#release there she goes on dvd

[dellalyra]

OMG I WAS JUST HAVING BRAINROT ABOUT GOJO AND Y/N IN THEIR TEEN YEARS AND

imagine that back then they had to participate in a talent show or something and megumi and the rest watch the old video tape they found in the darkest corner of the library on campus.

the tape was in a box with a label reading "the best jujutsu tech students' and its just filled with memories of their teen years.

they decide to watch the talent show one and its just chaotic as hell. mid way through megumi, nobara and yuuji get caught watching it lmao

𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨, 𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙖, 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣! 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴

A/N: this request. came in last night - and it’s all I’ve done today because it was so perfect it’s all I could think about. ur amazing ily

CW: swearing, weed, suggestive stuff, mdni i stg shoo

“Itadori! Bring these to the garbage!” Nobara shouts.

“Why me?! Why can’t you do it?!” He retorts as Megumi just rolls his eyes at the two of them, he wonders how they turned into siblings so easily.

“Fushiguro! Tell your boyfriend to take this to the garbage. It’s heavy and he should use his freaky wall-breaking strength for something useful!” She shouts back.

“Eh?! Is exorcising cursed and carrying you like a sack of flour not useful?! Or always carrying all your dumb shopping?!” They’ve broken into an all out sibling squabble by now, Megumi just turns away and continues the task of clearing out the storeroom behind the dojo in the school. Pushing boxes of old files and reports out of the way, he finds a box covered in doodles and stickers, taped shut at the top. He goes to inspect the very out of place container and finds words among the doodles of weirdly shaped beings and flowers.

‘The Best Jujutsu Tech Students.’

“Will you two shut up for two minutes, come look at this.” He says over his shoulder to the two, with Nobara releasing Yuuji from the headlock she somehow got him in.

“Ancient treasure! I told you we’d find something cool.” Yuuji shouts, pumping his fist into the air.

“What is this, Pirates of the Caribbean?! We’re clearing out a high school storage room, dumbass.” The girls rolls her eyes.

They inspect the box, trying to figure out the doodles.

“It doesn’t look super old? Open it, Itadori.” Nobara says.

“Will you quit telling me what to do?!” He says, huffing.

While they resumed the bickering, Megumi took a knife he had hidden in the shadows and sliced through the lines of tape holding the box together. The sound alerted the other two who peered into the box alongside him.

“Wait, are they… DVD’s?” Megumi asks.

“Yeah - but they’re homemade ones. Is there a label on them?” His boyfriend says, leaning in to get a closer looks.

The box itself was filled with small DVD cases of many colours - all labelled in a scrawling handwriting the kids felt like they knew.

“There’s a DVD player in the room where I hung out when I was dead.” Yuuji says, and hauls the box up and begins to walk. None of them even needed to discuss whether or not they’d be watching them, like a hive mind - but with maybe two shared brain cells.

They all made their way across campus, to a room in the same building as their Sensei’s office.

Nobara insisted on grabbing snacks from the vending machine en route, and they sat down on the sofa while Yuuji loaded the first date labelled ‘2003, December.” Well, that’s what they think it’s said. The handwriting was such a chicken scratch it almost looked like a doctor’s unintelligible writing.

The screen came to life - sounds buzzing and voices echoing (albeit muffled) as the screen panned from looking at the floor - to the sky, the the floor again. Then - a face came on screen.

A very familiar one - but… a hell of a lot younger.

“Wait… is that -?” Nobara asks.

“Shoko-sensei?!” Yuuji exclaims.

“That’s kinda how she looked when I was a kid. She’s in her uniform, so this must be when she was in school.” Megumi adds.

The camera pulls away from the close up on her face as another figure enters the shot - a man with odd bangs, silky black hair tied up into a bun and piercing dark eyes. He had a lazy smile in his face as he looked into the camera, poking a finger into Shoko’s cheek.

“What the fuck, Suguru?!” She says as she flicks his hand away.

“That’s - that’s Geto Suguru.” Megumi says. Geto had always been a bittersweet topic in their house, only getting worse in the last year and a half since… since he died.

The next action causes a gasp to echo across the room. A smiling face pops up between both figures.

Dark, circular sunglasses perched on a slim, pale nose and a wide, toothy, cheeky smile sat under a mop of shocking white, messy hair.

“Holy shit! That’s -” Yuuji starts.

“Dad.” Megumi whispers, seeing Satoru so young, probably around his age was amazing to him.

“Wow! It’s working! Is it on? Is it filming?” 16 year old Gojo says, voice eerily familiar, but much younger.

The three faces were all staring into the lens of the camera, only visible from the shoulders up. On screen, Shoko looked down and moved her arm and another head popped up from the bottom of the screen, trying to squeeze in.

The head of H/C hair and shiny eyes wiggled their way into the shot between Suguru and Shoko, and under Satoru.

“Did you say it’s on? It on recording right now?” The new figure pokes the camera.

“No fucking way… Fushiguro! That’s -” Nobara says, swirling to look at the taller boy.

“My mom.” He says, eyes fixed on screen. Your face was younger, hair the same as ever, eyes still full of excitement and curiosity and voice slightly higher than it is now. A hand pats the top of your head, a pale one - Satoru.

“Do a dance for the camera, Y/N.” Satoru says, smiling.

And you do a little wiggle in your spot squeezed between everyone as the other three burst out laughing.

The camera cuts off, and the screen changes to a view of the outside - all of them immediately recognising the training field.

In view is Geto and Gojo, sparring at such a ridiculously quick speed it’s barely visible. He could hear giggling behind the screen and recognised the voices of you and Shoko laughing about something that happened in class.

“They’re such show offs.” Your voice says.

“Geto genuinely wants to train, Gojo is just trying to impress you.” Shoko says, voice muffled by something - which he later sees as a lollipop, figuring it out when it gets launched across the field - presumably in retaliation for her comment by you.

“No way, Koko! That’s just dumb, he’s just a show off in general.” Your voice echoes.

“Whatever you say, Y/N.”

The camera cuts off again. The next thing they see is the night sky, and raucous laughter. The camera is being held by Shoko again, and she points it to a view of a rooftop - the flat part of the roof of the dorm building. The camera turns to one Suguru Geto, eyes hazy and smile even more languid than normal. In his hand was a smoking object - which he passed to Shoko.

They were both laughing together about Shoko saying she could see a constellation shaped like a penis, and the hysterical giggles and she rested her head on the boys shoulder told them that the joint in Shoko’s hand was very much affecting them.

There were clambering sounds.

“I can’t reach!” Came your voice, distant and off screen.

“C’mere shortstack, I’ll give you a boost.” The teasing lilt of Gojo’s voice came after.

“Thanks, Jack the Beanstalk.” Your retort sent the two original stars into another round of laughter before you and Gojo enter the frame, both holding a plastic bag of snacks.

Shoko gives you the joint as you sit, and you take a quick puff and pass it back to Suguru. Satoru declines it, saying it makes his eyes feel funny to which you all nod and say ‘makes sense’.

“Did you get me spicy chips?” Suguru asks, combing through the bags.

“Yes. But - you had to tell me you love me to get them.” Satoru says, smirking.

“Gojo Satoru - you are the light of my life, the centre of my world, the reason my heart beats, please, May I have my child you absolute fuckwad.” He says, as Satoru throws his head back laughing and throws a red bag of chips at him before tackling him to the ground demanding a kiss.

You laugh at the scene, turning to Shoko.

“See - that’s how Geto has at least one date every weekend.” You say, opening your chocolate.

“Man-whore.” She responds, sucking on a lollipop.

The screen flashes black. The same view is on the screen, but the atmosphere is much calmer. Suguru lay, head on Shoko’s lap and her deft fingers carding through his hair as he listens to whatever nonsense Gojo is spouting. The camera turns to a view that has Nobara and Yuuji cooing. Satoru is sitting, arm around your back to keep you upright with your head on his shoulder, eyes closed and clearly sleeping.

Suguru’s voice whispers into the camera.

“And these two say they’re not into each other.” Followed by a scoff from Shoko.

Next up is a view of the training field again, with a sight that made the three current first years laugh. Suguru was laying on the grass, and he was bench pressing you - his makeshift weight - as you lay relaxed horizontally reading a book, the casual nature made it clear this was a daily occurrence.

Once his reps are finished, he gently lets you down and you don’t even react, just laying on the grass continuing your book. He stands up and waves to Shoko, who he’s just noticed with her camera and proceeds to take off his shirt and let down his hair.

“Put your damn shirt back on!” Shoko shouts.

“God damn, maybe I should be a curse user.” Nobara utters, whistling and fanning herself.

The camera is next held up by Satoru - who smiles and puts a finger to his lips to symbolise silence, for some reason, like the camera would be unexpectedly loud. He turns the camera and in the backseat of a car is Shoko and you, both asleep and earphones split between you with a bright pink iPod on Shoko’s lap. Her head was resting in the crook of your neck, and you cheek rested on top of your head.

“They really have always been best friends, haven’t they?” Yuuji says. Megumi is reminded of last week, when Nobara and Yuuji fell asleep in the back of Ijichi’s car, in the exact same position.

The camera operator is back to Shoko now, who is filming the most beautiful scenery. Sakura petals are drifting through the air as throngs of people wander around what appears to be a festival. There’s food stalls and trinket stands and everyone around is in their finery.

“Suguru! Show the camera your best pose.” Shoko says, as Suguru appears on screen decked out in a black and grey kimono with his hair in a half up, half down style.

He throws a peace sign at the camera and then takes it so he can film Shoko who’s in a pretty red Yukata pattered with black and white koi. She smiles and then waves as she looks off camera.

“You’re late, Satoru. Where’s Y/N?” She says as Gojo comes on screen.

He’s wearing a dark blue and silver hakama which looks like it cost the same as a house, Suguru wolf whistles and Satoru pretends to fawn over him.

“She was having lunch with her mom, she’s probably going to be here - holy shit.” Satoru says, but cuts himself off halfway as his jaw drops open.

The camera pans messily as Suguru turns to where Satoru is looking.

You’re walking toward them, smile on your face and usually messy hair styled in a beautiful updo, make up making your skin glow in the afternoon sun. You were wearing a light pink, billowy, gauzy hanfu with tiny pale green flowers and leaves around the edges. You did truly look incredibly stunning. You had a little bag in your hand, and the camera flew back to look at Satoru who was gaping at your approaching figure. His usually pale skin flushed with a pink dusting.

His mouth moves, and it seems unconscious when he whispers to himself.

“Beautiful…”

You walk into the frame, smiling brightly and hugging Shoko and then freezing when you see Satoru, eyes widening at the strikingly handsome figure he makes, every inch a fairytale Prince. The pink on your cheek matches your outfit as you stammer out a breathy,

“Hi, Satoru.”

“Hey, Y/N.” He says, mouthing opening and closing as you look at him through fluttering lashes.

There’s a jolt as it seems Suguru holding the camera elbows his best friend and whispers in his ear, just audible to the camera.

“Bro, tell her she looks beautiful, damn it.”

“You… you look um - beautiful, Y/N.” He stammers out, and the three first years watching laugh at how their oh-so-smooth sensei was once such a mess he needed prompting to flirt from his friends.

You flush even deeper.

“Thank you, Satoru. You look really good too. The um… the blue really suits you. The restaurant I had lunch with my mom had Sakura mochi, so I - I got you some.” You say as you shove a small nicely wrapped box at him and Satoru seems to melt. Shoko appears on screen, making a circle with one hand and poking a finger through it repeatedly in a very lewd gesture that has Suguru cackling.

“Wait - they’re not even together yet. They didn’t get together until the end of their second year.” Megumi muses, smirking.

“So they’ve always been this whipped for each other.” Nobara laughs.

The DVD ends there, and Yuuji jumps up to put in the next one, labelled ‘second year’.

The video begins with you sprinting toward Shoko and her catching you in her arms.

“I missed you so much! A whole summer without you, it was torture. How was the medical camp?” You ask her, barely taking a breath between words.

“Did you not miss me, lil’ lady?” Came a smooth voice as one Geto Suguru wraps his arms around you too, and you squeal in excitement. The three standing are then abruptly tackled to the ground as a blur of white and black whizzes toward them.

“Satoru!” Came three scolding voices.

