#rewatched War several times after i made this post and

[snailwitdamail2]

calling it now. the new apes trilogy is gonna have an ape/human kiss like the og movie did.

[a-force-dyad-in-space]

So I've been rewatching the Twilight movies and certain scenes from them recently, and there's something that caught my eye while going through the post-battle scene in Eclipse.

We have Jane and the others show up, being like "blah blah blah, you guys did pretty well against all these newborns, how curious, blah blah" before Jane notices that one of the newborns is still alive, pointing out Bree.

Now, here's where it gets interesting for me. Because Jasper immediately moves and stands next to her protectively.

And yeah, sure, he's the newborn expert, he's in charge of all-things newborn vampires, so in that sense alone it makes sense for him to associate himself with her in that way, but I think it's a lot more than that; namely something that is always mentioned in passing in the movies, but never really pointed out as something significant (unlike Edward's telepathy and Alice's precognition, which are always mentioned first in terms of desirable acquisitions of power). I of course speak of his pathokinesis.

Bree is scared. At this point she has realized that she's a vampire and what that means for her life, but she has no idea if she will come out of this stand-off alive, so naturally, she is nervous.

And thanks to his pathokinesis, of course Jasper can feel that. So I think he's standing with her, almost protectively, not just because he's in charge of her, but because he can feel her fear and tries to comfort her with his presence (she with her vampire sight can of course see that his skin is decked out in scars, so that intimidating display alone probably tells her him being on her side is a good thing).

And then we come to Jane starting to torture Bree, and me having another observation.

When she falls to the ground and is screaming in agony, we can assume that Jasper can feel that, too (not the pain itself, but the mental anguish connected to it). And look how startled he seems when he sees her fall and looks from Bree to Jane.

This moment here makes me think that this is probably the first time he's ever seen Jane's power in person. Of course he knew about her, knew what her powers are. Alice probably filled him in in detail about the events in Volterra from New Moon, and I assume Carlisle has shared many stories over the years, too.

But hearing about something and actually seeing it first-hand are two very different things.

For someone like him, who can feel what other people are feeling, from their happiest moments to their most devastating mental pain, watching Jane not only use her powers, but relish in their effect without a second thought since she can't feel the pain she's causing, must be absolutely nauseating, for lack of a better word.

Jasper's experienced several lifetimes of anguish by proximity and is trying his best to make others feel better, while Jane deals blow after blow with her powers without any consequence. It must feel wrong and unfair to him.

Anyway, back to the point.

This is the face of a man who has fully realized what the antagonistic force is capable of, and he'll be sure to be prepared, next time they cross paths.

And lastly, something sad.

He turns his back on Bree, probably because he can't deal with watching her die on top of feeling her fear and pain. Neither he nor the other Cullens can stop Bree's death from happening without declaring war on the Volturi in the process (because I'm certain that's how Jane and the others would see their push-back).

So all he can do is turn away, and maybe make an effort to lessen her pain (it doesn't look like he did, but I think it would make sense if he used his powers to make death less frightening for Bree).

Anyway, rest in peace, Bree, you would have made a wonderful addition to the Cullen family. ♥

[motionlessonigiri]

Hi Sabezra community.

Am I an English speaker? No. That's why I apologize in advance for the crimes against the English language that I'm going to commit next. But I still hope you can understand me. I'm not even sure anyone will see this.

It's been a while since I came here to find people who love the same things as me. Like a refuge from the outside world. I planned to post something only when I had something interesting to share with you all, like a video edit or fanart. Things so we could have fun together.  The current circumstances didn't allow me to do anything for now, so I was just following things as a spectator.

Seeing all this ship war going on, made me feel like I wanted to get away from all social media, so I wouldn't see these things anymore.  I also felt scared to express my love for this ship too. I'm scared to post this now.

Even my mother noticed that something was bothering me.  She asked me several times what I had.  I didn't want to tell her, because she's also a Star Wars fan and I don't want her to know everything that's going on. I want her to continue watching our favorite shows without thinking about negative things.

I want to get the hell away from it all, but for once, I would like to post this to all the Sabezra shippers who are receiving free hate. I think you guys need some love after suffering so much hate and I need to get out how I'm feeling. Because that's all I can do for now.

This whole time, I saw your fanart, I saw your video edits and I read many of the beautiful fanfics you wrote (I confess that I haven't read them all yet, it's due to lack of time, but I loved everything I read).

I see everyone putting so much love into what they do. And I can't ask you to continue, because I myself don't know if I'll ever be able to post anything in the future. But to be honest, I don't want you to stop.  Am I being cowardly and selfish? Perhaps, but it's the truth.

But I'm here to remind you that not all Sabezra shippers are so active on social media, but we exist.

I've been a Star Wars fan for a few years and only watched Rebels during the pandemic. I started shipping Sabezra since then.

I was so happy that the Ahsoka series exists. And now I couldn't even watch Ahsoka or Rebels (I tend to rewatch the things I like many times). Because every time I try to watch it I'm reminded of this whole ship war that's going on.

So I decided to talk to a friend. He is also a Star Wars fan (and a fan of Rebels, which I recommended to him), but he doesn't follow things that happen on social media. We always talk about Star Wars, but we never talked about ships.  But today I asked him what he thought of Ezra and Sabine.

He is my childhood friend and we practically grew up together, so I thought: "If he sees Sabine and Ezra as just friends/siblings, just like he and I are, maybe I'm seeing too much in the interactions between Sabine and Ezra and and I should just stop shipping them." 

But to my surprise he also ships Sabezra. He said that you can see in the exchange of looks between them that there is something (In fact, my friend and I never look at each other the same way Sabine and Ezra look at each other). And he thinks Sabine is in love with Ezra.

The same case happens with my mother, who also loves Rebels and watches everything from SW since when she was young, but without following all the discussions that happen on the internet.  When we watched Ahsoka, she said she thought Sabine liked Ezra since Rebels.  She said this without me saying anything about shipping them.  And when I asked her if she thought it was wrong to ship them, she said no and said she thinks they will be together someday.  (I know, this may never happen, but hearing this from my mom warmed my little heart)

Even a friend of mine who isn't a fan, just watches casually, asked me if Sabine had a crush on Ezra.

Talking to these people from outside made me feel better, because this may not have been the intention of Dave and the others, but you can see that, based on common sense, no one can blame us for shipping them, it seems natural to many people. And not all Sabezra Shippers can be seen expressing this around.

I have nothing against anyone who ships wolfwren.  But I won't lie and say I wasn't sad that the cast supported it so openly, while we are accepting crumbs. I confess that at first I felt betrayed. I haven't shipped Sabezra for as long as many of you, but I feel like I have. But thinking clearly, I understand them. Besides thinking that they can to ship whatever they want, just like us, I see it as a way for them to show support for the LGBT community. It is to be expected that they will do this. And it's okay.

Needless to say, I'm just posting this to express what I was feeling, I have no intention of hurting anyone.  I am completely against any type of hate.

I don't regret watching Ahsoka, nor do I regret that the series existed.  But I'm sorry to have seen so much fighting and hatred for something that was made to make us all happy. I wish I had followed everything in ignorance, as well as my friend and my mother. I think I'll start seeing things that way from now on.

I had a lot more to say, but I still don't know how to express them in words and this was turning into a mile long post.  My first post and this was huge.  I'm sorry for this. I needed to get these things out because I want to sleep and focus on the more important things I have to do.

And I want to be able to enjoy watching Ahsoka and Rebels again without feeling sick out remembering all the discussion surrounding it.

For now, I want you to know that I've been loving all the Sabezra content you've been posting. What I want to say is that I'm here and that I will continue to ship Sabezra until the end. Even if you don't see me interacting here.

Maybe later I'll regret posting this. 

Maybe I'll delete it right away. 

Maybe I'll never come around here again. 

I don't know.

Too late. But everything is fine. 

At least now you know I'm here.

I love you all.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Hello! After reading the various mentions of Elita in several of your posts, I noticed you sadly didn't like her and her portrayals outside of G1 (I agree in that it feels like she gets done SO dirty almost everywhere :(... granted I haven't seen TFOne so trying to avoid too many spoilers lol). I have to ask though, what about War for Cybertron? I know next to nothing about it, but I do know that Elita makes an appearance. I may recall you saying you haven't seen it before, but I'd still be interested to hear your thoughts about how it handled her, and whether or not it delivered some much-needed justice!

