had received in the past, but it was enough to make Lucy stumble. For a moment she thought she was for sure going to land on her butt, but the Ghoul was suddenly behind her. She tumbled into his body and he secured her there with an arm around her waist. The door slammed shut and then she was being spun around, pushed up against it. “Sir—!” Lucy barely had the chance to process that there was a big gloved hand at her throat before the Ghoul was kissing her.

This kiss wasn’t like the kisses that she had shared with her former husband. Those had been a little sloppy with her nervousness, and felt a little cold. Probably because that jerk Monty was planning to kill her. This kiss wasn’t like the sweet, chaste kisses she had shared with Maximus. The man was inexperienced but he tried in earnest; but there was just no time to learn and no time to teach.

This kiss was consuming. This kiss was claiming. This kiss was sensual in a way that Lucy had never experienced. The Ghoul took his time with her, kissing deep but all silken and slow. Gripping at the lapels of his duster, Lucy sighed. She would have leaned in closer if it weren’t for the hand at her throat. He squeezed just enough to make her head throb in time with her pulse, squeezing just enough to hold her at the Ghoul's mercy. Aching heat pooled at her center as his tongue stoked against hers in a motion mimicking sex. Slow, dragging. A silky inward thrust, paired with a lazy withdrawal. In and out, taking his time with her. He withdrew suddenly, marking his departure with a harsh nip to her lower lip. The grip at her throat loosened and she came back to herself in a rush.

“Ho—“ Lucy licked her lips, her eyes fluttering open. “Holy moly.”

“You don’t wanna fight,” the Ghoul said, his voice husky and low. His free hand reached to push her bangs away from her eyes. “So you’ll listen t’me when I tell you not to let some fuckin’ asshole get that close to you again. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“Yep.”

Another nip — sharp and painful — quickly chased by a suckle at the afflicted sight, a swipe of the tongue. Criminy, it was good.

“And you’ll listen t’me when I tell you not to leave this goddamn room without me again.”

“Uh-huh.”

The palm at her throat vanished entirely, and his hands dipped to loosen the rope at her waist. He didn’t back away, keeping close and forcing her arms up so he could guide the lasso up over her chest, past her head— and then her wrists were pinned up against the door, pulled together by the rope, and secured by his hand. Lucy practically melted into a puddle of goo, becoming pliant and willing. It would appear that she was deeply interested in a partner who was dominant. How interesting. How good to know.

Lucy swallowed hard, then whispered, “But, um, maybe you should kiss me again, though? Just to make real dang sure I won’t argue… ” The ‘please’ hung on her lips.

The Ghoul’s mouth quirked slowly. “You want me to shut you up?” The hold on her wrists got a little firmer. He dragged his mouth over her jaw, then down along her neck. “I could shut you up good and proper, darlin’.”

Lucy’s mouth watered, she hummed her interest.

“But you’ve been bitchin' about me takin’ you to dinner, so we oughtta do that first.”

The Ghoul moved away from her in a blink, abandoning her near the door and directing his attention to re-wrapping his rope. Lucy blinked, trying to properly process what had just occurred. He tossed a glance in her direction, his eyes assessing her with barely hidden amusement. “You ready?”

Still breathless, a little confused, and way too darn warm, Lucy replied, “Okey-dokie.”

[himebushou]

S4 of The Umbrella Academy was so garbage.

Geez. Why limit the season to 6 eps when every other season has had 10... even a runtime of 8 eps would have probably helped with the pacing issues, at least a bit.

It felt like nothing had any payoff. The CIA turning out to be Keepers? Shrug emoji. Nothing of consequence. The whole subway system came out of nowhere — it turns out that there were other ways to travel through time after all. The whole Gene and Jean thing was stretched out for so long and we got zero insight into why Sy knew so much — unless he was Abigail in disguise the whole time? But who cares?

There were some nice moments between the siblings: Allison and Klaus were mostly pretty sweet (except WHAT the heck were Allison's powers supposed to be? Also, Klaus didn't get to do anything except get locked up and buried alive) and I like that Luther and Diego got some time to bond (though, again, their skills were wasted).