“How the fuck did you do that, you lanky - oh.” Shoko is stopped abruptly as they all stand up and the change in Satoru is clearly visible. Long gone is the beanstalk boy of their first year, all arms and legs at 16 and now at almost 18 - a broad shouldered, 6ft 3, sharper jawline and longer hair Gojo stands before them. You look like you might faint.

The video stops and then resumes looking at a very familiar blackboard, and a much younger Yaga beside it.

In front of the blackboard there’s two students in Jujutsu High uniforms - both in party hats and standing under a banners with ‘Welcome First Years!’ written in big bubble writing on it, the sounds of streamers and party poppers came through the room as the camera was set down on a desk.

Gojo comes on screen and waves his arms as if to show off the two students. One looked incredibly happy, a beaming smile full of excitement and the other looking absolutely miserable, but given how painfully 2005 emo he looked - it wasn’t surprising. Megumi smirked, seeing the blond boy on screen and knowing exactly who it was from photo albums you kept - but he waited to see when the other two would notice.

“Welcome to Yu Haibara! Please - introduce yourself!” Gojo says, pointing a bottle of cola at him like a microphone.

“Hi! I’m Yu! I’m 16 and I like rice and people!” He says, voice full of enthusiasm.

“Thank you! Next up, Gerard Way!” Satoru smiles and point the mock microphone to the other boy.

“Do I have to? This feels unnecessary.” He says, grimacing.

“Yes! You do!”

“Fine. My name is Nanami Kento -”

Megumi didn’t hear the rest of the sentence as a chorus of ‘What the fuck!?’ Echoes from the two beside him.

“Nobara, rewind that - I think I heard it wrong, I thought the emo kid said his name was Nanami, hah!” Yuuji exclaims.

“No need. You heard right.” Megumi smirks.

“No fucking way! That’s Nanamin?!” Yuuji is smiling so wide at the sight of his mentor as a moody teen.

“Yup. I remember his hair like that, he had a lip ring and a nose ring too. Geto Suguru pierced his nose with Shoko’s med kit for him when they drank too much whiskey at my mom’s 18th. There’s a picture of them doing it framed in their room at home.” Megumi scoffs a laugh, the other two in shock at the revelation.

The camera stops again and next time is looking from an upstairs window as voices whisper.

“What is she doing?” Shoko asks.

“It looks like she’s talking?” Geto asks.

“There’s a tiny spike in her cursed energy - wait, I’ll try see if there’s someone around.” He says and the clink of his sunglasses hitting the windowsill breaks the quiet.

On screen, there’s you in a pair of fluffy blue pyjamas and a winter knitted hat as you seem to be kneeling and ushering something small out of a bush. Satoru seems to have gotten distracted and the camera pans to him - who’s just staring out the window with the most dopey, lovestruck smile on his face.

“Satoru.” Suguru says, flicking his ear.

He snarls, but blushes.

“I - I can’t tell but, it kinda seems like? She is trying to talk to something.” He says, as they all crane their necks as you pull something into your arms and stand up, taking off your hat and tucking whatever you found into it and scurrying back inside.

An obnoxious ringtone of crazy frog blasts through the room and Satoru flips open his phone and answers it.

Since it’s you, he puts it on speaker.

“Hey, Satoru - are you still at the store? I - kinda need something, urgently.” Your voice asks.

“Eh - yeah, I’m at the store. What do you need?” He says, trying to hush the two sniggering traitors beside him who are fully aware that he came back from the store an hour ago and is sitting in Suguru’s dorm with them.

“I - um, I need kitten milk.” Your voice says, just as the camera cuts off.

The next few videos are just videos on videos on you and a tiny, tiny kitten, feeding it from a small bottle and it sleeping on your chest, or Satoru playing with it and a ball of wool in hysterical laughter. One video is taken by Shoko with Suguru in the frame playing with the kitten who is trying to catch his bangs and on the sofa, is you sitting on Satoru’s lap, as he looks at you adoringly and you giggle and place a kiss on his lips. Given that it’s about 3/4 of the way through your second year, it means you’re freshly together after torturing your friends with mutual pining.

Megumi looks closer at the kitten, and the tabby is very recognisable to him - given that to this day, the hairs of that kitten, now 13 years old and still thriving due to your unwavering spoiling, still decorate any black fabric in your home.

“Is that baby grumpy George?!” Nobara asks, hitting the nail on the head.

The video fades again, and then the screen is illuminated by a makeshift stage in the school sports hall. Another large banner is on the wall, with ‘Talent Show’ written in large writing, Megumi now noticed the big bubble writing was the same as had been on every ‘happy birthday’ banner he’d had every year.

The announcer, he recognises as a smiling principal Yaga - even though this is surely not a school organised or endorsed event, but probably the work of the couple he now calls his parents.

“Welcome to Jujutsu Talent Show! The rules of tonight are as follows a) no cursed techniques or cursed energy and absolutely no sabotaging! Panda! Do you want to say who’s going first?” Yaga announced as he lifts up a baby panda and the voice of the baby says “Nanami and Yu!”.

Yu skips on stage, decked out in a cape patterned with stars and a large top hat, followed by a very sullen Nanami Kento, adorned with a nose and lip ring now.

“Ladies, gentlemen, cursed corpses! My name is Yu the Magic Man and this is my assistant, the Fantastical Nanamin! Does anyone here like rabbits?” He announced, and takes off his hat, revealing a stuffed rabbit on his head - commencing the world’s worst magic show. The highlight was definitely Yu asking Nanami to pull the scarf from his sleeve and after pulling and pulling and pulling, a very frustrated Kento growls ‘Fucking hell, Yu - how long is this thing?’ Completely breaking what little mysticism surrounded the performance. Geto didn’t help, when he muttered ‘that’s what she said’ after Nanami’s complaint, setting the second years off.

After a bow to his rapt audience, and lots of cheering and supportive clapping from you all - the first years leave and Yaga announces the next performance.

A loud bang echoes through the room,

“Holy shit!” Your voice, the 28 year old you, carries through the room as three heads spin around to see their sensei’s back, arms supporting the thighs around his waist, belonging to his wife who’s lipstick is smudged across her cheek and her husband’s face. The white haired man’s white shirt was partially unbuttoned and your sweater had fallen completely off you shoulder - combined with the position you entered the room and the ruined cosmetics it was quite clear why the teachers had stumbled into this forgotten room of jujutsu tech.

“Get a fucking room.” Megumi grumbles.

“We were! But you’re here! And just for that I’m gonna tell you that the sofa you’re sitting on was where Akio was conceived.” Gojo retorts, trying to fix himself as all the kids groan.

“Both of you, hush. ‘Toru - look at the screen.” You were transfixed on the paused screen.

“Wait! Is that - that’s our talent show! From second year! Where did you guys find this?” Satoru says, leaping over the back of the sofa and plopping down but not before turning around and picking you up by the waist and sitting you in his lap.

“I thought all the DVD’s were lost! Koko couldn’t find them after we graduated!” You say, as you keep staring at the screen.

“We were clearing out the storage room, like Ijichi asked and we found a funky box with DVD’s in it.” Yuuji says.

“Oh my god! Press play!” You say, clapping.

“Look at angry Nanamin!” Gojo says, smiling.

“Next up is Y/N and Shoko!” Screen Yaga announces.

You and Shoko are dressed in the most colourful outfits ever, you’re beaming and Shoko looks exhausted. Large headbands, crimped hair, tutu skirts, leggings, neon leg warmers and beads were the costume of choice as Geto stood on one side of the stage.

“Welcome to - Y/N and Shoko’s dance bonanza!” You both say, and Geto presses play so that Girl’s Just Wanna Have Fun plays to match the 80s Cyndi Lauper style outfits. Having danced ballet as a little girl, and being a big fan of Just Dance and Dance Dance Revolution - you decided that you and Shoko would do this for the show, exhausted and unenthusiastic - but endlessly loyal to her best friend and determined to not let Gojo win the show. You guys danced a perfectly in sync routine with 28 year old you shouting ‘Oh my god, I still remember the routine!’ Halfway through. Yuuji was hopping along on the sofa beside Megumi.

Before Shoko could collapse into a heap as the song finished, she was thrown over Suguru’s shoulder and hauled off stage with Gojo doing the same for you.

After a brief intermission, Geto and Gojo were welcomed on stage in matching black tuxedo’s, off camera your voice could be heard saying ‘ugh, I’m gonna climb that man like a tree later, suits are the best.’

“Ladies, gents - tonight welcome to The GS squared stand up comedy show, enjoy your night and Geto’s number is available after the show.” Gojo drawls into the mic.

Megumi didn’t expect the routine to be as funny as it was, everyone especially enjoyed the part where they did impressions of different Jujutsu Elders, including Naobito Zen’in and Principal Gakuganji - which were unnervingly accurate but highly offensive to them, especially when Gojo got on his knees to imitate how short the elder Kyoto principal was and Geto kept playing Looney Tunes on the projector to show Naobito’s ‘cursed technique’.

When the audience were thoroughly hysterically laughing, with the audience being Yaga, MeiMei, Panda, Y/N, Shoko, Yu, Kento and Utahime who was visiting Shoko for the weekend, the boys bowed, winked and walked off stage and the camera caught Gojo bending down to whisper something in his ear which had you looking at the sky and blushing - still getting used to openly loving each other.

The voting wasn’t recorded, but the winners announcement was and it was shown to be Yu and Nanami - who everyone, except for themselves had voted for.

“Oh my god, these are priceless! I can’t believe I got even funnier with age, and look at your cute little outfit, princess!” Satoru coos.

“There’s a whole box of them, we’ve only watched 2!” Yuuji says, bouncing and handing the box to you and Satoru.

“No way, it’s the whole box! I remember decorating it with Koko! Hold on, I’m gonna ring her to come here.” You say as you take out your phone, smiling at the lockscreen of Satoru, Megumi and your 6 month old son and pulling up Shoko’s contact to ring her to ‘get her ass down here for a surprise’.

“Oh, ‘toru! I bet our DVD of our trip together to Fiji in the summer of third year, Shoko lent us her came for it!” You say, wrapping your arms around him and settling in while Yuuji loads the next DVD.

“Classes are cancelled, I’ve decided it’s home movie day - do we have any popcorn?” Satoru says, smiling at how fondly Megumi is looking at the screen, a still pause screen of himself and you smiling in the training yard together - still looking as lovingly at each other 13 years later. Yuuji has his arm wrapped and Megumi’s shoulders and is leaning into him, as the dark haired boy rubs circles on his boyfriend’s knee - Nobara has her legs stretched across the laps of both boys as the newest video begins.

The door swings open, Shoko entering -

“No fucking way! You found them! Kids, move up - let Aunty Koko sit.” She says, plopping herself between the arm and her two best friends, her nephew and their bonus kids.

She’s glad she bought that camera.