I hope you are having a good day/evening/night, whatever you're doing :) all the best!

I would LOVE to talk about Elita until the end of time, but honestly I didn't watch enough War for Cybertron to get a solid read on her. It's also hard to decide how I feel about her considering the state of the situation in the show (I am assuming we are talking about the netflix series btw, not the game). Her attitude was kinda crappy, but unlike TFO where things were still pretty hopeful and Elita was mean regardless, I actually get why Elita is the way she is in WFC.

I don't remember liking her all that much, but to be fair, I didn't like that show much to begin with. I adored the grim vibes, but the characters bothered me to a certain extent. Elita, Bumblebee, and pretty much everyone came off as unnecessarily mean when Optimus was quite literally Doing His Best. But again, the war was at its worst point during the show so I can't exactly blame them.

Personal preference vs realistic standards I suppose. With that stated, WFC Elita was fine. Not my personal cup of tea, but I don't remember anything that made me mad enough to go on a rant about it (Unlike TFO Elita). In conclusion, she was an acceptable Elita. No real complaints, but it has been a few years so maybe I should rewatch the show again.

[thenotebookwizard]

She-Ra | Defiance (Thoughts and Rambles I: Convergence)

(Am I going to use roman numerals for every ramble about this fic? Probably not, but at least for the first few.)

A lot of the ideas and concepts for the fic are born from fanon - but a lot of fanon and my fic also come from this episode.

Somehow, it wasn't until after I started posting the fic that I realized who the writer was.

J. Michael Straczynski (JMS). He's done a lot. Comics. TV. Movies. Streaming. Books. He's the executor (inheritor?) of Harlan Ellison's estate.

He's the creator of Babylon 5.

If you want to talk about stories and media with significant effects on me as a human, you cannot avoid talking about Babylon 5. Star Trek and Star Wars came first, sure, but without Babylon 5, I don't think I would appreciate either of those as much or as a deeply as I do.

Babylon 5 came out when I was in middle school. I didn't get to see as much of it during its initial run as I wanted to. Only later, when a friend videotaped it and loaned me those tapes, did I get to really dig into it. I loved it. It was everything I wanted in a story and then some.

Learning to appreciate Babylon 5 made me dig deeper into other media. Into other stories - and shaped how I look at narrative. How I examine characters and the potential of characters. JMS created something with Babylon 5 that defied the genre of sci fi, causing me to figure out what space opera and science fantasy are.

I own Babylon 5 in several formats, and I rewatch it at least once a year.

Finding out JMS wrote the episode of the original She-Ra that helped create and define so much of the old canon that created the fanon that gives us magicats and all of the lore we have built up around Catra - because the new show didn't have the time or space to give us much.

- it was a revelation. It was the convergence of the old fandoms that shaped me and the new fandom that inspired me.

I have no idea how much JMS really created in terms of that lore or those one-off characters, but I can assume a few things based on what (little) I know about show-writing back then. He would have either been given the basics of the script and then told to flesh it out, or he just handed someone a script, and they said 'cool. Here's some lunch money. We'll get someone to draw this.'

Either way, he wrote the dialogue. He wrote the characters. He wrote the way the lore was presented. He had a hand in it.

That has meaning, in that JMS was writing and creating things that have affected me far, far longer than I knew and he has been showing me how to tell stories just as long.

[stvlti]

linger like a sandwalk - a playlist for Dune Part Two

I'm back 💃 after 2 years of not posting new playlists for my fandoms 💃 this new Dune movie is living in my head rent free 😮‍💨 of course I had to make fanmix for this one to try and consolidate my thoughts.

Tracks ⏏️

Bloodline -- Gabriels  //  No Church in the Wild -- Jay-Z & Kanye West  //  Mary Magdalene -- FKA Twigs  //  Pink Matter  -- Frank Ocean  //  Smother -- Daughter  //  Say You'll Go -- Janelle Monáe  //  A Time of Quiet Between Storms (Dune Part Two OST) -- Hans Zimmer  //  Your Blood -- Nothing But Thieves  //  The River -- Kero Kero Bonito  //  Bad Religion -- Frank Ocean  //  Telekinesis -- Travis Scott ft. SZA & Future  //  Transform -- Daniel Caesar ft. Charlotte Day Wilson

Meta ⏏️

An explanation of the song choices & related thoughts on the film *

(*) I still have not read the book *lies down* As soon as life slows down I swear I will. The 2 Denis Villeneuve films combined already make for a rich narrative and storyworld however, and this playlist is very much based on that.

▶️ Bloodline -- Gabriels

It's the bloodline This thing came before you Bloodline

I wanted to open this playlist on something that gets right at (one of) the core themes of Villeneuve's Dune, and to me that is the idea of bloodlines, legacies and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Birth rights can be stole Truth is you were always alone Tears in your hands Seems you lost before you began Your ancestors' blood fed the soil and the sand

I think a point that many filmgoers miss - and is also a point I missed on my first viewing of Part Two - is that the Lisan Al Gaib prophecy and Paul's claim to it is wholly manufactured. Upon rewatch, several lines in the 2 films jumped out to me: 'On Arrakis, a path has been laid' (Mother Mohiam in Part One), and first Paul (during his first meal in Sietch Tabr) and then Lady Jessica's declaration that they must persuade the non-believers that he is the Lisan Al Gaib so as to ensure their continued survival among the Fremen. Irulan's later commentary, 'these are our religious patterns', cemented this fact for me. We are reminded that The Bene Gesserit has sent missionaries to the Fremen over decades and centuries, creating the religious circumstances for Paul to consolidate power among the natives. He has as much a claim to the title of the Mahdi / Lisan Al Gaib as any other outerworlder from the Houses of the Imperium - that is to say, he isn't really the Chosen One. 'Birth rights can be stole', and this is a birth right he stole.

Yet, he does undoubtedly hail from his mother's Bene Gesserit lineage and, through consuming the Water of Life, inherit the ancestral memories of both his masculine and feminine forebearers from both the royal bloodlines and the Fremen lineage of Reverend Mothers. (We see this during the montage after he takes the WoL, falling through a super cut of the faces of the Fremen Reverend Mothers who came before him before eventually finding a vision of Alia on the sand dunes.) His 'ancestors' blood fed the soil and the sand' on which he now stands as the (false) prophet that will lead his Fremen tribe to ruin...

It's the bloodline Don't let it destroy you Bloodline

... and in ascending to the title of the Mahdi, he will undoubtedly lose everything that made him Paul the individual in the first place. Greater prophecies, plans and conspiracies will eclipse his humanity. This is the real bloodline that drives him to war and genocide. 'Don't let it destroy you' - but maybe it's already too late.

▶️ No Church in the Wild -- Jay-Z & Kanye West

I mean, come on, this song choice is just too obvious isn't it?

Human beings in a mob What's a mob to a king? What's a king to a God? What's a God to a non-believer who don't believe in anything? Will he make it out alive? Alright, alright No church in the wild

'Mob' = the Fremen and their Fedaykin guerilla troops. 'King' = Rabban, and later Feyd-Rautha, and the Harkonnen regime. 'God' = Paul as Mahdi and Muad'dib, the desert terrorist. 'Non-believer' = Chani and her brethren among the Northern skeptics.

But the sonical landscape of this song also played a huge part in my inclusion of the song on this list. I'm a lover of words before all else, but something about Dune made me want to curate a sonically coherent playlist that accompanies the story in lyrics as much as it does in sound. The grueling, forward momentum of this song's iconic beat lends itself to the raids the Fedaykin warriors launched against the Harkonnen-controlled spice fields.

▶️ Mary Magdalene -- FKA Twigs

In my head I call this the quintessential Bene Gesserit song. Listen, and read the lyrics:

A woman's work A woman's prerogative

The song makes it clear from the very first lines that it's about the woman's birthright and sovereignty. Most of the Bene Gesserit ladies we see in this film have roots in the royal bloodlines themselves. In that, they have a claim to a particular prerogative. Yet they also actively govern the domain of procreation, descendancy, succession, and survival of royal bloodlines. That is the nature of 'a woman's work' in this storyworld.