Ben was. Odd. Poor kid just gets to die multiple times. And props to Viktor for actually trying to reason with Reginald and finally getting some validation from him.

The whole Lila and Five thing was so gross and completely unnecessary... I've always had issues with the way Lila was written (those 'kooky for the sake of kooky' characters can get pretty boring and I felt the same way about Klaus throughout a lot of the show). Five was my favourite from the start and just. Eurgh. #noonewantedthat

And the dialogue was so BAD. Some of the lines made me cringe so much. "To be honest I can't stop thinking about her" like. Okay Ben.

And even worse were these poignant moments happening in front of audiences and all the other characters on set just standing around completely wooden... like. What? Lila's family are in the background hearing that her marriage has fallen apart and they don't even act remotely shocked? What?

Claire was definitely one of the best parts of this season. She was a sweetheart.

Urgh. Overall, the whole thing just felt incredibly sloppy, poorly explained (WHY did Jennifer get the durango?) and as though the creative team had run out of ideas. There were so many moments where the Umbrellas acted with no urgency at all (like sitting around enjoying a Christmas party when they were supposed to be looking for Ben, or going to work as normal when they'd promised some random guy that they'd find his daughter within 24 hours). Powers morphed at the drop of a hat for plot convenience. Everyone got on board with the idea of being erased from existence without much fuss (apart from the whole thing about where the kids would end up). What was the significance of the giant squid? How were there so many Keepers? And what exactly were they keeping?

Also, I'm annoyed that they used 'Map of the Problematique' (a song I adore) to no effect; the lyrics didn't match the scenes of the Keepers arming themselves and it didn't fit the mood and just!

Anyway, two of the biggest issues I have:

If this version of Reginald is as callous as the others (after all, he did have Ben shot), then why did he waste all that time creating a fake world for Jennifer to live in?

Presumably, the only reason the Cleanse worked is because the creature eventually found the other kids that had marigold in them? Or, in this timeline, did only the Umbrellas have marigold? And in 150,000 timelines, are we supposed to believe that the Cleanse only happened once?

It's so stupid, oh man. The show's refusal to bring in the other marigold children outside of the Umbrellas was always so stinky — I thought we'd get something interesting when the Sparrows were introduced last season, but half of them died within a few episodes and geez, so much wasted potential.

Pretty glad the show is done now if that was the trajectory, lol.

[frommybookbook]

The Grass is Greener (1960)

I watched The Grass is Greener (1960) over the weekend and I can't stop thinking about it.

For starters, I watched it purely for the cast. I didn't even bother to read the description, I saw Robert Mitchum and Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr and Jean Simmons and I was in. In hindsight, I'm actually really glad I didn't read the plot ahead of time, going it without an agenda was perfect for this one. And for that reason, I'm going to put the rest of this under the cut because I'm going to completely spoil the plot.

The general plot of the movie is: Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are a married, titled British couple who have begun allowing tours of their family estate to keep the lights on; Robert Mitchum is an American oil millionaire who gets nosy on the regular tour and decides to barge into the family's private quarters, where he meets Kerr. Over the course of about 10 minutes, they get to chatting, he's very flirty, and they share a pretty passionate kiss. Grant then arrives and the afternoon is over...until Kerr decides to go to London to "get her hair done" and ends up staying for a week having an affair with Mitchum. Simmons plays Kerr's best friend, whom she stays with in London and who decamps to the family home to see how Grant is holding up.

That last part is important: everyone in this movie knows exactly what's happening with Mitchum and Kerr from the very beginning. Grant can see the moment he walks into the room that this stranger is into his wife and that his wife is intrigued. Simmons knows that Kerr isn't spending any time at her apartment, she's spending it with Mitchum.

Everything comes to a head when Grant, in a display of passive aggression that would make generations of Midwestern church ladies proud, calls Mitchum and invites him to come back out to the house for the weekend. Oh, and while he's at it, would he mind giving his wife a ride home, she's been in London all week too, you see.

From there we have the world's most awkward dinner party, a legitimate duel at midnight in the estate's long hallway, and a genuinely keeps-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat questioning of who Deborah Kerr is going to choose.