[crazymuffin1]

this post is for people who wonder what the hell is going on with the venom movies/fandom because they havent watched it

if youre seeing it on your dash and dont want to scroll very long press J. if youre on mobile. cope.

venom the last dance is the third movie in the venom series and people who haven't watched the movies are probably wondering whats going on. whoever you're following has probably posted or reblogged some sort of eddie brock x venom thing. yes of course. mlm ships are popular and theyre the main characters. of course theyre gonna get shipped. just like stucky or other hot main male characters. nothing really special about these guys. right?

wrong! because as opposed to the other ones being non-canon ships where we just look at everything and say "thats gay" or look at it through shipping tinted glasses, symbrock is a bit special.

to start off with! the source material! the comics! im not gonna make this part long, just a bunch of images with short descriptions and you can interpret it however you want (click for full image)

panels ofter referred to as "the ones where they have sex"

no comment

even spider-man knows

aaaaaand the comic writers/artists also know

theres more (like how they have a kid and eddie experienced morning sickness...) but this is about the movie! not the comics!

first movie moments. im skipping smaller moments and i'll try to not write out the whole plot.

eddie and venom go through a whole car chase scene on a motorbike, and the moment eddie calls him cool, they get his by a car. often interpreted as venom losing focus from the praise

-omg why would that lead to venom losing focus?? because venom, on its planet, is a loser. bottom of the barrel. an outcast. and someone called it cool. venom sees that eddie is also a bit of a loser on his planet. theyre two losers together. Eddie asks why he doesnt just kill him and hop to another host, but venom says that hes a good match (other bodies reject the symbiote, and die from organ failure/eaten from the inside) and venom is "starting to like him" venom also gets a bit stuck on the moment that eddie says we instead of i. its both of them. together.

later eddie finds out his organs were failing (venom was starving and was working on fixing it) and when they get seperated the way he acts is kind of framed like a bad breakup. its not "im free from this parasite! yippie!" its "i trusted you and you hurt me. we're done" sort of breakup. venom tries to say he was trying to fix it but eddie ignores it (not the exact words but if you look at it you'll get it)

eddie gets taken away by the bad guys and venom hops on eddies ex and they reunite. and its not just reunite.

its this

thumbnail shows human face but it does not start off with that.

fun fact! theres a sort of deleted scene where eddie asks "who was i kissing just then?" and she says "mostly me" and then we hear venoms voice saying "well actually it was mostly me!" ALSO at the end of the movie, she says it was venoms idea. this was venom and eddie making out. not eddie and his ex. they do not get back together. she has a new boyfriend and they've moved in together so its serious.

venoms original purpose as to why the symbiotes are on earth was as a scouting party for an invasion force. venom changes his mind on being on the invasion part. eddie asks what REALLY made him change his mind "you did eddie."

also after the movie was in theaters they made an additional romcom trailer to promo the dvd/blueray release. the movie. framed as a romcom. im not kidding. on sonys official youtube. for both movies.

speaking of both movies, the second one has them breaking up! full on divorce after fighting and arguing!! very sad. and then venom goes to a rave (october, there are costumes, hes fully transformed) and says "i am out! of the eddie closet!" HES COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET. one person at the rave has a mask on that says "kiss me" and venom says "sorry no, not my type" THEN WHAT IS YOUR TYPE HUH??? MEN?? SWEATY LOSER GUYS??? his hosts keep failing because theyre not as compatible as eddie. and after having fun venom is sad and wishes eddie could've seen him. they of course, get back together* after some apologizes and because they need to fight a serial killer who also has a symbiote (carnage) because previously, they went to interview him, he insulted eddie, venom got mad on eddies behalf and grabbed him, resulting in getting bit, and that spawned a new symbiote from the blood. also the serial killer, (cletus kassidy) went to bust out his girlfriend who upon seeing his tentacles breaking her glass cage, called it hot.

*when they get reunited (anne helps out again) theres no kiss this time, and annes fiancee, after seeing them fight, says "those two need some serious couples counseling"

after a big climactic fight and mutual reassuring that theyre a perfect match for one another, they flee to some random place in mexico where they sort of have a love confession. theres an extended deleted version of it but i think many of us think they cut it down to save it for the third movie. also they get transported to the mcu in the post-credit and then re-appear in the post-credit of spider-man where theyre just sitting at a bar asking the bartender about the blip and thanos. venom decides to go skinny dip but they get transported back to their universe. net zero gain.

THE THIRD MOVIE

hasnt come out yet. but the promotional things. the trailer. my god the tiktoks and twitter clips?? WHY IS THE TIKTOK VIDEO CAPTION VENOM X EDDIE 4EVER??? HUH???? WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME!?!?! IF I GET QUEERBAITED IM GONNA EXPLODE WHY IS ONE OF THEM FRAMED LIKE A COUPLES COUNSELING HELP GUIDE.

i cant post this one on tumblr but this tiktok is a slideshow, one image of venom and eddie from each movie, and the background song is "I've loved you three summer Lover - Taylor swift" with the caption "it's a love love relationship"

WE JUST WANT THEM TO KISS AGAIN AND HAVE A MUTUAL, EXPLICIT, LOVE CONFESSION. AND HAVE 4 HOURS TENTACLESEX SCENE. (not necessarily in that order)

and the first trailer that came out for venom3 has the line"eddie, my home [long pause] has found us" like girrrrrllll for a full 3 seconds i thought he was saying that eddie is his home.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

The @hotjaneaustenmenpoll tournament has inspired me to finally write this post, this more than a post, this bit of FUNDAMENTAL Austen adaptation research.

It is well known that there was a Mansfield Park adaptation in 2007, for which the reception went from "eh?" to "huh?", but what most people around here probably don't know, is that this was the cover for the DVD release in Spain:

And you'll naturally ask, who is that handsome blonde man on the right? He definitely isn't Michelle Ryan, we know what she looks like.

He's Baddeley. The butler. The butler at Mansfield Park. Emma's 2020 class commentary this, and Emma 1996 (ITV) social commentary that, but has any of them put a servant on the cover? Thought so. And people have the gall of calling this a bad, unfaithful adaptation :P

So, in honor of Baddeley and his being the only servant I can think of in the Austen canon of whom we have some pov writing, and what is better, that pov is inner snarky thoughts about Mrs Norris, let's have every time Baddeley shows up in MP 2007, witnesses iconic events, and wins his spot on the DVD cover.

Here we have Baddeley serving some refreshments during Henry and Mary's first visit to Mansfield:

Here we have him also serving some wine to sir Thomas during the very awkward dinner that followed his return from Antigua:

Here we have Baddeley making sure Fanny's special picnic goes perfect:

That includes making sure nobody is dying of thirst (dancing is a very taxing activity!):

Here we have him at the zenith moment of his telling Mrs Norris that she's not wanted:

Evil never rests, and neither does Baddeley's commitment to keeping people hydrated, in this case, during a mouth-drying reading of Shakespeare by Henry:

Sometimes Baddeley's work involves improvising, and taking on jobs others would have considered beneath their title, such as carrying Edmund's bags:

Or helping sir Thomas get out of his traveling coat:

But this also has its rewards, as door watch duty allows him to witness the moment sir Thomas yeets Mrs Norris out of Mansfield:

Alas, in a clear commentary on the class issues of the regency era, despite his relevance to the plot and constant presence at life turning moments of the family, he was not invited and nowhere to be seen at Edmund and Fanny's wedding, while absolute strangers got to witness the momentous occasion instead.

Baddeley, friend, don't be sad. You were there, in our hearts.

[lizardsfromspace]

Okay, Matrix plagiarism case postscript

One thing I didn't answer is how she got the Wachowski's timeline wrong. I still don't know, but it appears she essentially shifted their lives back a decade

She says less than a decade ago they were running a construction business, but actually, working at a construction company is what they were doing in 1986. In 1976 Lana and Lilly were eleven and nine years old respectively. I can't explain why she messed this up, beyond having to age them up a decade for the story to work

But this screencap also brings up another thing she mentions repeatedly that I didn't mention - the smoking gun in her claim is that...the Matrix ripped off her words verbatim for its opening crawl. The opening crawl...to The Matrix.

Huh?

So her story is - and unsurprisingly the timeline here is jumbled, for instance, citing production interviews from 1997 when the film wouldn't enter production until 1998 - the original version of The Matrix contained a Star Wars-style opening crawl, and this was the most directly plagiarized part of the film.

She claims this opening crawl was, in fact, in the theatrical release of The Matrix and only removed when it came to home media, because she. Because she called the FBI on the Wachowskis for stealing the idea of opening crawls from her

The theatrical cut does differ from later versions slightly - most infamously the Wachowskis made the green color filter much more green in the second DVD release, to make it consistent with the style of the sequels - but if there was a opening crawl mandated by the studio, nobody but her has mentioned it, and I find it hard to believe critics wouldn't mention it.

Because this is Dark City. She's clearly confused The Matrix with stories about the studio's meddling with the 1998 film Dark City.

Dark City was the dystopian sci-fi film that had a opening narration explaining the whole plot foisted on it by the studio, and critics mentioned it. Basically every review mentioned it (some even suggest covering your ears or muting the film the first time you see it, at least until the Director's Cut removed it). Meanwhile, reviews of The Matrix praised its opening from the very beginning: how it drops you right into things and lets you find out about its world as Neo does. It's just not possible that the theatrical release has a opening crawl no one mentioned when I can pull up full comparisons of theatrical vs first DVD vs second DVD vs Bluray. Whatever story she read either was about Dark City, or was a Wachowski saying in passing "yeah the studio wanted us to add one but we didn't".

Another thing I didn't touch on is just how much it hypes her up as a untouchable genius of cinema. For instance, she claims to have come up with the effects of The Matrix in 1983 too

(one funny part is how little she brings up The Terminator at all? She just threw it in as a bonus I guess)

I looked up how they did the bullet time effect in particular and...it would have been impossible in 1983. It's not just high speed photography; it's entire banks of cameras, placed in the right place by computer previsualization, their sequence programmed, and with all the elements composited together by CGI. Even stylistically - the true creator of the effects cited Akira as a influence, and Akira the movie didn't exist in 1983. Neither did the type of Hong Kong action film that heavily influenced it. I guess it would be possible to write down "someone goes really fast and we depict it like they slowed down time", concepts of a plan etc

But like.

She's destined to be one of the most profound master writers of the 21st century. This is a book proving she's never written anything. It has a pitch for The Third Eye, it has a second film treatment tacked on at the end, and it has copyright registrations for her sequels to Terminator and The Matrix. M. Night Shyamalan's character in Lady in the Water was destined to be a great writer too, but he actually wrote a book. He didn't put out a book with a decades-old synposis that was never finished & reams of legal documents and a bio saying, I'm one of the greatest authors of all time. Because who needs writing when you have destiny, God, and the ancient superrace living in the Pyramids on your side?

This is my for real last post on this since I ended up just depressed about it in the end. I think the worst part is, she knows she lost. But she still goes to the press telling a story she knows isn't true, and people believe her. Some of it is transphobic - "stop saying it's a trans allegory when they stole it"; some of it runs with the Christian oppression narrative (full disclosure, I was inspired to look for her book again bc while looking up another crank, I saw an interview with her in the sidebar of a religious website); but a lot of it is just people who innocently want it to be true.

One of the few pieces debunking her story is on a website called Black Excellence - it doesn't even have a byline - said this:

"There are many people, especially Black people, who wanted the story to be true. It symbolized a Black person, especially a Black woman, finally winning against the system. When Sophia Stewart spoke about how mainstream media would not give her the time of day because almost all of them were owned by Warner Brothers, some Black media embraced her. Blogs spread her story, especially the initial story on Globe that contained errors about the case.

"But the story is not true. Sophia Stewart did not become the richest Black person in the country. But that did not deter her from going on several shows and publications to tell her story."

She took advantage of people's urge to root for the underdog against a corporation - and seized on a lack of mainstream coverage to claim her story was being suppressed. But it just isn't true. Also yeah she ridiculously claims that Warner Bros owns every news website and newspaper and that's kind of funny I guess. Well, that's it. I'm never doing this again

[a-student-out-of-time]

The Post-Tragedy Horrors of Despair Time

Hello everyone, Mod Bubbles here!

This Halloween, I decided to do something a little different. Rather than a dedicated post or song parody, I've decided to share a worldbuilding analysis. A pretty fortuitous one, since we've recently completed Chapter 2 of Despair Time.

I'm sure it's no exaggeration to say that DT is a pretty dark fangan, especially within its own context. I wouldn't say it's as grimdark and nihilistic as some people are convinced it is, but there's some elements to it that I feel are worth analyzing going forward.

See, it's been established that DT is set within the Hope's Peak continuity. This would mean that the canon games sans V3 (and if you want to have fun with it, other fangans like the Another series) have all happened here.

According to a Q&A, DT is set around 70-80 years after the end of the Tragedy, so if you wanted to estimate based on in-universe dates (such as Makoto's Hope's Peak brochure saying 2010 in the earliest version of the game but 2014 in a re-release), that would put it sometime around 2080 to the mid-2090s. Veronika backs this up in Chapter 2, when she mentions the Tragedy happened "almost a century ago."

Why do I bring all this up? Because if you looked at DT, you'd probably never guess it was that deep in the future. I know I didn't at first. And this is all by design, but it goes beyond simple cosmetic details. Allow me to explain to you why this is probably the darkest timeline that could've happened after Class 78's victory over Ultimate Despair.

___________________________________________________

Modern Stagnancy

So if we look at the obvious, the world of DT looks pretty much identical to our own, which should be a good thing. When you consider that this is set after The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History- an event that saw societal collapse, wars happen for the sake of destruction, massive pollution, rampant murder, and countless killing games- then it almost seems utopian.

Cities have long since been rebuilt, the skies are clear, there are functional trains, movies, celebrities, schools, music, art, Ted-Talks, the internet, all the trappings of normality. And that's really the problem.