A woman's touch, a sacred geometry I know where you start, where you end How to please, how to curse Yes, I learnt you needed me Yes, I'm here to open you Yes, I know that your heart is blue (So cold)

FKA Twigs' darkly seductive vocals paired with this particular verse really evokes that entire Lady Fenring/Feyd-Rautha sequence.

I fear before the fire True as Mary Magdalene Creature of desire Come just a little bit closer to me Step just a little bit closer to me

The seduction continues here, but there's power inherent in the 'creature of desire' Mary Magdalene represents. Her story and her iconography bears a heavy resemblance to the Bene Gesserit sisters and their relationships with the men of the Imperium and its court.

I can lift you higher I do it like Mary Magdalene I want you to say it Come just a little bit closer 'til we collide

A woman's hands So dark and provocative A nurturing breath that could stroke Your divine confidence

I really fuck with the Mary Magdalene allegory in this song, and the chorus nails the mythos and authority she commands in modern reimaginings of her figure in relation to Jesus' mythos. Yet there's something softer in the latter half of the chorus - the devotion she shows to her partner is on equal footing, less of manipulation and more of the muse she can be for him to realise his full potential. With the arrival of the second verse we truly see how important she is to a man's dominion. 'A nurturing breath that could stroke [His] divine confidence': that is the power of Lady's Jessica's love for and devotion to Leto Atreides.

A woman's war Unoccupied history True nature won't search to destroy If it doesn't make sense

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to point out that certain parts of the Bene Gesserit's characterisation functions as a manifestation and perpetuation of Frank Herbert's very of-its-time misogynistic, gender essentialist ideas of a woman's station and the (only) avenue through which she derives her power in the material world - her womb. (Miss me with that radical feminist bs.) But we also see, in the film, Princess Irulan's character: a female historian whom the film suggests would have been happier free from the trappings of the Bene Gesserit programme and her Imperial lineage. 'A woman's war; unoccupied history': Mary Magdalene is a prime example of how for most of history, women are often anonymous (as that Virginia Woolf saying goes), their histories are often erased and deemed as unimportant; Irulan's inner thoughts and history are also cast aside and given no voice in the Dune narrative, but in an ironic twist, she dedicates her life to documenting the history of others.

▶️  Pink Matter -- Frank Ocean

What do you think my brain is made for? Is it just a container for the mind? This great, grey matter Sensei replied, "What is your woman? Is she just a container for the child?" That soft, pink matter

This song provides more of a male - or at least, androgynous - perspective on the question of the Bene Gesserit breeding programme ('Is she just a container for the child?' / 'My God, she's giving me pleasure'). But it gets right at the core of the question of whether the women in this universe, and the avenue through which they gain power, is truly confined to being 'just a container for the child'. I also really liked the direct parallels Frank Ocean's lyrics draw between the womb (pink matter) and the mind (grey matter), as the other main source of power Jessica drives from is through her mind and the prescience becoming the Reverend Mother has afforded her.

▶️ Smother -- Daughter

In my head I call this Lady Jessica's song.

I want all that is not mine I want him, but we're not right In the darkness, I will meet my creators And they will all agree that I'm a suffocator

I think it's more intimate than either of the 2 songs that come before this one, and centres Jessica squarely in her role as a mother before her place as a Bene Gesserit sister. She knows she will meet her creators - the generations of mothers and Bene Gesserit sisters who came before her - and she knows they will disapprove of the path she has manipulated to suit her ends, first for Duke Leto (in bearing him a son) and then for her son's survival (in spreading propaganda of him as the Lisan Al Gaib among the Fremen tribes). Now I know that the films sort of reduce her to a one-dimensional villain in Part Two, but I've heard that she is a lot less gungho about their little homegrown personality cult of Paul as the Lisan Al Gaib / Mahdi in the book. In fact, his accelerated transformation into a religious figurehead and his willingness to exploit the Fremen for that, at the cost of his own humanity, seems to be an unintended outcome that she regrets. She has unwittingly become a 'suffocator', in that regard - a mother killing her own child's humanity in his metaphorical cradle as soon as she exposed him to tales of the prophecy.

Oh love I'm sorry if I smothered you I sometimes wish I'd stayed inside My mother

▶️  Say You'll Go -- Janelle Monáe

Say you'll go to Nirvana Will you leave Samsara? Or in the words of Dhammapada, "Who will lead? Who will follow?" Our love will sail in this ark The world could end outside our window Let's find forever And write our name in fire on each others' hearts

Something about Janelle's crooning vocals against the symphonic strings and melodies just makes this a timeless love song. I love including it in for my ships 🥺 and I think it rather fits PaulChani, the star-crossed lovers that they are. 'Let's find forever' is my 'I will love you as long as I breathe'.

But of course, the question of whether Paul will go south looms over their heads like the Sword of Damocles. 'Will you leave Samsara? ... Who will lead? Who will follow?'

▶️  A Time of Quiet Between Storms (Dune Part Two OST)

Among the Dune OST, this song holds a higher and special place in my heart because of the way it celebrates their first on-screen kiss, but is also used as a reprise of sorts at the end of the film as Chani walks out on Paul. It's a bittersweet track. And it's lived in my mind rent free much the same way that last shot of Chani, with her quivering lips and angry eyes, has.

This brings me to the name of the playlist: the PaulChani tragedy, and just, the film as a whole, has definitely lingered in my mind. It has dragged against my thoughts gently, but persistently like the rhythm of a sandwalk.

I also chose to place it in the middle of playlist to sever it into 2 parts, much the same way the film is severed into 2 parts: before Paul undergoes the Water of Life ritual, when he is still an idealistic boy who actively rejects the title of the Mahdi for fear of the wartorn future he's foreseen, and afterwards, when he claims the mantle of the Mahdi.

▶️  Your Blood -- Nothing But Thieves

You know it's your blood that I bleed Tell me that there's some way that I'll get through the night I carry your moral disease I don't wanna be something I'm not to stay alive

You guys don't know how long I've wanted to put this song on a fanmix!! I've called this Joey Wilson/Jericho's song from the moment I heard it 😂 but I think the same themes can be found in Paul's story too, specifically his first scene right after recovering from the Water of Life ritual. 'We're Harkonnens.' And his realisation that that's how they'll survive: by becoming Harkonnens. It's the Baron's blood that he bleeds, and conflicted as he is about that, eventually he'll come to realise that he has to 'be something I'm not to stay alive'.

▶️  The River -- Kero Kero Bonito

Holy mother Receive our hearts in your arms And let our souls pass The day the rain returns again

These 4 lines are repeated throughout the song, almost like a prayer. It reminds me of the way Stilgar holds onto those same 4 words, 'As it was written', throughout the film as an affirmation of his religious convictions - the belief that the true Mahdi will bring paradise one day and with it, the rain.

When Earth is submerging And heaven is open The river will carry all of us to Where we belong ... Then a torrent crashes down Releasing the jungle swelling in the ground And as was foretold our time is out

▶️  Bad Religion -- Frank Ocean

If it brings me to my knees It's a bad religion This unrequited love To me, it's nothing but a one-man cult And cyanide in my styrofoam cup I can never make him love me Never make him love me

This song places us in Chani's pov. To her, Paul's meteoric rise of notoriety among the Fremen is 'nohting but a one-man cult'. She loved him as he was - an outsider who stayed humble and learnt her ways, and earned a place among her Fedaykin brethren. But as a power-tripping outerworlder claiming to be the Mahdi - she doesn't recognise him, and she 'can never make him love [her]' again, not as the man he has become.

▶️  Telekinesis -- Travis Scott ft. SZA & Future

I could've took the pain and I could've went out sad Streets stepped in and raised me, but I ain't have my daddy

So I'm gonna be honest: this is actually the track that started this entire project for me 🙈 But you see it, right? Travis Scott as Paul's voice, and SZA as Chani's...

I can see the future, it's lookin' like we level through the sky I can't wait to live in glory in eternal lastin' life

The fact that 'I can see the future' is the refrain of this song. In its original context I'm almost certain that Travis meant it less literally, and more in the realm of being able to guess the trajectory of his career as he continues to top the charts as a hip hop superstar. But it lends well to the context of Paul's religious myth-making as well. 'Eternal lasting life' and all that.