And it's this denouement that makes this such a wonderful movie and has it rattling around in my brain days later. Weirdly, and wonderfully, no one in this movie is treated as a villain! This is a story about love and adultery and passion and complacency and everyone just gets to be human.

It would be so easy for Deborah Kerr's character to be treated as a harlot and a whore and a loose woman for seeking out an affair with another man. It would be so easy for Robert Mitchum's character to be simply made a homewrecker and an aggressive American jackass and a playboy for showing clear interest and affection for a married woman. Cary Grant's character could have so easily been made out to be the cold, distant, unloving husband who drove his wife away. And yet none of that happens.

All of these characters are treated sympathetically and respectfully. I spent the whole time rooting for all of them and feeling conflicted every way about who I wanted Kerr to choose. It felt real and honest and like something that wouldn't be told in 2024.

Plus it was absolutely hilarious. Because as poignant as this was, it was also so damn funny. Cary Grant still had so many opportunities to break out the slapstick and prat falls and quippy one liners. Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum got to trade dry repartee, and don't get me started on Jean Simmons. Jean Simmons absolutely stole the show as the somewhat flighty, airheaded, divorced best friend and I couldn't stop laughing every time she was on the screen. I'd never seen her do comedy before and it was just incredible.

So, yeah, go watch The Grass is Greener.

[smoothoperador]

K NO BUT CAN WE TALK ABOUT IT.

cause yeah ttpd is SO boring. like i know most of the songs are 3+ min but tbh most of them don’t sound like songs! gun to my head i couldn’t tell you the difference between the prophecy the manuscript chloe or sophia or marcus or whateverthefuck that song is called.

i miss when she put actual effort into her albums, like red. like the tv of red is so amazing, but with 1989 tv it just feels SO lacking especially in the production, and the vault songs don’t even sound like songs! like with red and fearless and even speak now we got fully produced songs that felt special, but with 1989 tv and 80% of ttpd it sounds like scraps she picked up from the floor and glued them together to make a semblance of a song and it’s so disheartening from someone who has genuinely loved her music for years and the different eras but now it all sounds the same

yeah i've been vocal about how much I dislike her new stuff dating back to midnights. i really DON'T LIKE this stripped down, minimalistic synthpop where everything is the same note and there is not a single drum or guitar and i found midnights quite frankly very underwhelming upon its release, but i figured to each their own; besides, taylor's sound famously always evolves in between eras. but she never departed from that direction, which i honestly don't know who to fault for... is it because she genuinely likes it and thinks it's her forte? (it's not. her forte is dramatic storytelling and epic guitars. her forte is speak now and folklore!!) is it because jack and aaron pull her in that direction? is it because she comes to them with half-assed ideas and they're too reluctant to go against their wishes? is it simply mass production of songs? idk, but what she knows is that she could release out a voice memo of her singing the abcs and it would go platinum.

the 1989 vault tracks were the ones i was looking forward to the most, and they were truly disappointing... 1989 had a clear line of production that i loved, but all of the vault tracks were CLEARLY produced after (or during) midnights. now it all feels like midnights rejects that didn't make the cut, and to be honest the last release that felt like it really belonged on its original album is all of the girls you loved before (and sntv vault tracks i guess, i didn't like them tho)

but even THEN midnights was bearable because it had highs (songs that were different, like snow on the beach; or songs that were poignant, like yoyok) but ttpd ... ttpd is unforgivably BLAND. all the songs mesh into one another, even without the sour aftertaste of matty healy the lyrics are abysmal in comparison to what she's come up with before. theres a few good songs hiding in there (so long london and who's afraid are my faves (but once again im gonna hunt down the coward who couldn't make it an actual ROCK song as it shouldve been), i hate it here could also be cute were it not for the corny gen-z title and horrible horrible 1830s lyric), but theyre all undermined by this boring ass coating that envelops the whole album and also drowned out by the sound of 31 SONGS (!!!!) 31 songs is like thrice the size of some albums and it's TOO. MUCH. doesn't give room for the good songs to shine and also pollutes the air with tracks that clearly should've never left taylor's diary. (ttpd song, bdilh, guilty as sin etc are all SO BAD AND ICKY theyre unforgivable)