Once the recovery efforts were underway, the goal of those in power was to rebuild things exactly as they used to be. Bear in mind, the world looks like our modern day, yet this is set deep into the late 21st century. In that context, the world almost seems stunted in its growth or even that it's regressed, given that CDs and DVDs are used rather than USBs or digital downloads.

Not only that, but this extends to societal attitudes as well. Nico was the victim of bullying over their status as an enby by everyone who knew, including their own father. It's almost the 22nd century and anti-LGBTQ bigotry like this still exists.

In that context, it feels less like the world is recovering and more that it's been stuck in its pre-Tragedy status quo, right down to continuing the Ultimates program that contributed to The Tragedy in the first place. And who would be motivated to do that?

2. Hope's Peak And Their Kin Are Stronger Than Ever

Probably one of the most contentious aspects of DR3's ending is that, after everything the people in charge of it were responsible for- exploiting their students, covering up crimes, human experimentation- Hope's Peak Academy was rebuilt by the survivors, now with Makoto as headmaster.

Now, one could make the argument that Makoto is a better example of hope and thus better suited to lead the school to follow its stated ideals than the Steering Committee ever was. That very well may be true, but as they also proved, nobody stays in charge forever. And now, because of his decision, Hope's Peak isn't contained to Japan.

There now exist Hope's Peak branches in every major country on Earth, with two in the United States. Teruko and co. are students of the East Coast Division's 27th class, meaning that one opened almost thirty years ago. This would also mean that Japan's Hope's Peak would have seen over 150 classes since its inception.

I bring all this up because, as has been made very clear by canon, Hope's Peak is a terrible place even in concept. When you remove the idyllic aspect of fostering talent and guaranteeing its students are set for life, the truth is that ultimates are stunted in their development. They're only encouraged to excel in their particular field, whether they really want to or not.

In addition, Hope's Peak has always quietly held this belief that only people with talent hold any worth; those without talent are just "ticks" who leech off the success of their betters. Characters like Byakuya and Nagito echo those very same sentiments, this extreme elitism that encourages people to view the "99%" as inherently inferior.

Even if you wanted to say Makoto managed to undo that idea, can we really say this divide would never come up again? No matter how many years pass or how many divisions of Hope's Peak are set up across the world? That seems really far-fetched to me.

Consider Min's bonus video. As she explains, she was never scouted by the school. Instead, America's Hope's Peak announced something called the Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students, where eligible high school students would be allowed to take a test, the best of whom would be admitted to the school when they graduated. The catch is that they had 12 years to prepare. Min, who was only 5 at the time, wasn't initially going to participate, but then the founder of a company called XF-Ture Tech approached her family- who was quite poor- and wanted to sponsor her in exchange for her participation.

She spent her entire life preparing for that test. And when she passed, she realized it was all really just an experiment to create their ideal version of the Ultimate Student. She even doubted that she was the best in terms of raw score, just that she met their desired expectations by cutting out everything else in her life for that test.

It also extends beyond just Hope's Peak itself. Those with power and influence now hold a strangle hold over the most vulnerable people out there, as we can see with the Lacroix family.

Rose wanted to help her family out of their financial limitations using her painting skills and her photographic memory, which lead to her becoming an art forger. However, at 15, she was found out and her family faced tens of millions in fines. This would've been the end, but then they were bailed out by a billionaire named Richard Spurling, founder of the Spurling Foundation. In exchange for clearing her charges, Rose had to sign a contract that meant she doesn't own the rights to anything she paints.

She hates what her life has become, where she can only ever really paint things at the whims of the Foundation because it was the only way her family could survive that mountain of debt. The exploitation there is undeniable.

No matter where you look, there's still exploitation and experiment abound with the school, corporations and the wealthy. And if you think the Spurling Foundation sounds bad here, they're implied to be responsible for something much worse.

Which is also brings us to Xander. See, there's a curious detail when we first meet him in the prologue:

And I agree. Xander being the Ultimate Rebel really doesn't fit him, as he's better described as the "Ultimate Revolutionary." Except there's no chance Hope's Peak would call him that, instead paying lip service to the idea in a digestible format to still support the status quo.

Xander is an activist who works to oppose corruption, but the ones who benefit from corruption wouldn't want him to flaunt that. It's a subtle but very clever detail that shows those in power still maintain a hold even over their beloved Ultimates.

They probably had no issue throwing the obviously corrupt under the bus to save their own hides, and raised Xander up with a quasi-supportive title. It gives them a chance to look like they're supporting what he's doing while still tying an element of a "rebellious child" to his image with the name.

Had Xander survived, he had a good reason to want to bring them down, especially the Spurlings.

3. Illness and Poverty

Xander's bonus video clued us in on what I believe is one of the most important parts of DT's continuity: the fate of the town of Chariton, implied to be where he lived. It seemed to be a small town, home to a couple hundred or a couple thousand people, where the only hospital for miles was "dinky, understaffed" and barely able to handle a minor flu outbreak. They were completely unprepared for what became known as the Chariton Incident.

When he was around 14, the town was hit by a disease that caused those infected to decay from the outside in; their limbs would stop working before their organs did, meaning they would just lay there and feel themselves slowly dying. So many died that nobody was left to move the bodies, so they were left where they fell, rotting in the summer heat.

The cause of this outbreak? A contaminated river that served as the town's water source. Chariton was an impoverished community, where people had no money to treat their water, get medicine from a nearby city or to even move out. It's also implied, based on Xander's anger, that Duke Spurling was partially responsible and that he got off the hook, which may be what drove Xander to become the Ultimate Rebel. Especially when you consider he's the only surviving member of his family.

Duke Spurling is, as the named implies and Dev has confirmed, the younger brother of Richard Spurling. The money and influence needed to get his brother off the hook is the very same that has the Lacroix family under his thumb.

So as we can see, Chariton was a major event in DT's canon. Not only does it showcase corruption, it also showcases understated but still prominent problems in the post-Tragedy U.S. If you pay attention, you'll also notice Teruko, Min, and Rose mention poverty playing a role in their lives.

As we can see, poverty plays a major role in their lives, and that extends beyond a personal level. Chariton's poverty is why the incident happened at all, and a big reason is because it's also an example of a medical desert.

"Medical desert" is a term used to describe regions whose population has inadequate access to healthcare. This can be all healthcare in general or in specialties such as dental care or pharmaceuticals. This is an especially prominent problem in rural areas, but it can affect urban ones too.

If that sounds implausible to you, today it's believed that around 30 million Americans- over 1% of the population- live over an hour from a hospital. Can you imagine how bad the problem is in a world after The Tragedy? All the damage to infrastructure, established institutions, the economy, and the population? I doubt Chariton was the first to see something this bad.

Ace's execution gives us more clues. In the Death By Illness section, there are several newspaper clippings on the wall, most of which are readable. One flashes on screen saying "Unexplained Illness Kills Thousands," which I believe is another reference to Chariton (why else would it flash on screen?), but there's more as well:

"More people are dying of cancer than ever before"

"Flu season claims thousands of lives"

"Falling rates of survival for hospitalized patients"

"Antibiotic-resistant infections a growing threat in this hospital"

One is harder to read, but I believe it mentions Chronic Kidney Disease being tied to an early death

Now, the interesting thing is that most of these are modern headlines, and they can be pretty misleading. The cancer one is actually based on the fact that more people are living longer lives, thus are reaching ages where they develop cancer due to their cell infrastructure breaking down naturally. It doesn't mean there's more cancer cases overall across all ages.

The only one that's not true is the falling rates one. Which suggests that not only was it Chariton, but healthcare infrastructure in general after the Tragedy seems to be a mess.

See, I was assuming that these articles are identical to what we see today. But it's also possible that the cancer one is now literally true, and it could be because The Tragedy was rife with this kind of horror. We know that terrorism, coups and wars happened for no reason other than to spread despair across the world.

Could you imagine how many nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons were used? How many diseases and hazardous materials were seeded into the environment? If it's unsafe to drink tap water after a serious hurricane or earthquake, how bad is the problem when contamination is the goal?

And this doesn't even touch on how disturbingly easy it would be to spread long-term illnesses such as HIV or CJD in contaminated food and medical supplies. Some diseases have latency periods that last decades, meaning they could still be killing people even by the time DRDT is set.

Antibiotic resistance is also a very real and serious problem. Even today, some strains have become immune to even the strongest antibiotics available. This has given rise to Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci or VREs, which are immune to basically every medication we can throw at them.

Now, it's still possible to deal with them, such as with naturally antimicrobial metals or experimental treatments such as CRISPR and Phage Therapy, but in a world that saw such a massive hit to everything? I'm certain antibiotic-resistance bacteria have become much more serious, potentially resulting in epidemics over the years.

And when these things happen, it's always the poor who suffer the most.

4. Lethal Repetition

Now we come to the most obvious example, something highlighted by the same reveal that DT is set nearly a century into the future:

Veronika, who provided us with information on the effects the Tragedy still has, apparently has never heard about The Killing School Life.

Now, it's important to keep in mind that most of the Killing Games in DR were pretty secluded and motivated. SDR2 was only broadcast to Future Foundation with the goal to allow Junko to escape into the real world, for example. However, DR1's Killing School Life was broadcast globally as a means to break humanity's hope by showing the Ultimates slaughtering each other. Instead, Makoto and co. managed to reinvigorate the world's hope and played a pivotal role in ending the Tragedy.

...And yet Veronika apparently hasn't heard any of it.

Now, there's two possibilities here, neither of which are good:

One is that the Mastermind has removed their knowledge of previous killing games, specifically. Now, I actually consider this an unlikely explanation because, not only does Teruko seem to vaguely remember the Killing School Life happened, but what's the goal in doing so for the participants?

The canon games all had solid reasons why the other masterminds erased the participants' memories: the revelation that they'd been killing their friends, the fact that their past identities were supposed to be undone to save them, even the fact that they weren't even who they were supposed to be in V3.

But what's the purpose of suppressing the memories of the Killing School Life in the participants themselves? Especially since this game is also apparently being broadcast to the outside world, although we only have MonoTV's word on that. Is it to undermine everything the survivors achieved or to get the participants not to consider the same strategies?

The other, more plausible explanation to me is that the mastermind isn't the one who erased their memories. The outside world did.

It's possible that, in the decades since the Tragedy and the drive to return things to the status quo, knowledge of the Killing School Life has been suppressed. It would be so easy to blame Makoto's decision to rebuild the school, but it's just as plausible that his attempts to genuinely reform the school were undone over the years.

Corporations and those that came after had a vested reason to improve their own reputations, and why would they allow their connection to the Tragedy to remain public knowledge? The entire thing began as a revolution of lower classes against the rich before it became a whirlwind of mindless violence.

So what does this mean for DT? This is more hypothesizing on my part, but I'd say this could tell us a lot about the potential motivations for this very killing game. Could it be someone trying to remind the world about this event and how we got here? Is it more retribution against the wealthy? Is it someone who was inspired by Junko to slaughter her friends? Or is it something else entirely? And what role does Teruko have if someone involved is so hellbent on trying to kill her?

For now, we can only speculate. But I can tell you that, based on what we've seen here, DT is probably the darkest future we could've gotten out of the canon series.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

[journey-to-the-attic]

in the actor au they film all the scenes where the characters are in demon form in one block for convenience, but this means that the demons have to spend hours in make-up and special effects at a time because the production is using real life sfx for nearly everything, so in the final dvd release of the whole show there's a special reel called "ik's interviews" where she just goes around bothering everyone while they're sitting there getting their horns grafted on

[alexanderwales]

Movie Review: Upstream Color (2013)

I watched Primer when it came out on DVD. It's one of the few movies that, when I finished, I immediately watched a second time. I loved it. It was dense and opaque, and benefited greatly from a second watch, which made the whole thing slot together like a nice little puzzle. It was filmed on a razor-thin budget, with one of the main characters being a writer, director, producer, and editor. I immediately put Shane Carruth on my (then short) list of directors to watch.

So I've been meaning to watch Upstream Color, his second movie, for a full decade now. The reviews for it were never very good, and every Primer fan I knew of said that it was no Primer, and I guess I had other stuff going on for literally a dozen years. I keep a "to watch" movie list, which is usually 20-30 movies deep, and other stuff kept taking priority for one reason or another. I wanted to be in the right mood for it, that was definitely part of it. So I watch a movie every two or three days, something like 100 movies a year, and that means that since Upstream Color came out, I have watched more than a thousand movies instead of watching it.