How can I sleep when you're out catchin' bodies? I still wanna be with you, trust me, I know that's insane ... We both ain't shit and it's workin' for me Workin' for me, yeah I can see the future, I can see the future

The thing that breaks my heart about the ending of the film is that you can see Chani still loves Paul, but not who he has become. I also like that the song flips the refrain around and has SZA sing it too. Except when she says, 'I can see the future', she says it self-deprecatingly. It's a future of more heartbreak and betrayal (by way of mutual infidelity) and ruin.

▶️  Transform -- Daniel Caesar ft. Charlotte Day Wilson

If a leopard never changes its spots How can I change what I've got? Transform, transform, transform, transform We don't punish the tiger for catching its prey So how am I the one to blame? If it's in my nature Transform, transform, transform, transform

One thing rewatching these films has made me realise is that Paul's 'sudden flip' to becoming a coloniser exploiting the Fremen's religion for his own gains in Imperial politics after drinking the Water of Life is actually less of a plot twist and more of an inevitability that has been advertised since Part One. Towards the end of the first film, he says to Liet Kynes that he intends to marry one of the Emperor's daughters and make a play for the throne. In Part Two, during his first meal at Sietch Tabr, he says to his mother that he must convince the non-believers that he is the Lisan Al Gaib. He may not have intended to bear the mantle of the Mahdi, perhaps he was foolishly, idealistically looking for a different path towards revenge and the throne, but he has never been above playing the game and utilising court politics to secure his 'victory', so to speak. He was born of royal blood and forged in those politics. It's in his nature.

It's never over until life ends Lay down beside me, do it again

These 2 lines reminds me again of that promise Paul and Chani exchanged: 'I will love you as long as I breathe'. (And if I remember correctly, Chani said something to the effect of 'I will be here for you as long as you stay who you are' as well.) I didn't want to end this playlist on a downer ending, hence this song choice.

If you've made it this far into my meta-commentary, thank you! Hope you've enjoyed this playlist ♡

[sebaztianlovesgeek]

Who do you think will die in future chapters of Black Butler?

I know I've already made a similar post theorising over how Black Butler will end but I'm very interested in Black Butler fan theories at the moment.

I'm gonna be explaining who I think will die in the future and why, some may have more detailed explanations than others since sometimes I just have hunches a character will die and sometimes I have better reasons to think so and I may also go into how I think they will die.

(warning: spoilers for a lot of the story)

1. Elizabeth Midford

There are 2 main reasons I think Lizzy will die, 1 is that I just have a hunch, Lizzy is a sweet girl but we've seen that no matter how sweet you are in the Black Butler universe there is a huge chance you will die (cough cough Agni).

And also there is a bit of foreshadowing in episode 6 (I think) of Book Of Circus. During one of fake Ciel's monologue flashbacks it shows him sitting on top of a throne with dead bodies of familiar characters beneath him. Most of the characters are characters who had already died before then such as Madame Red and Vincent, but when rewatching that scene I realised Lizzy was there as well. Could that be foreshadowing Lizzy will die in the future?

Maybe the next time she sees the fake Ciel he'll try to kill her as revenge for basically pretending to be the real Ciel, therefore Sebastian will have to come in and protect him, maybe even killing Lizzy or the least severely injuring her (and after that Undertaker could turn her into a bizarre doll or something)

2. Soma

This is definitely more of a hunch than evidence. Soma hasn't been in the manga in almost 100 chapters and we haven't seen him since 2017, the last time we saw him he was grieving over Agni's death.

I'm pretty sure he'll come back since it's not really like Yana Toboso to write off a character and never bring them back unless they canonically died or something, we've seen characters not appear for a while and then return (like majority of the grim reapers, Fred Abberline, sometimes even the servants like Meyrin, Finny and Bard if the current arc doesn't focus on them much and more on other characters like Ciel and Sebastian)

If he does come back I have a feeling he may die, I'm not really sure how though, like maybe he'll mistake Real Ciel for Fake Ciel and will be like "wait a moment why isn't Ciel wearing his eyepatch?" Or something like that and real Ciel will assassinate him to avoid suspicion.

Speaking of Real and Fake Ciel, I wonder how Soma would react if he found out all about that. I mean him and Fake Ciel are basically best friends, would he feel betrayed? Or if Fake Ciel explained why he did it would he forgive him?

3. John Brown, Charles Phipps and Grey

Sorry for including 3 characters in one, it's because these 3 are a trio and I feel like they'll all die for the same reasons.

So, if you haven't noticed or haven't watched the non canon parts of the black butler S1 anime, there are a lot of hints to what happens in the future of the manga despite most of the anime being released prior to those events.

Examples: an animal based servant (in the anime it was Pluto, a dog man and in the manga/canon parts it was Snake, who looks like a snake and can talk to snakes), the servants backstories (while some changes were made in the anime, all of the backstories were mostly the same, Meyrin was an assassin, Finny was an experiment and Bard was a soldier in a brutal war) and Undertaker being revealed to be a grim reaper

Due to all of this I have a theory that John, Phipps and Grey are all angels. Why? Well in the anime Queen Victoria had a servant dressed in white named Ash who was later revealed to be an angel and was the main villain of season 1.

What does Ash have in common with John, Phipps and Grey? They all wear white and they all work for the Queen, they also started out as characters you probably think weren't as important to the story but then later became antagonists.

It also gives Charles Grey more of a reason to stab Sebastian in the murder mystery arc, maybe the whole time he knew Sebastian was a demon? And maybe that's why he wasn't so suspicious when he found Sebastian was alive on the Campania.

I've also sensed that both Grey and Phipps had a bit of a grudge towards Ciel and Sebastian. At first I thought it was because of what happened in the circus arc (which is why the whole murder mystery arc happened), but even after Ciel proved himself they both continued to be a bit iffy around them... Again could this be because they know Sebastian is a demon?

Ash died at the end of season 1 after his evil plot to purify the world by setting London on fire (yeah I don't know why either season 1 had a lot of plot holes) since John, Grey and Phipps are all possible alternative versions of Ash I'm about 90% sure they'll also be killed by Sebastian.

4. Queen Victoria

Sort of the same reason behind why I think John, Phipps and Grey will die, except for this one I have less evidence.

Unlike in the anime, there hasn't been very much foreshadowing that Queen Victoria has made a contract with her 3 angelic servants or even knows they may be angels. However near the end of season 1 in the anime, Ash kills her because she became impure since she didn't want to be cleansed after the part of her body that was Albert began to rot.

I'm not sure if that'll be the reason for her death in the manga since unlike the anime her grief over Albert is usually played for comedic affect (like when John Brown used a doll of Albert to cheer Victoria up) but maybe there will be another reason. If she doesn't know her servants are angels but later finds out, they may kill her. Or maybe she'll just be killed by Ciel and Sebastian for some reason.

5. Real Ciel

I think the majority of us theorize he will die, he's a bizarre doll after all and almost every bizarre doll in the story has been killed, also he's sort of one of the main antagonists now after he exposed Fake Ciel for pretending to be him after death.

Again I'm not sure how he'll die exactly, but I'm about 90% sure he will die

[kaycode1999]

Ok so I just rewatched Earthspark for the 473738922 time😂😂. And now I have some different thoughts on the whole Bumblebee being kept secret from Ghost. Also this is gonna be a long post so you have been warned. P.S discussion of some of the leaks so if you don’t want spoilers don’t read!

The biggest thing that stood out to me is when he’s called Zom- bleBee and either skywarp or nova storm( I can’t remember which) says he’s “ back from the dead”. Now clearly Optimus doesn’t trust Ghost so yeah he could have just said/or otherwise made it seem like Bee was gone to them and any Decepticons without something actually having happened to him. But I’m now thinking it’s very likely Bee was either severely injured or DID die but was brought back by Ratchet (or the Allspark but I really want Ratchet to be in the show😂)

Optimus is already far more protective of Bee than even the Terrans who are a brand new species of transformer ( he made him a teacher for this new species which means he’s not supposed to be directly in the line of fire but Arcee , Wheeljack and Elita-1 he has no problem with allowing them to be on the front lines? Even the newest terrans he had with him facing mandroid while Bee and the humans were waiting outside, and when Bee showed up to help with the cassette bots he got a little angry and tried to send him back to the Malto’s as soon as possible). Episode 3 is basically all about Bee having a crisis of confidence, he doesn’t feel like a hero anymore because he’s been in “ hiding” so long which honestly sounds like what a soldier who was taken out of the war due to an injury would say.