i've said this before but taylor is truly the mcu of the music industry: she has an incredibly strong and devoted fanbase, she's easily accessible (as in she makes fun pop and pop rock with easy lyrics and hooks which is something MOST of the general public enjoys), she comes out with several new installments a year (of varying quality...), and the longer it goes the more enjoying her and her music requires an encyclopedic knowledge of her previous works (with all the references, easter eggs, etc). and im really sad to think we'll never see the daring taylor that released red when everyone was highly skeptical of the mixed pop/country sound, or the taylor that has the range to make both better than revenge and ivy.

[dualcastimpact]

dawntrail impressions pt. iv

In which we head to Urqopacha and Kozama'uka for the Feat of Gold and the Feat of Reeds, featuring t-posing Alphinaud!

Spoilers below the cut, as always:

First up: Urqopacha! There was no real reason for choosing to go to Urqopacha over Kozama'uka, I think. There doesn't seem to be any reason for the choice either; there's no advantage over choosing one over the other, and the story doesn't change regardless of which. I thought it was a relatively new addition to the game, the whole choose-your-path thing in the first level of the expansion, but then I realised it's been a thing since Heavensward — it was choosing between accompanying Artoirel or Emmanellain then, and in Stormblood it was choosing between M'naago and Meffrid. Then in Shadowbringers you had to choose between going to Amh Araeng to meet Alisaie or Kholusia to meet Alphinaud first, and in Endwalker it was either going to Labyrinthos in Sharlayan with Y'shtola and the twins or Thavnair with Estinien, Thancred and Urianger.

I'm a bit embarrassed it took me so long to notice, to be honest.

Alphinaud: "That one massive peak in particular has quite the presence. It puts me in mind of Sohm Al."

Alphinaud: "I feel the change in altitude most keenly. While mayhap not to the same degree as the Sea of Clouds, the air is decidedly thin here."

The writing tends to make fun of this but Alphinaud is nothing but genuine whenever he calls back to his past adventures. He especially tends to reminisce about his experiences during Heavensward; it's become sort of a running gag with Alisaie getting exasperated whenever he brings up firewood-gathering, but I think it's more poignant than anything. He brings up his experiences from Heavensward so often because they're important to him. It's in Heavensward that he really grew up and became a better person after the clusterfuck that was post-ARR, and the way he sincerely and somewhat innocently references his experiences in Heavensward every so often just shows how much of an impact they had on him.

———

Krile: "Wuk Lamat is lucky to have Erenville. Everyone—royalty especially—needs a friend unafraid to chide them when the need arises."

Raginmar canonically plays that role for three royals — well, not sure if Aymeric counts as royalty but I digress. He absolutely holds no punches with Aymeric and Hien; he regularly gives Hien shit (especially regarding his feelings about Cirina) whenever he drops by the Doman Enclave, and he's extremely blunt whenever Aymeric asks for his opinion over their dinners together. He wasn't as close with Nanamo, but their adventures together in the Sil'dihn Subterrane changed that a little bit — he's not so blunt with her like he is with Aymeric and Hien, but he does tend to be more open and honest with her.

I like how we're not really playing that role for Wuk Lamat this time. I think post-Endwalker somewhat prepped us for this — the main character for post-Endwalker was Zero, not the Warrior of Light, and it remains the case for Dawntrail as well. We're not the most important chess piece on the board anymore, and I like that.

———

Alphinaud: "Converting to gil, that comes to around a million or so. Mayhap if we all pitch in..."

This is absolutely a reference to his mishap with buying Gosetsu's katana back in Stormblood (laughs). He's become so conscientious about money now!

———

Krile: "You've seen markets and bazaars the world over, and surely have sage advice to share."

This was a bit funny because I took this screenshot back when I'd still planned for Raginmar to be an uninvolved third party who just happened to be in Wachunpelo at the time, doing business buying mezcal and mate leaves and coffee beans and selling furs and heavy fabrics and prize crops and mead, and I thought Krile's comment was incredibly on the nose. "You've seen markets and bazaars the world over" exactly, he's here on business right now!