Spoilers Follow

Let's start with the obvious: Upstream Color is no Primer.

I think that I could fit the story of Upstream Color into a single paragraph. It's not complicated. When we start any movie that my wife doesn't think she'll like, she goes to look up the synopsis and reviews and trivia and stuff, and she quoted me a review that said it was an "opaque mess", and ... I don't agree with that, but I can see where they're coming from.

Here's my plot synopsis:

A man (credited as "Thief") discovers some worms that can be used to induce a hypnotic state. He uses them to hypnotize a woman, Kris, and makes her give him her entire net worth while under hypnosis. When that's done, he leaves, and she writhes around under worm control until being summoned by some music by a different, unconnected man (credited as "Sampler"). The Sampler takes the worm out of her body, implants it into a pig, then releases her. She wakes up with no memory and her life is shattered. Later, she meets Jeff, who had the same thing happen to him, they fall in love, they have a psychic connection to these pigs, they gradually get more in touch with what happened to them, then they go kill the Sampler and rescue the psychic pigs.

I don't think that there's anything in there that anyone could be confused about. The movie spells everything out. There are one or two plot beats aside from that, but this is about it.

It's how the movie does this which is unusual. It's taking show, don't tell to its limits, almost never with dialogue that clarifies anything, and its scenes muddle into each other, with none of them feeling like they last more than a few seconds. There is essentially no grounding, even when it felt to me like there should be, and the movie doesn't ever really stop being a visual tone poem. I found this grating in the first five minutes, then got used to it, and eventually started to find it grating again. I guess my best point of comparison is Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, which I thought was more effective but also did grate on me a little bit.

When a moviemaker does something like this, particularly an auteur (or would-be arteur) like Shane Carruth, I always start by assuming that this is part of the point, that we're being fed the plot one way instead of another because it ties into whatever is going on thematically. And here ...

Where I thought it was most effective was the sequence when the baby pigs were being drowned, since we're almost required to have that whole thing be done with Kuleshov effect, cutting back and forth between the pigs and Kris and the pigs and Jeff. It's a nicely evocative little bit of cinema, even if I didn't think that it emotionally landed for me. Where it's less effective is when we really would have been better served by just having some straightforward exposition, or more standard filmmaking, but I guess if you're committing to the bit, you're really committing.

So what's the story about? What's the analogy, what's the theme?

Kris and Jeff are drawn together because of the psychic connection from the worms/pigs, but also (in my opinion) because they've both been victims of this horrible thing that's happened to them, their entire life having been torn down by some thief, then made to believe that they were somehow responsible. So they've got the psychic thing going on, yes, but they also have parallel traumas, and the same sort of gap in their lives. I think this what I'll call Thesis One, the shared bond of trauma.

Another major thing that struck me when watching the movie was that both our protagonists seem insane from the outside. They have this weird connection to each other that no one could understand (though they don't seem to have friends or family or anyone to talk to who could find it weird). They mix up their memories, and sometimes fight about that. They have bouts of irrationality, paranoia, anger, grief, with no explicable-to-them source. They feel like there's somewhere they're meant to be, but they try to follow that sense, and it leads them nowhere. To me, this immediately said "mental illness", so I'm going to call this Thesis Two, the terror of knowing that something isn't right with you, but having no idea what it is, having this internal feeling inside of you, patterns of behavior that make sense at the time. This movie is basically not shot like a horror movie in any way, and does not use the language of horror films, but I think it does share a lot thematically with the subgenre "mental illness horror" where the protagonist thinks they're crazy. That our two protagonists seem intensely codependent helps push that line.

Lastly, at least some of the movie is about personal identity and meaning, though I'm not sure that I would called that Thesis Three, mostly because I don't know what it's trying to say about personal identity. Clearly both Kris and Jeff are attempting to construct meaning in the wake of what's happened to them, and their identities bleed together with their overlapping memories, but this is just not fulfilled very much, and some of it is wrapped tightly in what I'd call the mental illness stuff.

Even if I'm reasonably confident in what literally happened in the film, and what it's about, there are a few things that don't really click for me.

In a normal film, I would expect that the sequence goes:

woman gets hypnotized and wormed

life is ruined

lots of strange thoughts and adventures with another man who is equally crazy

revelation that she's not crazy after all

revenge and catharsis

But in Upstream Color, the Thief and Sampler are implied to be operating entirely separate from each other. There's a little gap which can't entirely be closed through inference, but it's implied the Sampler incidentally pollutes the water with dead worm-pigs, the organism infects plants, those plants get (totally be coincidence?) taken up by exotic plant foragers, then bought by the Thief. So the Thief and Sampler apparently don't have any relationship with one another.

And yet, it's the Sampler, who removes the worms from people and puts them into pigs, that gets killed in the end. Yes, he was the one to kill the Kris-pig's piglets, but ... I don't really understand this narrative beat. Do they assume that he was the Thief? The Thief gets away with it, and all we see of him in the end is that he's sadly shaking his head because the magic worms are all gone.

I mean, yes, the Sampler is a creep who uses his psychic connection to peep on stranger's lives, and yes, most of these people (seem to be) victims of the Thief, and it's fucked up to not give them information or closure. But if the Sampler and Thief are unrelated, which seems likely to me, then it feels like the Sampler is taking bullets better meant for the Thief? Or is it just because he killed some piglets?

And what does that mean?

I am, moreover, confused about what the function of the Sampler is when compared to what the themes are. Does he tie in with the mental illness angle? No, not really. Does he tie in with shared bond of trauma? Only in that he's preventing people from getting closure, I guess. He's a voyeur, a failed artist, some of this ties to personal identity, but again, it doesn't feel like a strong thesis, it just feels kind of random, especially since we have virtually nothing to go on as far as the Sampler's motives or history. He seemed to me like he was mostly just an artist, with the sounds of nature as his primary art and the experiences of other people as his secondary "art".

I'm going to give my hot take on this movie now, which is that I would have liked it a lot better if it were more traditionally structured. The opening five or so minutes really made me think that I would have been better off leaving it on the to-watch list. The "piecing together the location of the Sampler and getting revenge" stuff was super rushed and kind of nonsensical, and offered no catharsis, only confusion.

Overall, I would say I didn't like the movie. I think it was trying too hard to be deep (for me this is a very high bar to clear), and didn't benefit from the experimental aspects, and would have been better if it at least had a stronger idea of what it was trying to say.

I will now go read some reviews, and maybe that will help something click for me. Hopefully I haven't missed anything major.

[boxturret]

The Adverse Affects of Pre-Release Materials

I usually post big rambling posts about bionicles, but today I'm going to do a big rambling post about one of my favourite movies, Steamboy.

And like...themes and stuff.

Have you heard of themes? Things can have them, they're pretty cool.

I know no one will read this but this is for me okay.

In 2005 I was watching the Space channel, now rebranded CTV Scifi, and they had an awards show called the Spaceys where they ranked and awarded media from that year. I recall when Stargate SG1 won one they had a clip of the Thor puppet being controlled by Richard Dean Anderson thanking everyone who supported the show, and that their voices sounded like "tiny farts". I wonder if that's available anywhere or if its lost media now lol.

In any case, they had an animation category and they mentioned several films that released that year, the winner was Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but one of the nominees was a film called Steamboy, it was just named and they had a tiny clip from the trailer. It was literally just this part:

Really stuck in my mind and I went and looked it up and found the English website, which has been partially archived:

Unfortunately not documented is the previews and clips page, which had several short videos from the movie, notably, I recall, with incorrect character names. It called the main two characters Jay and Miss, instead of Ray and Scarlet lol.

One of the scenes on this page was from around half way through the movie, when the fighting breaks out in the Great Exhibition grounds, and Scarlet decided to stroll across the battle field to talk to the queen.

(I love all the shots where you can actually see the artillery shells flying through the air)

These men in armour come out and engage the British Tanks and one gets thrown by an explosion.

She goes to look at him and sees that he's dead, but she's surprised there was a man in there.

This being my first introduction to the "Steam Troopers" as the dub calls them, would prove a bit problematic for me and my understanding of the film for years to come.

This was 2005, it was harder to find things like this, by some luck after weeks of searching I did find the movie on DVD in a store and could finally watch it.

So now I could see the introduction of the Steam Trooper, which is quite ominous. The London Constabulary comes to break in to the O'Hara Manufacturing Company's pavilion in the exhibition grounds but the doors open and you see one standing there, menacingly.

And as a kid I thought "imagine being the guy told to just stand there all dramatic as the police storm in", thinking it was kinda funny really.

But something always bugged me about the Steam Troopers. They didn't really make sense, mechanically.

Steamboy is a steampunk movie, featuring all sorts of incredible machines with copious amounts of gears and belts and rivets and pistons and they all look very cool, but also there is a lot of thought put un to their designs.

In fact the British steam powered tank is actually based on a real world vehicle, the Hornsby Tractor.

Just stick a little gun turret on the front and you've got it lol.

You can see their power source, how they're propelled, their mechanisms make sense, they're crazy complicated and not really feasible or practical, but they're fun and make sense In the world established in the film.

But Steam Troopers don't!

Now from my point of view, from seeing the preview and seeing it was a guy in a suit, I just looked at it as a suit, so therefore, in my mind, the linkages and wheels and tiny boiler on the back must all be some sort of Victorian power armour, enhancing the wearer's strength in some way.

But it just doesn't make sense, nothing's connected to anything properly for that.

When you see the dead guy some of the wheels are still spinning and all they're doing is making some of the linkages, which aren't positioned to do anything, move around.

It really bothered me for years, everything else in the movie makes sense to me, but not them.

Then a year or two ago I did a little experiment. I watched this movie, which I've seen dozens of times at this point, but really tried to empty my mind of all my prior thoughts and knowledge. Just come at it fresh. And it was really fun! I highly recommend it. You'll never be able to really experience a movie for the first time again, but looking at it through this lens can make you notice things you may have missed.

Watching Steamboy in this way, when I got to the Steam Trooper scenes, it finally clicked. They don't make sense, because they're not supposed to make sense. They're fake. Its all fake.

They're supposed to be automatons.

The scene where Scarlet sees the dead man is supposed to be a big reveal that no, these are just men in suits.

This whole battle is a weapons demonstration orchestrated by Simon, the person in charge of this branch of the O'Hara Manufacturing Company. There are representatives from all over the world here and he spends the entire latter have of the movie trying to sell them stuff even when things start to go horribly wrong.

The whole ominous scene with the Steam Trooper standing there menacingly was for their benefit.

The O'Hara Manufacturing Company has so many amazing machines, they've got submersibles, blimps, actually functional airplanes, all in the 1860s, but its not enough.

They're so driven by greed they're not content to simply sell the amazing machines they have, they have to try and scam even more out of everyone.

It leads to them strapping some tiny engines that just wiggle around a bit and shoot out steam on the backs of some guys in full armour and have them march in to battle pretending to be clockwork soldiers.

This realisation also gave new context to this scene, which is one of the more humorous scenes in the film.

*bonk*

You can actually see these suits much earlier in the film, off in the background in a maintenance area. The Steam Castle, the true form of the O'Hara Pavilion, is massive and much of it was constructed in secret, under water, so they'd require many things like the submarine seen in the same scene and these diving suits with manipulator arms. But in their greed they're trying to sell these clumsy maintenance suits as amphibious battle suits, yet in reality they can't even climb stairs.

The O'Hara pavilion itself is a very clear example of this, its trying to look like a fancy stone building but really its all painted metal, and the shell breaks off to reveal the dark and dirty weapon of war it really is.

The Steam Castle started out as an idea of a mobile funfair and greed perverted it in to become this. This part was plainly laid out in the movie, but its fun to see how the theme was repeated in different ways throughout the movie.

So in conclusion, one of the major thematic elements of the movie was hidden to me for years because of the pre-release media that gave a away a twist before the set up, ruining the impact of it.

Its a tricky thing, seeing those preview materials were what made me excited to watch the movie, yet seeing them directly harmed my understanding of the movie for years to come. I've always loved the movie, its gorgeous, has an amazing sound track and sound design, it taps directly in to the gear obsessed part of my brain, and there's other themes and messages in the movie that even as a kid I noticed, but now I feel I have a much more clear understanding of the movie that I lacked before.

I've had my enjoyment of a few other things be tempered by overdoing it with pre-release materials, so in general once I've decided something is interesting to me I basically block out everything until I've finished it. I don't even read the blurb on the back of books anymore lol.