In one of the leaks for the future episode descriptions Bumblebee is sent on a mission and the kids follow him to try and keep him safe. If this is a true leak it would make sense that in the episode the kids and terrans (and us) find out what happened to Bee and because they’re afraid he’ll get hurt they go after him wanting to protect him (Similar to Arcee having every one go help with fighting Soundwave and the cassettes after hearing about Bee’s “ mission”, it doesn’t appear at the moment that she is kept from missions so she doesn’t have a reason to be jealous or anything that Bee is in the field since I’m assuming she gets to do that stuff all the time but rather she’s very worried about her friend/brother being in the field after what happened to him and wants to protect him)

Based on everything we’ve seen so far it seems like the only reason Optimus would keep Bee from Ghost is that he was hurt which has made him extra protective of Bee. I mean I highly doubt if he didn’t trust them at all he’d allow himself and his Autobots to have an alliance with them. However, they’ve already pointed out that Ghost has a habit of being inconsiderate and even uncaring towards the bots as Megatron pointed out that they always leave the cybertronians to “ bare the scars”. It seems like Optimus (being the father toward bumblebee that he is) is keeping Bee from Ghost because he’s worried if they knew he was still alive they would put him in harms way again and he’d be killed or hurt like before

[tmisherewrites]

Let's round out the rest of Crassus' men

I've shared them all in one post here. Having these actors in mind was the critical difference which helped me write Crassus' chapters because boy oh boy was I struggling.

Without further ado, here are Trebonius Moss, and Cassius and Marcus Luna:

The Baby

Trebonius Moss. The only other high born Capitol member of Crassus' squad. He's the youngest of the six and isn't totally convinced of Crassus' view of the world... yet.

He's the oldest living sibling with three younger sisters, one of whom becomes a classmate of Coriolanus', mentoring the female tribute from District 5.

He's a bit naive, but with Teller's help he's improving everyday.

I cast Kodi Smit-McPhee, unfortunately best known for that one "he's white" meme from Elvis, but what made me think of him for the role of Moss was his performance in The Power of the Dog. From an unassuming, slightly odd boy, to a man capable of expert deception and murder. He is from the Capitol after all.

Big brother extraordinaire

The most obvious of the names, Cassius Luna is named after actor Diego Luna and his character Cassian Andor from the Star Wars universe.

Andor was one of my absolute favourite shows of the last 5 years and I've rewatched it several times and it greatly influenced how I wrote this fic.

Diego Luna also appears to share a lot of similar political values to me, many of which are on display in Andor and in his actions, particularly joining the Zapatista protests in his teenage years.

Cassius has one goal: keep his brother alive. He's taught him everything he knows about how to survive and they've only stuck around because that's their best option until the weather clears. While not a great shot like Teller, Cassius is very adept at laying traps to catch small game, which helped keep the men alive when deer were harder to come by.

Also, excuse the blurry pic, I thought it was clearer than that.

Marcus has got your back

Marcus Luna is the younger of the two brothers and while he's still learning from Cassius, he's by no means dead weight, being incredibly capable in his own right. Marcus will forage and find every single edible plant in a several mile radius, having encyclopaedic knowledge of everything that can feed, hurt, or heal his compatriots.

I cast David Castañeda because I just think he should be in more stuff. Like most, I first saw him in The Umbrella Academy as Diego Hargreeves, but it was his performance in an indie called Standing Up Falling Down where I saw just how talented he is, not to mention endlessly charming. And like David, I could absolutely see Marcus sneak off in a corner to write a little poem to himself just for fun.

I also wanted to make sure to include a reference to the Lunas speaking Spanish to each other considering it is both Luna and Castañeda's first language. And while Suzanne Collins doesn't allude to languages other than English in canon, I know that languages don't disappear that easily and that there would be a class component to who speaks languages other than English in Panem.

This rounds out Crassus' men. Let me know what you think of my choices if you've read the fic. Did they match up with who you had in mind? If you haven't read the fic yet, I introduce all these characters in Chapter 2 of They Will Come For You In the Night, would love it if you would check it out 💚

[jugheadvarchoni]

Alright! Riverdale season 2 rewatch is DONE!

Here are some of my thoughts:

This whole season is sooooo teen campy horror and I’m obsessed. I prefer this season over S1 for sure.

TONI FCKING TOPAZ. MY BEST GIRLYYYY. 🥹

The Black Hood is actually such a good villain idc

LOOK. I love FP, but he DID clean up the Blossom’s crime scene, he WAS involved. Whether he was blackmailed or not, he did it. So Betty blackmailing Cheryl by threatening to release the video of Jason’s murder is… very fucked up.

Speaking of Betty… she lowkey annoys me several times throughout this season. She’s such a bad friend 😂

I may be in the minority, but I LOVE all the Serpent drama stuff

Jughead is my extra-brooding broody emo boy this season. Complete with a dramatic ass Bughead breakup lol.

The scene where Fred imagines Archie’s graduation day and says “I didn’t think I’d live to see this day” actually made me cry because Luke Perry passed away before S4 so Fred really didn’t get to see the day…

CHONI CHONI CHONI. Their first meeting, the “you’re sensational” scene at Pop’s, Toni leading the charge to save her, Cheryl (and Jughead) saving Toni from the Ghoulies. Choni’s FIRST KISS. Ughhhh I love my babies so much. 🥰

I was wrong in my S1 post, Alice Cooper is still fcking insufferable this season.

Archie starting a team of teen vigilantes to hunt a serial killer lmfao

Nick St. Clair deserved JAIL. God.

The fact that Kevin has known about the Sisters of Quiet Mercy being an illegal conversion camp for some time and has never done or said anything before, while hooking up with boys from there and being the SON of the sheriff is… concerning.

And then the gang literally does nothing after either

CHONI

VARCHIE. Her being right by his side after Fred was shot, Archie beating the shit out of Nick for hurting her. Their “I LOVE YOU’S”, which was hard for Veronica and caused some tension, but they worked through and came out stronger for it! Dealing with Hiram’s shit lol.

Cheryl Blossom deserved a stint on CW’s Arrow!

Having the Serpent/Ghoulie war off screen was not it… like… that was such a huge point and we saw none of it

Hiram Lodge was a GREAT villain, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, he was just sooo overused.

Veronica girlbossing & getting ownership of Pop’s because she knows how much it means to people. My girl :’)

FP retiring, making Jughead king, and then Jughead’s first act being inducting Cheryl into the Serpents? Beautiful symmetry that mirrors his own start with the Serpents at the end of S1.

Oh, did I mention CHONI?

The cliffhanger being Archie arrested right after winning the student body election… like goddamn.

I love this fcking season, and idc what anyone else says! It’s better than S1! 💋

[walkawaytall]

Fannish Year Review - 2023

snagged from @diplomaticprincess

1. your main fandom of the year: Star Wars -- after like three years of feeling way-too-sensitive about the series, I decided to take that whole Marie Kondo approach to fandom: keep what brings you joy and throw the rest into an active volcano (or...something like that. It's been a minute since I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, but I'm sure that's an accurate synopsis that Marie would be totally fine with on her book's dust jacket). And then I started writing fanfiction, which has been fun.

Though...though...I did revisit The Hunger Games this year and made my bestie into an HG fan, so that series has certainly played a part.

2. have u watched a film this year: I've only been to theaters twice this year -- once for the Return of the Jedi 40th anniversary rerelease, once to see Barbie. I don't think I've watched many new things this year, to be honest. Mainly rewatches.

3. your favorite book this year: Oof, my reading list is embarrassingly short this year. Probably Nine Liars by @maureenjohnsonbooks. It's the 5th book in a YA mystery series and love that entire dang series so much.