Of course that idea went out the window eventually but at the time I really had a good laugh at this.

———

Tobli: "Mablu hasn't given up, I see..."

Given up on what, my guy?

———

Ah, turns out Mablu has always wanted to become a merchant, but thought it'd be a betrayal of Tobli since he'd taken care of her like his own. In true shōnen manga hero form, Wuk Lamat inspires her to chase her own dreams, and she proves herself to be a promising aspiring merchant as she helps Wuk Lamat progress through the Feat of Gold.

I spent most of this sequence writing down notes so I could figure out how to fit Raginmar into the Feat — maybe Gobli had sold the premium three-year-old mezcal to him, and Wuk Lamat and Mablu would have to figure out a way to get it from him instead — so I didn't take a lot of screenshots, but it was a pretty fun sequence! The way it introduced the people and culture of Urqopacha to both Wuk Lamat and the audience felt organic; it felt like we were learning alongside Wuk Lamat and I loved that.

From the get-go, it was clear that the Feats were intended to connect the claimants to the peoples of Tuliyollal — to learn their history, their culture, what's important to them and what made them tick; all the things a ruler should know about their people. How the claimants respond to this is key to determining their worthiness to the throne.

It's a classic trope and it's not even remotely subtle, but I think it's fine. Sometimes I wonder if stories like this shouldn't be made even simpler considering how people nowadays find simple media literacy so challenging.

———

Alisaie: "Alphinaud was quick to lend a hand with dismantling the tent. Is this to be his new obsession now that he's mastered collecting firewood?"

I don't know if it's just me feeling maudlin right now, but at times Alisaie making fun of Alphinaud like this feels more aggravating than humourous. Like I said, I get that Alphinaud's earnest enthusiasm is a running gag throughout the game but making fun of something that genuine and sincere feels off-putting to me.

The way he keeps talking about how he's good at firewood-gathering is meant to demonstrate how despite his character growth, he still has moments that shows his naïveté — firewood-gathering isn't a particularly impressive skill, he only thinks that way because of his sheltered upbringing. He opens himself up to ridicule whenever he acts as if this is something incredible he's learned to master, because to him it was. He's genuine about this, and to make matters worse he genuinely wants to be helpful whenever he brings it up. That's how impactful his experiences in Heavensward was for him, and I think the way the game keeps treating it as a running gag feels tasteless sometimes.

He's not even talking about gathering firewood at this point! He's branching out, even! Why are you still giving him shit about it?!

———

Alphinaud: "So this is a Hanuhanu village! One can tell at a glance how very different their culture is to the Vanu's.

Sue me for being sentimental but it genuinely brings a tear to my eye how Alphinaud's so enthusiastic about learning about the world now, compared to the absolute self-absorbed shithead that he was in ARR. He's genuinely so excited about learning new things and having all these new experiences as he travels the world and it's such a great show of character development, even after so many expansions.

———

Bakool Ja Ja the Mighty: "These allies of hers, though... They might be a problem."

One thing I really like is how none of the claimants are so arrogant so as to be foolish when it comes to underestimating their opponents. In fact no one underestimates anybody, not even Bakool Ja Ja. He's arrogant and boastful and supremely full of himself, and he's dismissive of Wuk Lamat because he doesn't like her (and later on we'll see that he actually does respect her, he just feels that he has to act like he's better than everyone), but he knows perfectly well how much of a threat Raginmar is. He's not fool enough to dismiss that.

There's a lot of chatter on the birbsite about how much it sucks that the Warrior of Light is no longer the main character of the story, and how they've been relegated to this sidekick character who's not getting much focus. It's real baffling because sure Wuk Lamat is the main character of the story, but the game's narrative makes it damn clear how important the Warrior of Light is still. Everybody knows how skilled the Warrior of Light is, and how they're not to be underestimated. They're a threat. They're a gamechanger. While the Warrior of Light isn't the most important piece on the board right now, they're still pretty damn significant and it's acknowledged, unlike in previous expansions with characters like Artoirel very clearly looking down on the Warrior of Light. That's way better than being your stock shōnen manga-slash-JRPG protagonist.