I highly recommend trying to go at something fresh, with an open mind, even if you can quote the movie from memory and every frame is etched in to your brain, you can learn something!

Some other quick notes:

Compressed gasses being released making things cold is an actual thing, if you've ever sprayed a can of compressed air for a bit too long and felt the can get colder, that's what's going on.

The two main henchmen in the movie are named Freddy and Jason, get it?

Canada is represented in the movie even though that flag didn't exist yet! :)

The PS2 game has an ending where you fight a pair of giant Punch and Judy robots.

The trailer and DVD menu for Steamboy is a song called Full Force, which is a cool song. The first half at least. I edited it a few years ago to remove the end bit which gets weird, and then found that several people also did that, independently. So that's neat.

I like my edit more, but its secret. Its mine.

I can't promise this won't happen again.

[gollancz]

Why I'm Not Allowed On Twitter Unsupervised Any More: A Photo Essay

Key Notes:

Since this was posted I discovered that the books had briefly been available in the UK under the name Peter Beagle rather than Peter S. Beagle in the mid-90s, which is why they didn't show up on the British Library search

The article by Tor.com @torbooks: Peter S. Beagle Has Finally Regained the Rights to His Body of Work

If you want our gorgeous limited edition, I believe there are still a handful left (except for the US and Canada, sorry lads), and you can get it here. I'm not kidding when I say I got a little teary-eyed when these showed up.

[Image Description: A tweet thread from the Gollancz twitter dated 20th July 2022, which goes as follows -

Tweet 1: You may have seen that we're printing a Brand New Edition of The Last Unicorn. We're very excited! I was asked to tweet about it. I wasn't asked to do it quite like this, but I also wasn't asked NOT to do it like this, and I have the twitter login so whose fault is that? (Thread emoji, and gif from the film Scream reading 'The Call is coming from inside the house!')

Tweet 2: Imagine, if you will, you are a small child in the UK during the late 80s/early 90s. You might look a bit like this, or you might have had parents who didn't choose suffering (ask my mum about The Saga of the Hat) (an image of a small girl approximately 3 years old wearing a blue dress and a big white hat)

Tweet 3: Imagine you have a cool older cousin, one who, as you get age, introduces you to fantasy films like Ladyhawk and The Princess Bride and has a post the whole family knows as 'the vampire and the naked lady'. She's extremely responsible for the way you turn out as an adult.

Tweet 4: One year, for your birthday, this cousin buys you a video. It's the first video that is yours, not to share. It has a bright yellow cover. The butterfly scares you. But you watch it on a loop. You don't realise how special it is, but it's a seed that burrows into your brain. (An image of a VHS of The Last Unicorn)

Tweet 5: A decade or so later, in your teens, you rediscover it. None of your friends have heard of it, despite also being fantasy-inclined. That's odd, you think. Is this an outlandishly weird title? Then you get older and you realise: no, it isn't. (Principal Skinner meme reading 'Am I out of touch? No, it's the people who don't know about The Last Unicorn who are wrong')

Tweet 6: Time and tech march on, you get a DVD of the film. You realise it's got Christopher Lee in it! And Angela Lansbury! Your mum tries to get you to listen to songs by America other than the soundtrack, but the only one that really sticks is the other one they did about a horse. (Gif of Walter White from Breaking Bad singing along to Horse With No Name)

Tweet 7: You realise that the film is based on a book. Like The Princess Bride, which you've also read (after spending longer than you're proud of trying to find an unabridged edition). 'Neat,' you think, 'I'll have to read that!'

Tweet 8: And then you can't find it. Because, as mentioned previously, you're in the UK. The Last Unicorn was published for the first time in 1968. But, if you look at the British Library's National Bibliography (super neat resource btw), that was, uh, about it. (screenshot of the search results from the National Bibliography showing four editions of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, one from Gollancz in 2022, one from IDW in 2019, one from Tachyon Publications in 2018, and one from Bodley Head in 1968)

Tweet 9: The Tachyon edition is the unfinished first draft of the story. The IDW edition is a gorgeous graphic novel. But in terms of the novel? I don't know how many reprints it had (if anyone knows, I'd love to find out), but there's a good chance it went out of print in the 70s.

Tweet 10: The film, however, was released in 1982. Although it didn't make it to the UK until 1986. Conservative estimates could put that between 10 and 15 years since the book was last available in the UK. This gives you a generation in the UK who only know the story through the film! (A screenshot of the IMDB page showing the different release dates for The Last Unicorn around the world)

Tweet 11: The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle, and made by the legendary animation directors Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. That's right, the guys behind Thundercats and 2 out of the 3 films based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Tweet 12: The Book has been in print in the USA (and possibly all of North America) constantly since its publication, so it seems baffling that people in the UK haven't heard of it. As the internet became more prominent, however, it became easier to just... import a copy of the book.

Tweet 13: But! This also isn't quite as simple as you think. You see, until last year the rights to The Last Unicorn were tied up in legal limbo. And the US edition of the book contained changes that Peter wasn't happy with. (Link to the Tor.com article about the rights)

Tweet 14: Back to you, the 80s/90s kid, who is now an adult, happy that unicorns are A Thing again and you're living your best life. You're very easy to buy presents for. Your partner despairs of unicorns. You get a job working in books about magic and space. (unicorn emoji and photograph of a collection of unicorn memorabilia, including three different versions of The Last Unicorn)

Tweet 15: You mention that one day you would like to publish The Last Unicorn. That if you did, you would like to do a really beautiful edition of it. And you would like it to be purple. Because since the film is what you know, you associate it with purple.

Tweet 16: And, after taking a very circuitous route, here we are! This is the original text, that was first published in 1968. Reading it after you have only seen the film is the strangest experience - like being introduced to a very dear friend that you have never met before.

Tweet 17: Peter's screenplay kept the voice of the story so well, you can hear the characters when you read the book. But now there's so much more depth, softness and warmth to it. The butterfly doesn't seem so scary any more. And, it's beautiful. And it's purple. (Image of a hardback edition of The Last Unicorn, with a black base, purple background, and a linocut image of the unicorn in her wood. On the black cover underneath is a foiled unicorn with the moon and butterfly, the page edges are sprayed purple, and the endpapers are black with silver butterflies)

Tweet 18: Anyway, I've taken you on a three day trip that could have been done in a single tweet, but that's what happens when you let me drive. This edition is the limited exclusive one only available through the Gollancz Emporium and you can preorder here: (link to Gollancz Emporium)

Tweet 19: But there is also a standard edition available through all booksellers! You'll be getting the author's preferred text, with an introduction from Patrick Rothfuss. There's also a brand new audiobook and it will be available in eBook for the first time ever.

Tweet 20: It's like going from famine to feast, and I wasn't able to talk about this for months so now I am able to talk about it, I'm going to make the social media team cry. UNICORNS. SPECIAL EDITION. PURPLE. The End.

Tweet 21: Additional behind the scenes bonus detail - I did take this cover to the art meaning while wearing a unicorn onesie.

Tweet 22: The comms team wrestling me away from the twitter account: (gif of Ross from Friends shouting 'Stop typing! Stop typing!')

End ID]

[aihoshiino]

Hi hello!! I adore your oshi no ko analyses and chapter reviews/thoughts! I always make it a point to, whenever a new manga chapter releases, always to read your reviews after reading the chapter =3=

I wanted to ask!

What are some of your Hoshino Ai headcanons?

I had a very silly one for quite a while ever since the DVDs were brought into the story and that is when Ai recorded them, there were times she had to stop what she was saying and walk out of frame after hearing baby Ruby crying or something like that. Just having the twins interrupt her and just turning into a wholesome, funny thing for Ai.

GOD I HAVE SO MANY AI HEADCANONS I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START… I'm constantly playing Blobo TV with her in my brain both for RP/fanfic purposes and also just for when I'm bored at work lol so I have so many in my head… So I'll rapidfire a bunch off the top of my head!

Ai can't cook! Most of her meals are premade stuff or like, bentos bought from supermarkets, etc. She was never taught literally Anything about cooking when she was younger so she has zero instinct or starting knowledge or lbr even time to try and learn, but she commits to at least trying once Aqua and Ruby are born. She is absolutely not good at it even when she really gets her nose to the grindstone but eventually becomes passable. Ironically, she's actually better at baking then cooking, because baking recipes are WAY more precise and exact and she has an easier time when she has a set of Very Exact Step By Step Instructions to follow.

On a food note, she has really bad spice tolerance…!!! Anything hotter than like, the medium spicy Golden Curry range is so far out of her strike zone it isn't even funny. Ruby is the same (a hold over from eating mostly bland food as Sarina) but Aqua really likes spicy stuff and his tolerance is really good as a result. Unfortunately, he also doesn't really realize just how high his tolerance is - it was way worse as Gorou so he keeps underestimating how hot things are. So anytime Ai is like "hey Aqua how spicy is this" he's like "oh it's not too bad" and then Ai takes a bite and dies and it takes years before they manage to figure out the differences in their tolerance LOL

She's a little clumsy…! It's a side of her people rarely see because she's so graceful and careful as an idol, but the #1 way to tell she's comfortable with someone is that they're allowed to see her being a bit of a failgirl.

I mentioned this in another ask but I like to think she gets back into video games on her hiatus… not super deep, but she grabs a cheap secondhand GBA SP and one of those carts that's like 20 puzzle games in one or something and keeps playing it even after she goes off hiatus. Since she's so busy, it's easier for her to get into things like Tetris where your play sessions don't have to be that long and there's no story to follow… anything like an RPG would be no good. Eventually one year, Aqua and Ruby pool some money and get her a jailbroken DS or something for her birthday and even though she has a bajillion games on it, she mostly still just plays Tetris………..

She really wants to be a plant mom but her schedule means that she inevitably gets so busy she forgets to water them and they end up dying and she's depresso every time…

Appearance wise, between the twins, Aqua is actually the one who looks most like her - Ruby definitely does too but grows more into her own features as she grows up, whereas Aqua still really strongly resembles Ai even once he's all grown up.

She has a ton of those influencer ass hyperspecific trendy gadgets and appliances around the house, not because she buys them but because companies keep sending them to her in hopes of getting her to promote them and she never does LOL. If she actually gets a sponsorship deal through work then she'll do it, but even then it's mostly her just hyping something up and saying she uses it every single day when 90% of the time they just end up rotting at the bottom of her drawer. Pretty much the only thing she ends up regularly using is like, toiletries and hair care products and that's just because it saves her having to shop for them but she has absolutely zero brand loyalty.

As an adult, she copies a lot of her fashion sense from Miyako! Her style leans more girly and fresh than Miyako's does but Ai doesn't really care about clothes so she never developed a sense of fashion growing up. But she knows Miyako is a pretty stylish person and looks up to her as someone to emulate fashion from. Of course, when she's incognito or chilling at home, she still always prefers her comfy hoodies and sweaters and plain, loose clothes.

Ai likes Kana a lot! This was technically canonized in the Da Vinci interview and I felt so smug when I saw it lol. But I've always thought Ai would like Kana - she sort of vicariously enjoys her cheekiness and confidence and admires her drive and her passion and craft at such a young age. When Kana joins B-Komachi, Ai sort of recognises how much of her fire has gone out and its immediately like free daughter??? Free daughter for Hoshino Ai???? She and Mem also get along really well but because they're closer in age, the dynamic is more friendly coworkers whereas she and Kana have a more senpai/kouhai surrogate mom figure thing going on.

she's our strongest aqukana warrior btw

Aaaand finally… If Ai had ever found out about Aqua and Ruby's past lives, she would have loved and accepted them all the same. If anything, knowing just how terribly alone and starved of care they both were would have encouraged her to make sure they felt loved, safe and accepted as her kids. After all, Ai, too, is a "motherless child" as Tsukuyomi describes the twins - she'd absolutely understand.

[drawingeveryutau]

Kasane Teto! Voiced by Mayo Oyamano aka. Yamanon, Managed by TwinDrill

The legend herself, Teto was originally released April 1st, 2008, being the second UTAU ever released, and also the very first VIPPERLOID! Though rather tame in comparison to her peers imo- She is a "chimera", an anime trope where two characters are combined together which leads to their ages being added together; Teto was two 15 year olds, making her 30-31 years old... But back then, and more common now, she's also depicted as a chimera, a mythological creature that's a hybrid between several species of animals, most commonly a lion, goat, and snake.