4. your favorite album or song this year:

Album: Stick Season by Noah Kahan

Song: Probably "Happier Than Ever" by Billie Eilish, but I'm honestly not certain

5. your favorite tv shows this year: I think I rewatched Severance twice this year, so...Haaaa...

6. your favorite tumblr community this year: Han/Leia, but I also follow some Little Women accounts that I've quite enjoyed.

7. your best new fandom discovery of the year: I did start watching Ted Lasso, but kind of forgot about it, though the show is delightful. I feel like I've been very hyperfocused on Star Wars stuff this year tbh.

8. your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: You know what, I rarely hate on specific ships publicly, but having one of my posts in which I was spitballing a headcanon involving Tarkin and Leia having an absurd rivalry while she was like 16-19 years old that was similar in tone to Jack Donaghy and Kaylie Hooper from 30 Rock (a relationship that is entirely not sexual on account of Kaylie being fifteen when she first pops up on the show) reblogged multiple times with Leia/Tarkin shipping tags might just have been the most disappointing fandom-related thing to happen to me personally this year. I don't even know if this is the type of answer the question was looking for, but uh...it was definitely the most disappointing.

9. your tv/movie boyfriend and/or girlfriend of the year: I'm...not entirely sure how to answer this tbh.

10. your biggest squee moment of the year: I've received a lot of really nice comments on my stories this year, but there have been a handful left where I really felt...seen? if that makes sense. Like, the commenters wrote something where I felt like someone fully understood what I was trying to do, which doesn't always happen, and those have definitely been exciting moments for me.

Self-service tagging today!

[endpoem]

Stuff I liked in 2022

‘Saul’ good (and other TV)

It’s not easy to say goodbye to Better Call Saul, the supposed end of Vince Gilligan’s Albuquerque cycle. I bought my dad the complete Breaking Bad on DVD for Christmas in 2014, and we watched the entire thing together, back before I had kids or a real full-time career. Jesse Pinkman, Nacho, Jimmy and Kim—these characters have meant the world to me for the better part of a decade, and Saul was absolutely the pinnacle.

El Camino, Saul season five, and the two halves of season six have been such a gift of flawless storytelling these last few years; sometimes they were the thing that got me out of bed in the morning. Logging into work on a Monday ain’t so bad when you’ve got more of Kim and Jimmy’s mischief to look forward to. Peter Gould, Gilligan, and company stuck the landing. If one of your favorite characters must die, you can’t ask for a more beautiful sendoff than “Rock and Hard Place.”

Bob Odenkirk’s book, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir, was a great way to spend a weekend, as well, deepening my appreciation for an actor who’d already won my heart in the first couple seasons of Saul. (I’ll admit it: The character was never my favorite part of Breaking Bad. It took the Jimmy dimension to win me over and sell me on the idea of a spinoff. Mission accomplished, I guess.)

It’s a nice treat to see Odenkirk back in his home country of comedy, and it made for a good excuse to watch Mr. Show season one while I was waiting for Better Call Saul to come back from its mid-season break. Bob and I have a shocking number of things in common: five-nine, Irish-Catholic, Illinois guys, a cynicism born of trauma, severe impostor syndrome, et cetera. Anyway, I can’t wait to see what he does next.

I loved Atlanta season three; “New Jazz” was my favorite episode by far, probably because it focuses on Al (Paper Boi) and is weird even by Atlanta standards. I also enjoyed Stranger Things season four, which was a definite high for that series—Joseph Quinn was brilliant. And as a Halo fan going all the way back to 2001, I mostly dug the TV adaptation’s first season, though the finale was a bummer.

I’m a couple seasons into a Mad Men rewatch, trying to fill the void left by the Gilliverse, and it’s a different show now that I’m a father with two kids and more of a career. Unbelievably good.

‘The Rings of Power,’ classic Tolkien, and other fantasies

This was the year I got really into epic fantasy outside of, say, the Elder Scrolls games. The Rings of Power came along just in time to cure my post-Saul blues, and it certainly did the trick. It’s a gorgeous (and expensive) spectacle, with a rich, expansive world, mythic stakes, and some really great performances. And have you seen how beautiful that cast is? I’ve been known to develop the occasional TV or movie crush, Your Honor, but Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel is in a league of her own. My God. She’s great in Saint Maud, too.

After Rings of Power, I rewatched the extended cuts of the movie trilogy and bought a stack of books for good measure—The Hobbit, Rings, The Silmarillion, The Fall of Númenor, Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I just finished Fellowship of the Ring, which is exquisite, and I’ve been reading The Hobbit aloud to my daughter. We’re about three-fourths of the way through that one.

I finally saw the original Willow and Legend (1985) earlier this year, and thought both were excellent. (The Legend Blu-ray from Arrow Video looks stunning.) House of the Dragon was pretty fantastic—as good as Game of Thrones in its earlier seasons, only more focused. And the Disney Plus Willow series is probably my second-favorite fantasy work of 2022; it’s playing around with the same kind of Lovecraftian terror as John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, and I can’t help but see it as a riff on the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

‘Andor’ and more

There was some good star stuff on the tube this year. “The Tribes of Tatooine,” the second episode of Book of Boba, elevated that series above the disposable feel of Mandalorian season two (“The Believer” notwithstanding). And Deborah Chow’s Obi-Wan Kenobi gave those of us who grew up on the prequels a magnificent bookend to the Obi-and-Ani relationship.

Light & Magic, the six-part docuseries on ILM, offered a phenomenal overview of special-effects history beginning with the inception of Star Wars and ending with the biggest breakthroughs of the CGI era. You could easily do a second season on the last couple decades of blockbusters and stuff like StageCraft, but maybe that’s a series for down the road.

But of course no Star Wars discussion this year could pass without addressing the main event, Andor, which can safely be called the best Star Wars story since 1983. Tony Gilroy is a masterful writer and showrunner, responsible for much of what people loved in Rogue One, and he brings all his intelligence and rage and love to Andor. He and his crew ought to be very proud. Who knew that all Star Wars needed was more Andy Serkis and Diego Luna? Gilroy, evidently.

Shadow of the Sith, a 496-page novel by Adam Christopher, was another Star Wars highlight in 2022. If you’re looking for a good Luke Skywalker book, or a good Lando Calrissian book—or some spooky Sith magic—you’ll find all of that and more in this moving Rise of Skywalker tie-in. For those curious about Rey’s parents, this is largely their story, as well, and it’s beautifully done. My favorite Star Wars book in years.

Always gamin’

I’m not a full-time games journalist anymore, so my gaming habits are a lot more relaxed than they used to be. Which is to say I play to have fun, now, and I can’t recommend it enough. I buy far fewer new games these days, for one, though I did love Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, and several games I’ve started but not yet finished.

One of my biggest games this year was Final Fantasy VII Remake, which I finally finished on the PS5. Hell of a game—if any video game can be called a masterpiece, that one comfortably belongs in the category. I also rolled credits on Mass Effect 2 and 3, and thought the latter was far superior to the middle chapter in spite of the general consensus. Regardless of how you feel about the very end, that game is quite an achievement for BioWare, and I hope Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is even half as engrossing.

I spent a lot of time playing Fortnite and Call of Duty online this year—something I plan to do a lot less of in 2023—but had plenty of fun doing it. I replayed a lot of familiar favorites: Skyrim, Halo Infinite, Fallout: New Vegas, Miles Morales. Most of my hours on the Nintendo Switch were spent with KotOR and KotOR II, and I’m currently struggling through an attempt to replay Morrowind on the Xbox, which is both painful and rewarding. I’m rediscovering a lot of the reasons why I fell in love with it twenty years ago.

At the movies

I didn’t go to the theater much this year, but I did watch 209 movies—most of them at home on my 65-inch TCL 5-Series. My top ten films of 2022 were The Fabelmans, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, del Toro’s Pinocchio, Watcher, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Pearl, The Batman, Nope, and Hellraiser. Fabelmans and Top Gun in particular made my heart soar; it’s nice to see both Spielberg and Cruise still delivering career-best work a full two decades after Minority Report, which was my favorite movie for a long time.

Outside of those ten, I also loved Kimi, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Revealer, and Confess, Fletch.