———

Linuhanu: "Yes, it hurt to hear, but she was right. Though I must mourn, I cannot let my grief consume me."

Linuhanu: "Her words made me realize that the path to my recover—our recovery—is already laid out before me. And I will walk it. For myself, and for my friend."

Every time the game makes some overt reference to grieving and mourning those gone, I immediately think back to Haurchefant — and not in a good way. I think this is more to set up something later on regarding Wuk Lamat and Gulool Ja Ja (because that man is raising all the death flags) but at the same time, the game's been pushing the whole thing with Haurchefant so often and for so long that you can't really divorce any mention of grief from his death.

Even the PCT job questline had something similar — I think it was in Camp Dragonhead when Kupopo asks the Warrior of Light about their adventures there, and the Warrior answers that they'd lost someone important to them? The exact phrasing eludes me but it's still a reference to Haurchefant. At this point it's honestly doing the game more disservice than anything, I feel.

———

Koana: "A method I could not have devised without the education I received at the Studium and the cooperation of my Archon allies."

For context, the Feat of Reeds required the claimants to revitalise the dying paddy fields that the Hanuhanu rely on, while the Feat of Gold back in Urqopacha required the claimants to catch a wild alpaca. They serve to demonstrate how Zoraal Ja and Koana differ from Wuk Lamat; in the Feat of Gold, Zoraal Ja eschewed any advice and went and caught a rare golden alpaca all by himself, purely by threatening the alpaca into submission. In contrast, Wuk Lamat went through the motions of getting to know the Pelupelu's culture and getting herself a saddle to catch a wild alpaca the Pelupelu way.

Here in Kozama'uka, Koana brought the paddy fields back to life with an alchemical concoction to improve the aether flow in the fields. Wuk Lamat revived Ihih'hana, a traditional harvest festival that also served to amplify the arcane energies from the Hanuhanu's hopes and prayers to revitalise the land. In true shōnen manga-slash-JRPG hero form, Wuk Lamat's revival of Ihih'hana had no logical bearing whatsoever. She didn't know it'd do anything to help revitalise the fields until Alphinaud suggested it could and Wuk Evu confirmed it. The only reason it worked was because it just so happened to be the exact thing the Hanuhanu needed, not just to revive their fields but also to revive the Hanuhanu themselves. The only reason it worked was because the plot mandated it so.

Koana's method, on the other hand, was rooted in reason and science. It was the logical method, it was the reasonable solution, and by all accounts it's a more superior answer because it directly addressed the issue — but it's framed as lesser because it didn't take into account the Hanuhanu's culture and the real reason behind their dispiritedness, even though Wuk Lamat really only got lucky that her idea worked at all. In a way, it's a weaker aesop than the one about Zoraal Ja and Wuk Lamat in Urqopacha — that strength alone is not enough, and that one would not need to resort to brute strength when there's community. It's still an aesop about the value of community and culture, only here it's that technological advancements alone are not enough even though they get the job done, but if you think about it realistically, when the stakes are so high — when your people are actively starving and suffering from natural disasters and poor harvest seasons — is addressing the issue as quickly and efficiently as you can really the wrong way to go about it?

———

Koana: "Employed appropriately, they make light work of what would otherwise be arduous labor. There's no need to lug around heavy floats!"

This whole scene was designed to showcase how Koana is a foil to Wuk Lamat: Koana is rational, analytical and scientific-minded, but he's also dismissive of things he perceives as backwards or uncivilized like customs and traditions that other people would hold dear. Whether he intends it or not, his words come across as mocking; even in the JP dub where his tone is mild and his dialogue ends with a —ね?. We see later in the story how he's extremely fond of Wuk Lamat so he's not maliciously making fun of her, but it makes clear his derision for the Hanuhanu's traditional practices for how outdated and inefficient they are.

———

Erenville: "There is an alternative, but it requires preparation. Until it's ready, you could rest at the cabins or see more of the city. Whatever you prefer."