Character wise, she's described as an innocent tsundere with a mischievous side; she likes picking on people to show her affection because she doesn't like expressing it outright. She also has the innate ability to somehow extend DVD rentals. She gets sulky if some doesn't share their bread with her, and if she doesn't have at least one piece of bread every day she goes into a rampage.

Her favorite country is Norway, btw

Take what I say with a grain of salt, I am simply some guy reading wikis. If I got anything wrong, feel free to correct me!

[treedaddymcpuffpuff]

Beneath Miles of Stone - Part five - John Wick x Plus Size Fem Reader

Summary: John has been in prison for nine months. He’s content to stay if it means appeasing the high table and keeping peace between the owners of each continental. However, he meets someone who erases that willingness. Peace be dammed.

TW: Bullying

Michael has a lot of stuff. A lot of heavy stuff. Despite him assuring her that he can move it all in on his own, she still wants to help.

It would be kind of a dick move if she didn’t assist with all of this. An hour in, and the apartment is already transformed from bland and empty into a hoard of pastel rainbow decor and soft white staple pieces.

She takes a break to admire the painting of a fluffy white angel cat over watercolor Van Gogh scenery. Michael comes through the door, panting, with his White Cottage microwave in tow.

“Who painted this?” She asks him.

He smiles, blushes, puts the microwave down and then his hand on his hips. “I did.”

Her eyes grow wide. “This is amazing.”

He chuckles. “Thank you.”

She likes Michael a lot already, but she’s also very jealous of him and his many talents and cool possessions. He makes her want to decorate and be creative, both skills she’s never been able to possess correctly.

She hasn’t gotten the key made yet, so she goes out and does that while he starts unpacking his things. By the time she’s done, her apartment looks astonishing. Fairy lights twinkle over gauze white curtains and a big speaker plays soft hiphop music in one corner of the living room. Her couch is full of comfy white and grey fluffy throw pillows. An incense burner releases gourmand, smoky aroma into the air.

Michael is stretched out on the couch, taking a break, watching Legally Blonde on DVD. Her small TV is now in her room and his bigger flatscreen dwarfs the stand that it was on.

She sits down beside him with two glasses of water. Before she can set hers down on the coffee table, he stops her. “Wait! Coasters!”

He digs through two boxes of stuff before he finds new marble coasters for them to set their drinks on.

She laughs at him and he grins back. “I know, I know,” he tells her, “typical trust fund kid BS.”

“You’re fine,” she says. “I was laughing at the coasters because the table is already a mess.”

“Listen,” he says, “this table just needs some tee ell cee. A sander and some paint would do her wonders.” He pats the wooden top.

“Can I help?” She asks, excited and jumping at the opportunity a little too eagerly.

“Of course you can,” he assures.

She remembers him telling her that his mother is an artist. “Did your mom teach you to paint?”

He nods. “She also taught me how to make miniatures. You know, like dollhouses but for adults?”

“That’s amazing. Do you trade art with her?”

“I do,” he says, “we send things back and forth in the mail. Although my dad says it ‘clogs up their post office box’.”

“He’s not a fan of art?”

Michael snorts. “He hates everything except golf. Sometimes I think he hates me.”

She shakes her head. “Does he really hate you? You’re the perfect son.”

Michael sighs. “No, but he hates gay people, so it’s close enough. When I first came out to him, if my mother wouldn’t have been there, he would’ve probably shot me. He’s a real man’s man if you know what I mean...”

She nods, smiling ruefully. “Oh, I know exactly what you mean.”

Michael thinks for a moment. “We should get a dog.”

“I would love that, but it’s no pets here.”

He raises his eyebrows and sips at his water. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

They decide it has to be a quiet dog, one who’s comfortable being alone at night, and there are an abundance of local shelters displaying perfect furry candidates online.

“Rocky. Pitbull mix. Potty trained, good with kids and other pets, sweet and loves everyone.” She shows Michael a picture of a medium sized black, stout dog with shiny grey eyes.

Michael shows her his own selection, a retired service beagle named Winnie. “Short for Winnifred,” he reads, “loves people and other pets, very polite, and hardly ever barks.”

“I love them both,” she groans, leaning back into the couch cushions.

“Same,” Michael sighs. “It’s one in the afternoon. Do you work tonight?”

“Yup.” She presses an arm over her face, blocking out the ceiling light.

“Don’t you have to sleep?” He asks.

She’s not tired at all because she slept through the night—wet dreams work wonders on insomnia—but she agrees because Michael sounds like he needs some alone time. Plus, her DVDs and TV are in her room now, and if she can’t sleep she can watch an old, comfortable flick.

The problem isn’t getting to sleep, it’s staying there—waking up sweating, gasping, whining John’s name. She slaps her mouth shut, presses her face into her pillow, and prays to any deity listening that her voice wasn’t loud enough for Michael to hear. First day in the new place and his roommate is a fiend. It would make any sane person want to revoke their rental agreement immediately.

She should be embarrassed and anxious that Michael potentially heard her, but instead she’s grinding against her sheets and thinking of tall men handcuffed to beds.

This won’t work. This isn’t working. She’s so pent up that it’s borderline painful. She sticks her hand into her sleep pants, past her underwear, and into a sloppy mess, tries to think about anything but John while she rubs herself raw, but in doing so her brain latches onto the thought of him and pretty soon he’s the only thing on her mind.

She tries to paint a decent fantasy of what she would like sex with him to be, but really she doesn’t give a shit as long as it’s him. And that’s what scares her. He could be absolutely celibate and she’d still crave whatever he wanted to give her whether it be a rough kick or a soft caress—she’d be his dog, and **this is the worst time for her to realize that because her alarm is going off for work.

She orgasms at the cost of being ten minutes late.

The locker room lights are off when she goes to put her things away, which is unusual. Since she started, they’ve been lit around the clock. In fact, she’s not even sure where the light switch is in here because she’s never had to use it. Fumbling around in the pitch black is making her even tardier. Finally, when she finds the switch and flips it, the room illuminates, and standing under the migraine-inducing glow is someone who makes headaches seem like a dream come true.

Benny grins from his seat on the bench, which he quickly abandons in favor of looming over her. Once again, the sweaty, edematous mass of him blocks her exit.

She’s too busy contemplating if anyone would hear her scream to see him hold his open palm out expectantly.

“Give it to me,” he says.

“What?” She asks, imagining in another universe she sounds angry and oppositional instead of whiny and terrified. In another universe, she can also kick his ass. Not in this one, though. In this universe, she does as Benny demands and hands him her phone so she doesn’t have to suffer through the touch of his greasy skin a second time.

He holds her phone in one hand while the other holds his own. She doesn’t bother trying to see what he’s doing because she can’t get her feet to move let alone stand on tiptoes and look over his shoulder.

This goes on for a while in which her only thought consists of asking herself if she could run to the door and make it into the populated infirmary before he can catch her. Again, this is a solution mainly dependent on her stubborn feet.

She’s not really worried about what he puts on her phone. It’s what he’s getting from it that sets her pulse careening.

He reaches out and tries to shove it into her jacket pocket, but luckily that’s when her feet decide to save her and step away from his hands. He scowls at her like she just insulted his mother.

“Fine.” Benny opens his hand and drops her phone on the stone floor. She winces when she hears the shatter, then looks back up at his pleased, disgusting expression.

“Remember our trip.” He pushes past her, not enough to hurt but to make her yelp and stumble, and slams the door shut on his way out.

Her phone isn’t broken. The screen has a tiny crack in one corner but other than that it’s still perfect.

She grabs her bag from her locker and brings it with her to the nurse’s station, labeling the locker room as an unsafe and off limits space, which are becoming more bountiful by the day.

John is not her patient tonight. On her day off they must have had an influx of admissions because she’s responsible for 10 of them and the infirmary is unusually and appropriately staffed.

Her hopes of his nurse trading him are slim to none because he’s a wonderful patient and over time everyone has seemed to agree that they want him on their assignment sheet.

The other nurse’s that take and give her report always talk about what a cool, easy going guy he is and how they’re surprised that he needs that many guards with him.

“What do you think he did?” Stan, one of the day shift nurses, asks her.

“My bet’s on released a circus full of wild animals and let them trample a small town, but I could be wrong.” She taps her pen against her report sheet and laughs at her own joke.

Stan snorts. “He probably killed some rich guys.”

The other nurses like him so much that most of their theories on why John is in four point restraints with four men guarding him at all times is because he’s done something valiant that pissed someone powerful off.

That’s probably the other reason his wound looks better; not just because of her, but because if you like a patient or connect with them you’re more than likely going to give them the best care you can provide.

If she’s honest, it kind of makes her feel sick. Not because everyone has grown to like John, but because that means she’ll have less chance of being his nurse from here on out. Also, she knows it’s kindergarten mentality, but she liked him and treated him well first while the other ones had to get to know him beforehand.

Her case load is heavy. A couple IV’s, wound changes, someone with a tracheostomy. She sits down to chart, finally, at 3 AM.

One of the other nurses, Bill, calls for her across the hall.

She fights the urge to groan while standing on sore feet and walking over to his medication cart.

Bill grins at her, looking like he’s really enjoying himself. “My patient in 9 wants to see you.”

“Me?” She asks.

Bill shrugs, still looking very amused. “He says he needs to tell you something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Bill tells her. “Seems that he likes your company, though.” He gives an eyebrow raise at the awkward expression crawling onto her face.

She reminds herself that this her workplace for the 80th time and that Bill’s suggestive expressions are just him messing around. Joking. That’s all. He’s joking.

John is watching the door, waiting for her. When she pops in like a mouse and scurries to his bed, he feels the urge to pat her on the head for showing up which would be the only thing he could do to stop himself from grabbing her up and kissing her.

His smile is wide and genuine. “How’s the roommate search?”

“Uh, I got one.” She smiles timidly, hoping he doesn’t think she’s erratic and air-headed for finding someone so fast

His eyes widen just the smallest bit. “That’s good, is she…nice?”

She nods too eagerly. “He’s great. And he has great decorations.”

The key word here—at least the one his ears attune to—is he. Not because a woman and a man living together automatically entails romance or connection, but because John knows men—John is a man—and most of them turn out to be less than good.

He tries not to look mean, to keep his smile, to focus on her being here with him in the present and alive and well; If he doesn’t, rage will start talking, nefarious, whispering sin in his ear, assuring him that it wouldn’t be hard to break out of these handcuffs and make sure her roommate becomes her loyal dog for the rest of the time he spends living with her and alive.

“If you wouldn’t have suggested it, I’d probably be homeless by next week.” She tries to sway the conversation toward optimism because she sees something in his expression that reads like he’s a little upset. He probably does think she’s a moron at this point.

Maybe it’s just good that she’s happy. He tries to shift focus onto that. The roommate can’t be malignant if she’s so upbeat.

It’s been very easy to talk to John most times, but then there are moments like this when something awkward and unsaid hangs between them and more often than not she doesn’t know what it is. Maybe he doesn’t either.

“Just be careful,” is what he decides to say.

She chuckles. “I will, don’t worry.”

He doesn’t understand what’s funny—again, but he appreciates the laugh. One of them can get him through a few hours, and they’re so easy to wring out of her pretty throat.

One of the security guards stands, stretches, yawns. He says he’s going to take a break. The other guards are asleep, so once he leaves they’ll be alone.

“I’m gonna go to vending, John you want anything?” He asks.

John shakes his head no. “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry if I bothered you while you were busy,” he says, too eager to talk as soon as the guard walks out. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

She purses her lips, which he thinks means she’s trying not to leak an expression that will probably be embarrassing. Really, she’s trying to tame her lion heart back into its cage before it sinks its teeth into him and refuses to let go.

“I’m okay, John.” She attempts smiling. “You’re the one in the hospital bed.”

He shrugs like his stab wound and near death are just a hiccup.

She talks again. “And I’m glad you called me in. I like talking to you.”

His face is all smile now. “Likewise.”

He tells her to pull up a chair if she wants, and she steals one of the metal ones that the breaking guard left behind, sitting by his bedside. They start with a casual conversation about the weather that turns into a discussion on harsh winters in Belarus.

“Did you grow up there?” She asks him.

He nods. “I traveled a lot.”

“So, you’re Russian?” She puts her chin in her palm and stares at him like he is the most interesting person in the world. She’s adorable like this. He wants to brush the stray hairs from her cheeks.