As far as new-to-me classics, I had a very fulfilling year working my way through the gaps in my Carpenter and Mann viewing, if nothing else—They Live, Prince of Darkness, Elvis ’79, Big Trouble in Little China, In the Mouth of Madness, Cigarette Burns, Ali, The Insider, The Keep… I spent a lot of time studying my favorite Carpenter flicks last year as I wrote the treatment for a horror script that’s lived in my head for a while, but I didn’t want to watch Prince of Darkness till after I’d finished a detailed outline of the story. In 2022, I logged fifteen Carpenter films and seven from Mann.

I saw Citizen Kane, F for Fake, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Godfather, Part II, Solaris (2002), The Meyerowitz Stories (every bit as good as Marriage Story), Twin Peaks season two and The Missing Pieces, Killing Them Softly, Jaws, Your Name, The Gambler (the one with James Caan, not Marky Mark), Bonnie and Clyde, Near Dark, The Hidden, Silent Running, the original 3:10 to Yuma, Joe Kidd.

It’s been a hard, stressful, scary, transformative year. But I’m grateful for the strides I made, both personal and professional, and for the media and stories that inspired me along the way.

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[darlingandmreames]

2022 Fic Year in Review

Alright y'all, time for one of my favourite new year activities- looking back at all of the weird shit I wrote last year! I always love being able to look back and see all the things I've created and the progress I've made. So without further ado, here it is: Your Local Trash Goblin's 2022 Fic Year in Review!

Fandoms Written For: Inception (6), The Batman (2), Star Wars Rebels (1), The Guest (2), Encanto (1), Kingdom (1)

Total Word Count: 231,264

Fic With the Most Comments: With Words I Thought I'd Never Speak

Fic With the Most Bookmarks: A Remedy for Sadness

Fic I'm Proudest Of: Mile Deep Hollow

January

A Remedy for Sadness

Fandom: Encanto

Rating: General

Word Count: 3.5k

Summary: Julieta healed injuries and sicknesses with the food she made. But more than that, she used her food to show love.

I went through a brief period where I, like many on Tumblr, was absolutely obsessed with Bruno we don't talk about him and this was the result lol. I had a really fun time writing the sibling dynamic between Bruno and Julieta since that's not a dynamic I necessarily end up writing very often

February

Title: One Hand Above the Skin (My Head Below the Water)

Fandom: The Guest (Choi Yoon/Hwa-pyung)

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: Choi Yoon had been told over and over that facing evil directly took a permanent toll on one's mind and soul. Park Il-do was gone but his minions weren't, and Yoon found himself starting down several roads he wasn't sure he could come back from in an attempt to handle it

My K-drama obsession during internship interviews lol. Excellent show, highly recommend it

Title: Warmth Untouched by Cold

Fandom: Kingdom (Lee Chang/Yeong-shin)

Rating: General

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: If someone had told Yeong-shin a year ago that he would willing stay by the side of a noble, he would have laughed in their face. Long months of travel and late nights around a fire had bred a sense of familiarity and companionship, though, and the more Yeong-shin came to know the former Crown Prince, the more he found himself caring for the very human man who existed behind the title

Decided to rewatch Kingdom as a post-internship match treat, and ended up revisiting an old WIP I had for it! Unironically one of the most beautiful shows I've ever watched, please do yourself a favour and watch it

March

Title: Only Human

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels (Kallus/Zeb)

Rating: General

Word Count: 41.7k

Summary: After two years in the rebellion, Kallus had finally found his place. It hadn't always been a smooth process, but he'd found enough acceptance to get by. That didn't mean he didn't still have a few secrets, though, secrets he'd kept for most of his life. Between the passage of time and the chaos of moving the base from Yavin IV to Hoth, keeping those secrets was about to get a lot harder. But maybe that wasn't the worst thing in the world

My entry for the 2022 Kalluzeb Minibang! I'd had the hc of Kallus being partially non-human for a while, and it was really fun to finally write a story to go with it. Plus it has some amazing art!

April

Title: Running Through My Veins Like Sin

Fandom: The Guest (Choi Yoon/Hwa-pyung)

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 32.2k (on-going)

On GOD I am going to finish this fic eventually, I promise agdkfjdh. I absolutely writing Yoon in this fic and I have a wonderful arc planned out for him, so I AM going to finish it. I just got distracted agdkd

Title: Comfort is a Heavy Blanket

Fandom: The Batman

Rating: General

Word Count: 2k

Summary: Alfred knew why Mr. Wayne had let an injured Carmine Falcone into his house to give him treatment, but that didn't mean he liked it. It was a dangerous situation, and the realization that five year old Bruce had witnessed all of it just made it worse

Oh The Batman. I saw you in theaters three times and you gripped me like a rabid animal. I absolutely loved Bruce and Alfred's relationship in this movie as well as the phenomenally Autistic Vibes(tm) of Battison

July (aka A Very Busy Month)

Title: With Words I Thought I'd Never Speak

Fandom: The Batman (Bruce/Martinez)

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 24.6k (on-going)

Summary: In the year following the Riddler's attacks, Martinez somehow found himself involved at least peripherally with two of Gotham's odder figures: Batman and Bruce Wayne. For all his initial dislike of Batman, a year's worth of cases resulted in a somewhat grudging respect for the vigilante's intelligence and investigative skill, even if he never quite became any less strange and unsettling. Martinez developed a new found appreciation for Bruce Wayne as well, an odd but likeable man who was pleasant to work with in his own awkward way. During an investigation into a death possibly connected to Penguin, Martinez accidentally learns that the two odd characters he's spent an increasing amount of time interacting with over the past year are actually the same person, who's far more complex (and far more human) than he'd ever realized

If I wasn't prepared for the death grip The Batman had on my brain, I DEFINITELY wasn't prepared for falling into the Bruce/Martinez dumpster fire. I love them so much. I also got distracted while writing this fic, but I have the basic plot points mapped out, and on GOD I will finish this one too

Title: As Warm As Whiskey (And Ten Times Better)

Fandom: Inception (Arthur/Eames)

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 1.3k

Summary: Watching Arthur get drunk was a process Eames had seen many times over the years, but that didn't make him enjoy it any less

It had been too long since I'd written for my Disaster Criminal Blorbos, but I was about to fix that lol. A short fic inspired by an Inception30DayChallenge prompt

Title: Such Great Heights

Fandom: Inception (Arthur/Eames)

Rating: General

Word Count: 51.5k

Summary: When the market crashed four years ago, things went to hell for a lot of people. Eames has done okay, though- his job as a reporter at the New York Herald Tribune was secure enough that he managed to keep it, and he was good enough at it that he made enough to get by. He has a strict rule, though: no photographers. Working with freelancers has always been a crapshoot, and it's only gotten worse over the past few years. When the Rockefellers insist on a photographer for the Tribune's upcoming story on their new building, though, Eames is forced to choose between dropping the best paying story he's had in four years or working with Arthur, the freelance photographer hired on the recommendation of Eames' editor, Dom. He's an odd man who clearly has a past and who, as Eames spends more time with him, is just maybe worth getting to know a bit better.

My entry for the 2022 Inception Big Bang! It was inspired by a combination of a real life photographer and a surprisingly fun horror movie about WWI zombie parasites (no parasites or zombies in the fic itself). I had a lot of fun writing it, and it has some amazing art!

Title: A Stranger's Kindness

Fandom: Inception

Rating: General

Word Count: 2.9k

Summary: Long before a reporter met a photographer in New York, a young woman found a soldier in a field in France.

The story of how Arthur and Mal met

A short prequel to Such Great Heights! Arthur and Mal's friendship wasn't a central part to the larger fic, but it was a relationship I found really interesting while developing the story and I wanted to expand on it a little more

Title: Relinquish

Fandom: Inception (Arthur/Eames)

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: Arthur liked to be in control, or at least on even footing with whoever he was interacting with. That was how he’d always been. Just…maybe not with Eames. The thought of letting someone else take control, letting Eames take control, was…different. Intriguing. Enticing. Enough so that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Maybe even imagining what it would be like, more often than he cared to admit over the recent weeks, and what had started as a bit of teasing had started to become more and more serious in his mind.