This is where I'd planned for Raginmar to officially join Wuk Lamat's entourage in that scrapped canon I'd mentioned before (you can read all about that here and why that canon didn't work here) because it'd seemed like the perfect opening, but then...

Fonjeantaine: "Then... you have experience with my predicament? Of being terribly inadequate compared to your undeniably superior peers?"

...Wuk Lamat just so happened to chip her axe and she just so happened to come across a soul in need of aid at the place she's getting her axe fixed and he just so happened to have the same insecurities that she has, that she has to confront within herself in order to both learn a lesson and console him. Of course.

The story is contrived as hell, but at this point you really just have to accept it. Also I KNEW he was going to play a role in the plot when he was the only named character in that talk-to-the-other-passengers sequence at the beginning of the expansion.

———

Fonjeantaine: "But what of you? Have you ever measured your work against that of your colleagues and found yourself wanting...?"

Asking the wrong guy, buddy. That said, Raginmar doesn't waste time comparing himself to others and worrying that he's lacking. He'll be as skilled as he wants to be, and he doesn't need anyone to be his benchmark. If there are other people more skilled than him, it's not his problem.

———

Koana: "I'd heard much of the incomparable Archons during my time at the Studium. As soon as the contest was confirmed, I thought who better to recruit to my cause? I contacted the scholarch, who arranged an introduction to these two gentlemen."

Urianger: "The Second Promise had specific requirements: they who would be his assistants must boast both proven survival skills and mastery of the arcane arts."

It's a little funny that if Raginmar had agreed to become an Archon — which he absolutely could have, thanks to his skill in arcanima and engineering — he would have fulfilled both those requirements all by himself.

I also think it's kinda funny there's basically a PhD-equivalent for having survival skills. It's like Bear Grylls getting a PhD from Cambridge for being a survival expert.

———

Thancred: "We did our due diligence, of course, and made sure of who were working with before agreeing to this endeavor. He's even more opaque than Urianger at times, but is surprisingly—"

Surprisingly what, Thancred?! Tell us!

———

Wuk Lamat: "I don't have Koana's education or Zoraal Ja's strength. I'm all bluff and bravado, not fit to bear my title..."

Krile: "To hear the voices of others, empathize with how they feel, and think how best to serve... In so doing, you'll come ever closer to being the person you wish to be."

I'm not going to touch on the whole crisis of confidence and Wuk Lamat's character development arc in growing out of her insecurity and all that, because this story is essentially your typical shōnen manga-slash-JRPG tropes condensed into half an expansion, but I do want to point out the whole "hear, feel, think" thing — you'd think they'd retire the reference altogether after Hydaelyn's passing. I know it's been this game's arc words for basically forever, but now I'm wondering if they'll ever retire it or if it'll be another Haurchefant situation.

Because honestly speaking...

Thancred: "I imagine your experiences on this journey—all the things you'll hear, feel, and think—will help you refine that approach."

...was there any real need for the arc words to be repeated in this different-yet-parallel scene with Koana, just to hammer it home?

———

Koana: "But what of you two? Wuk Lamat's allies are your comrades, it must feel strange to be rivals."

Thancred: "Helping you has made us rivals, aye, but we're not about to break into fisticuffs over it."

Thancred: "Unless of course it is a matter of winning or losing the contest. Then I'll have no qualms about putting Alisaie on her rear."

Real interesting you chose to talk about kicking Alisaie's ass instead of someone like, say, Raginmar.

Urianger: "Despite our long history, never have I been given the chance to test myself against our companions. The thought stirreth within a most unexpected sense of competition."

Contemplating this bit because I had a headcanon about a Grand Melee 2.0 after the Final Days have been averted or something. Maybe what's remaining of the Garleans joined, maybe it's just the Grand Company of Eorzea and their allies (including the now-disbanded Scions, who join as independent combatants) having a melee for funsies or something, but essentially it's Raginmar and his old squadron facing off against everyone else after he thoughtlessly made a comment about how not even the combined might of the Grand Company could defeat his former subordinates, and Hien and Pipin took offense.