“Yes. American, now.”

“Do you speak Russian?” Her eyebrows raise.

“да, красивая девушка” His tone automatically slides into a deeper baritone when he says this, and it makes her shudder.

He needs to be nerfed. Outlawed. He should not be handsome, nice, like-able, and be able to speak a different language in his perfect voice. It’s really not fair at all.

She’s too busy trying to tame her rogue thoughts to ask him what he even said. The desire to climb into his lap and straddle him crosses her mind twenty times in different ways. She blinks heavy. “You’re the coolest person I know.”

They talk until the guard comes back from his break, mainly about Belarus and what it was like there and where else he has traveled.

Although she has a ton of charting to catch up on, she doesn’t want to leave him. The taste of human connection is on her tongue after a couple years of abstinence and she’s becoming addicted.

When she exits his room, it’s with reluctance and impressive self control.

She tells him to sleep. He promises he’ll try.

It would be easier to do her job if she wasn’t catching Benny sneering at her whenever they’re in the same space, but she gets through it, reasoning that John has it worse than her because he has to suffer through six hours with the asshole guard in his room. And, it’s easier also because of…well, John himself.

[marumafan]

Hello, I am an old fan of KKM and I am really glad that I found your blog. Especially, since I have seen your conclusion about some additional information: You are right. Indeed. Yuuri is gay or bi...and he did go on dates with guys before or he would have had no reason to feel bad at a certain point in time, when the one whom he had defended resigned the team.

Yuuri has basically no interest in going out with girls, but pretends that he is solely interested in them.

What I also considered interesting is that he basically was thrown out of the team because of defending a love interest...He punched the coach, when I remember correctly...and he did get himself into the engagement with Wolf, because he did not dare to really punch him with a fist, because he felt at least attracted to him physically at that time.

So thank you for your your analyses up until now.

Hello there! Yes, but it's not like he goes around acknowledging it. I think that Yuuri is deep in the closet.

He's a character of his time. No way a teen would admit to being gay in the 2000s (they don't even do it in the 2020s here in Japan).

Just go to wikipedia and look at the summary table at the end of the article here to see how many rights LGBTQ+ individuals lack. Every red cross is an inequality. The dates Yuuri went on with those guys were very hush-hush, and I don't think he could quite admit to himself or others that he's gay or bi. For me, the clearest acknowledgement that he's 'not straight' is when his mom asks him if he's into 'people who wear uniforms' and he starts crying in Change /(Convert) the same story where he goes on a 'Christmas date' with the other guy.

After that story, there was no doubt in my mind that he already knew he was non-straight before meeting Wolf; but also that he was keeping it quiet.

I think his extreme closetness is difficult to understand by younger people and/or people who do not live in Japan. Anyone who lived in the 2000s America and is or knows LGBTQ+ people knows very well how closeted people were, especially after Matthew Sheppard. All of my closeted friends went deeper into the closet... and the ones out of it, quietly went back. It was a time of horror and I can only imagine it was worse in the past. That's simply the case that I recall as the horror of my time in the West.

I have many personal stories about the cruelty in treatment of LGBTQ+ people in the 2000s by Westerners AND Japanese, but I don't wanna get into it.

I'm just saying, I get Yuuri. Anyone living as 'non straight' during those years 'gets' Yuuri. And his wishful thinking about how 'getting a girlfriend will magically make him straight ', I know well and have seen myself.

This is a very realistic character of the 2000s.

It gets annoying at times, cuz he is a fictional character and why can't he just get it on in this fictional world with the cute guy that he's very much into?!

Stories are fantasies that we go on to escape the cruelty of reality, and when this guy 1) goes to a place with no sexual discrimination, which is what has kept him closeted 2) is surrounded by cute dudes and 3) the cutest dude is also into him , also he's like the king, you wonder... why can't he just accept the blessings the rest of us don't have?XD

But I think he struggles, like a lot of people, with his sexuality, and so he doesn't know really what to do.

Having said that, idk.... I feel like once they 'start sleeping in the same bed and have a child', there's a very clear innuendo that they're banging , but idk. The author keeps everything in a state of 'deniability' .

Which again... understandable.

You didn't read this from me, but def she's writing herself in Yuuri.

I think it's clear though, as the years go by, that she turns Yuuri and Wolf into a very solid couple with stories like Do you want an Exorcism, Crossheart, Misepan 2. Misepan 2 was released with the ending of the anime on DVD (2010s when she stopped writing), and Yuuri showing his love for Wolf in that story with the 'I would give you anything, Wolf' phrase, really sealed the deal for me.

After that we've gotten quite a few stories, and she even married them in It happens to everyone 2 and Shibuyas , two of the last stories that present them in the 'future'.

Like I said many times, they've been end-game for a while... it's just that no one noticed, cuz they're two guys.

[megankoumori]

I've been a fan of the show "Daria" since the days my mom forbid me to watch it because...she could and no other reason. That didn't stop me from sneaking it when she was out with my brother for Scouts, then flipping the channel back to Cartoon Network before she got home. I wasn't a dummy.

When MTV finally released the DVD, after years of hemming and hawing and "Oh but the music rights are soooo expensive" (YOU'RE MTV), I was twenty-three and long past fighting for my right to watch whatever I wanted (I still got shit for it. She just couldn't stop me). I bought the DVD and watched it in the living room. And then in the middle of "The Teachings of Don Jake..."

Jane: Do you know where I'll be this weekend? The Lane family reunion. Dozens of Lanes from all over the country converging in one Midwestern split-level to remind themselves why they scattered in the first place.

"Hey this show is funny! I didn't know it could be funny!"

That's because you never actually watched it.

Daria is sardonic, cynical, an unpopular brain who is perfectly content to stay in and devour a stack of books. Quinn is her polar opposite: shallow, obsessed with looks and popularity, and would rather die than have anyone think she's academic, or even just a little smart. To become the other is each's worst nightmare...

Sometimes literally.

And yet despite being as far opposite in personality as Mercury is from Pluto, being sisters, they're forced to cohabitat.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Daria the Brain ended up with Quinn the Peppy Bubble Head for a sister. In fact, I think it was inevitable.

In the later seasons of the show, we learn that the superficial Quinn is largely a front. She is smart. Not book smart like Daria, but she's able to mentally retain a lot of information about clothes, makeup, and brands, which is a marketable skill. She focuses on these things because she doesn't feel she has anything else to offer. And then there's Sandy, ready to pounce if Quinn even thinks about stepping out of line. When Quinn did make an effort and earned a good grade in Mr. O'Neil's class, she was forced to lie and tell Sandy she cheated, lest she be dumped by all her friends.

Why does Quinn even care? Sandy has all the charisma of a wooden plank and the charm of a hemorrhoid. Surely Quinn doesn't need her, or anyone's approval. So why is she so desperate for it?

It goes back to her and Daria. Specifically, their childhood.

As a child, Daria was much like she is as a teenager. Ahead of her peers both intellectually and academically with a love of books. According to Helen, talking to Daria was like talking to a little adult. And yet none of this mattered. Her teachers and counselors didn't care if Daria was brilliant. She didn't play with the other kids. She didn't conform, and that's all that mattered.

Quinn, being very young, witnessed all of this happening to her sister. Even though she forgot as she grew older, she had already internalized the lesson: Fit in. Conform. Smart doesn't matter. Smart makes you a freak. Smart makes Mom and Dad scream at each other in the middle of the night.

Don't be a brain. Be popular. Even if you have to put with Sandy's bullshit, be popular.

This I can get behind.

[houseofbrat]

Today is 28 February 2024. There is one day left in this month because it's leap year.

William has done less than ten engagements for the year. He's not going to reach double digits by tomorrow. Wimpy William hasn't worked "full time" since last December before the kids got out of school.

It's Wednesday, and as of this writing, The King with cancer has done more work this week than William. Because King Charles met with PM Sunak today while William was at home sucking his thumb.

Did William travel to Namibia last week for the funeral of former President Hage Gottfried Geingob? Nope. Is funeral duty part of the heir to the throne's job? Yup. But we all know that The Will & Kate Cult will tell you it isn't because William is never to blame for anything. Because Princess Anne will take up the slack and do her nephew's job when she should have been attending a rugby match with her husband. Because Anne is a chip off the ol' block, aka Philip, while William is proving himself to be more and more Spencer with every day that goes by.

All you have to do is look at all the excuses made by The Will & Kate Cult when it came to William's comments at the BAFTAs. William admitted he hardly had seen any of the nominated films, even though most if not all were released in theaters and available via streaming before the nominations were announced.

Oh, but then the complaint was that Prince Philip and Princess Anne didn't watch all the nominated films each year when they were presidents of BAFTA either. Guess what? Streaming wasn't available back then. Philip was president from 1959 to 1965 while Anne was president from 1973 to 2001. Guess what? When Philip was president, he would have had to see a movie/film in the theater or by special request at Buckingham Palace. Availability by VHS wasn't necessarily a thing for the first part of Anne's presidency because most films didn't come out on VHS until more than six months after they were out of the theater. When Batman (1989) was released on VHS in the same year of its initial release prior to Christmas, it was a HUGE deal. It was still playing in theaters when it was released on VHS, which was considered a quick release. DVDs didn't start being prominent until the end of Anne's presidency.

But really it brings it back to Anne and Philip being either president or patron of tens or hundreds of organizations, which neither Will nor Kate are. Will and Kate have said that they aren't going to do the ceremonial-type thing and would instead be more "involved" with their patronages, which--if people actually stop and think about it--is why most people assume William has an interest in film beyond meeting Tom Cruise. Except he clearly doesn't.

But then The Will & Kate Cult want William to be judged by the same standard as those who actually work in the film industry. Because they complained that even those who work in the film industry don't see 100% of the movies. Interesting how the standard always changes according to The Will & Kate Cult. There are people within AMPAS, who will be voting for Robert Downey Jr. for Best Supporting Actor for Oppenheimer, who haven't seen that film. And you know what? They're allowed to. Because they may have worked with him in the past. Or they might have voted for him before when he was nominated for Best Actor for Chaplin when he was up against heavy weights such as Denzel or Pacinao. But, you know, AMPAS members actually work in the industry, unlike The Prince of Wales who has a different job that he doesn't seem all that intent on doing.

But we're not supposed to mention that because William puts his "family first." Or whatever the new excuse is. The last one was "personal matter." Uh huh.

[uvachic1991]

The Marvels thoughts (spoilers below):

Iman Vellani is great and I can’t wait to watch where her character goes. But I also want to praise Teyonah Parris’ Monica. I loved the smart, confident and sometimes quirky Monica we got here. I feel like she embodies the different parts of both Carol and Maria. And I can’t wait for all the smart Black girls in the MCU to meet!

Carol and Monica being awkward and distant in the beginning was also what I wanted. And the scene of Carol and Maria post-Infinity War 😭😭😭 (I need that to be an extended scene in the DVD release)

Loved the montage of them learning how to manage their switching.

Carol’s guilt over her actions destroying Hala

I know people are complaining over Kamala’s constant fangirling over Carol. But she explicitly acknowledges that she failed to treat Carol as a person. Plus Kamala is like 16-17; she is allowed to fawn over someone she idolizes.

In the same token, I appreciate that the film shows the harsher side of being a superhero. It clearly impacted Kamala and I’m curious to see how it will influence her superhero exploits moving forward. It also impacted Monica as she learned that Carol dealt with a lot of shit when she left at the end of Captain Marvel.

I know a lot of people like Carol and Valkyrie….but Carol and Maria will always be the best pairing for me and Marvel needs to stop being a coward

Speaking of Maria…. I’m so glad Lashana Lynch will be in the MCU for more films. She’s a great actress and I feel like she is really shining in her recent projects. Marvel tried to throw her away too quickly (in my opinion) and I’m glad they are switching gears. I just hope they give her something to do instead of bringing her back for short projects here and there.

(I know it will likely happen eventually) but I need these realities to merge soon so Monica is reunited with Carol and Kamala!

Last, this film and the first Captain Marvel film showed there is depth to Carol. She even admitted she liked having Kamala and Monica around. I hope moving forward she is able to be more than the Avengers’ tank. Like she is powerful but clearly Brie Larson is trying to show the human side of Carol Danvers.

Actual final point— I loved Uncle Nick Fury and Monica Rambeau…I need more of that immediately!