There's more to the story, obviously, but basically if this is canon to Raginmar's lore, then that negates everything Urianger just said because then he'd absolutely have had the chance to test himself against his companions, and gotten his ass kicked for it (laughs).

———

Koana: "Lamaty'i has surrounded herself with distinguished figures indeed. One of the Studium's finest graduates. The head of the Students of Baldesion..."

Koana: "And then there's Eorzea's vaunted champion. If he's half the hero you say, then the odds are stacked against us."

It's a real pretty way of saying you're screwed and have no chance whatsoever, truth be told.

———

Next up: the Feat of Pots!

[myarchiveforme]

some observations of priscilla, bc the people I went to see it with are not the type to enjoy analyzing media and I have thoughts

also this is just me venting on my phone so these are very undeveloped thoughts idk

*contains mild spoilers*

the style is so lovely, if there's one thing sofia can do it's curate a damn atmosphere. i haven't seen marie antoinette in a while but sofia works with environments like another character in the movie, and it's so effective in pulling you into the experience.

you feel that boredom and monotony and confinement so vividly - you basically don't see priscilla outside of graceland between her arriving and elvis leaving the last time, and you almost don't realize it. and you become so familiar with the rooms and the space, it's depression when you don't leave your house for months and see the same things over and over and feel like a doll being moved around a little dollhouse just being picked up and put down in situations.

the shot when elvis is leaving the last time and priscilla's being left behind but her world is getting bigger??

this portrayal of elvis is so interesting - he's a character, the whole time, and you get these glimpses of what he really thinks or feels. he's pulling at her strings just to see what happens, just to experiment with the reactions. it's like he just wants to see that his actions can have actual effects on people, to prove that priscilla is 3d and not the paper people he sees on stage. or again, like priscilla is just his doll to put into situations.

also, I don't know enough about the psychology or realities of grooming and abuse to really get into it, but the relationship with sex is so... like she's an image of purity to him, to the point of being undesirable. too pure to desire. it's that groomer mindset of priscilla being something he has to "protect," like his child almost, but also to have control over her actions and to keep her in the box he's put her in.

and 6'5" jacob elordi next to 5'1" cailee spaeny in a movie about a grown celebrity grooming and claiming a 14 year old girl?

the scene of priscilla trying on clothes for elvis and the group of guys was SO profound to me - the discomfort of it, but also the gratification of male approval and attention? the little smile in the end when they like the outfit - that's such a familiar feeling to me, being deeply uncomfortable on display for men but still having that goblin inside of you that's fed with their attraction to you. especially at that age, god. same with her graduation - she's their little mascot, the pet project. and she doesn't have any friends, so she performs for them, for their applause and approval

and the omnipresence of elvis's gang and complete absence of female friends for her. he's putting on a show, always, and she's supposed to put on that show with him. and then behind closed doors, she's not putting on the show anymore but he still wants the priscilla on stage. and she is NEVER without makeup in front of him, especially after he tells her to wear more eyeliner. always picture perfect. uggh I could see this movie fifteen times. the moment of quiet in chaos as she puts on her eyelashes before giving birth? it's so poignant, that even in labor she's putting on a show for him and the world but taking pride and peace in the art of it. that was one of my favorite scenes honestly

cailee's performance was just incredible. so delicate and nuanced and honest and I hope we get to see her again and again.

NOT EVEN TO MENTION the fashion and styling, my god. stunning. it's iconic and beautiful and tells the whole story within itself.

anyway if anyone wants to discuss this movie with me please I'm desperate

[smilesession]

Kinds of Kindness is a really incredible movie almost the entire time (I didn’t care for certain aspects of the second chapter that feels sort of like conceptual low-hanging fruit in contrast to the other two) but specifically I was totally knocked on my ass/blown away/etc by the part of the first act where the guy has no sense of who he is in the absence of his captor/spiritual enslaver/abuser and just starts doing the stuff he was told to do before. maybe the most poignant and honest representation of that certain behavioral thing that I’ve ever seen in any work of art. he just defaults to the stuff he was told to do before