This one's literally just porn. I had a lot of fun writing it lol

Title: Taking the Leap

Fandom: Inception (Arthur/Eames)

Rating: General

Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: Personal information wasn't something easily or freely shared in the world of extraction. But sometimes the risk of vulnerability was worth it

Trans Arthur and nonbinary Eames my beloved ^-^ this is the first entry into what will eventually become a series

December

Title: Mile Deep Hollow

Fandom: Inception (Arthur/Eames)

Rating: General

Word Count: 60.6k

Summary: Eames had worked countless jobs with Arthur over the years, enough that he had long since picked up on Arthur's on-job habits. Long hours, little sleep, too much work shoved into too little time- that's just what Arthur was like on jobs. The Fischer job felt...different though. Arthur didn't usually start jobs looking this tired or worn down, and his insistence that he was fine didn't usually ring this hollow. It was worrying, and Arthur's increasingly unconvincing reassurances weren't doing much to help.

Everyone in extraction had their limits, even Arthur. And Eames knew he was getting close to seeing what those limits really were.

This is the fic I'm proudest of this year. Not only is it the longest fic I've ever published, but it was also one that had been sitting in my WIPs folder for 2 or 3 years. I really loved the concept but had gotten distracted and never ended up finishing it at the time. I'm actually really glad I waited because I think I'm a stronger writer now, and this fic ended up better for it. It's one of the angstier fics I've written while still having a happy (or at least very hopeful) ending, and I'm really proud of how it ended up turning out

And that's it! Adjusting to my internship work schedule was a process so unfortunately that cut down on the amount of time/brain power I could spend writing, but I'm still super proud of what I put out this (last?) year. To ever increasing skills and another year of good writing!

-Your Local Trash Goblin

[longlistshort]

Chris Marker’s 1983 poetic travelogue Sans Soleil brings something new with every rewatch. The film consists of footage, some stock and some of Marker’s own work, taken around the world, with a focus primarily on Japan and Guinea-Bissau. Along with these images, a narrator (Alexandra Stewart in the English version) reads from the letters she received from the fictitious cameraman. Within these letters are his thoughts on memory, history, culture, and life itself.

On this viewing it was his mention of Sei Shonagon, a lady in waiting to Princess Sadako in Japan at the beginning of the 11th century, and her lists, that stood out for me.

He says:

“Do we ever know where history is really made? Rulers ruled and used complicated strategies to fight one another. Real power was in the hands of a family of hereditary regents; the emperor’s court had become nothing more than a place of intrigues and intellectual games. But by learning to draw a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation of the tiniest things this small group of idlers left a mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the mediocre thundering of the politicians. Shonagon had a passion for lists: the list of ‘elegant things,’ ‘distressing things,’ or even of ‘things not worth doing.’ One day she got the idea of drawing up a list of ‘things that quicken the heart.’ Not a bad criterion I realize when I’m filming…”

Finding things, however small, that “quicken the heart” is a lovely criterion for life in general and this film is certainly on the list.

After watching Sans Soleil, and researching Marker, I watched one of his earlier works, the science fiction featurette  La Jetée. Constructed using still images, it contains only one brief shot made with a movie camera.

Using voice over narration, the short film takes place after World War III and tells the story of a prisoner in a post-apocalyptic Paris forces to time travel to the past and future in the hopes of saving the present. The man has a vivid memory from his childhood before the war of a woman he had seen at the airport, just before witnessing a man’s death. Through his time travel he is able to meet and develop a relationship with her as an adult. Time and memory, themes also present in Sans Soleil, were subjects Marker retained an interest in exploring in many of his films throughout the years.

La Jetée would go on to influence many artists, musicians, and filmmakers over the years. One of the most famous examples is Terry Gilliam’s movie 12 Monkeys which uses several of the film’s concepts of time travel.

Criterion Collection has released both movies together along with Marker’s six minute film Junktopia, and other extras. For more information on his filmography, Catherine Lupton has written a very informative essay on their website.

[benefits1986]

<expecto>_<patronum>

Healing the inner child means going into the woods not to be stuck, but to revisit the lessons of all the adventures and misadventures.

One reason why I don't buy any Harry Potter Lego set is because it's perpetually added to my cart and I'm waiting for a legit price drop. I'm not keen on buying it online, too. There's a certain kind of kick whenever I pass by a Lego store even when I abhor yellow. And the prices are not joking, too. After 38 years, here I am finishing off my first ever intricate piece which is the Expecto Patronum set.

My brother egged me that since I'm innately bored and severely impatient, chances are, I'd end up asking his panganay, a Gen Alpha Lego fan to build it for me. Hinamon tayo. I spent my Saturday building up this set. I have errands in between. To capture the mood, I also rewatched The Prisoner of Azkaban. I told myself that it was about time for another encore.

Of course, I knew the scenes, but this time around, the subtext hits differently. Here's my tiny list of reminders which I must say is totes JIT.

1 The pain of losing someone you love will never end. But, choosing not to shut down any form of intimate connections will make that unfathomable and eternal pain worthless.

LUH. Boogsh. Ang aga-aga mo na naman, dhzai. I'll explain this once the right time comes. For now, I'm leaving it here as is, where is.

2 Dementors are depression blows. Their kiss signifies the spiral that leads to the most ego-shattering and heart-crushing meltdowns.

I've been putting off this thought for a long time, however, we're growing up and biking our way through this short life.

3 Patronus is the tiny spark that you have no matter how fucked up things get. That tiny spark is enough to let your light shine at its dullest and brightest, too. Choose your own adventure na lang talaga.

When Harry waited for James to save him during a near-encounter featuring the almost lifeless Sirius Black, Hermione told him it's impossible for James to do so. Harry felt so defeated because it meant his Mirror of Erised wish was but a fallacy, after all. Harry grumpily held up his wand and produced a really crazy-ass Patronus charm... a first, and an epic one, by the way.

Rewatching this yesterday made my tummy knot. OA na naman kasi malimit talaga nonchalant na ako when watching Harry Potter movies. Panget ng SFX pati CGI. Pati lifting from the books. LELS.

This is where I say that even when JK Rowling is obviously very ugh in terms of being anti-trans people among other cancel-worthy pakawala niya consistently, you separate the art from the artist.

The way she does subtext is just so magical and mundane. Grabehan. Iba talaga 'pag ang kwento mo ay hugot na hugot sa mga graphic lived experience like pagbasa ng mga letters from those na trapped sa conflicts na bloody, noh? Iba e. From the pusali, the pusakals, and the putang inang why naman kasi may ganito sa earth levels, however, it's a reminder to just do it, all for the greater good. Always. EMS. Kahit mahirap saka nakakatamad. LUH.

4 We are good and bad sentient beings. We're all guilty and not guilty, however, what matters most is choosing the things that take us closer to what defines us and what doesn't.

The scene where Voldemort tried to get into Harry hit so differently yesterday. It's very graphic in an untog sa marmol na pader or as toilet bowl vibe level. I said this so many times, but let me reshare: We are the choices we choose. In the same manner, we don't realize that we are also the choices we did not choose. Parang mas maganda lapag niyang statement na 'yan today. Or baka nga, super aga pa at maganda ang PL natin rn.

5 Bullying and being the bully is a legit combo for a fucked up adult life. It's pretty much like high school all day, every day.

As a batang 90s, for me, bullying and being the bully are part of the grind. Ganun talaga noon even for Gen X and Gen Z. Siguro for boomers, mga about war and post-war 'yung trauma.

The thing is that these triggers also fire you up and knock you out. Baka ako lang 'yan a. My rule of thumb remains the same: Bully ka ba or ikaw nambu-bully? Subukan mong 'wag magsimula lalo na't 'pag kaya mo namang palampasin. Also, 'pag sinimulan ka, siguruhin mong tatapusin mo at dudurugin mo ng pinong-pino. LOL.

I'll keep it here na lang muna because I'm dealing with a trigger na tinatawid natin na kinda recent. Hahahahahaha. Itatawid natin 'to ng pinong-pino with a baseball bat. Abangan! Hirap to choose peace pero we're trying our best to get there, kaso, wala e. Trigger is real na real. So far, the bright side is winning kahit g na g na g talaga ang dark side lalo kapag may any window ng shit na naganap. So, disengage na muna para less chances of pulling the trigger.

Lesson: 'Wag na 'wag ka na talagang magpalampas ng mga ungas kahit joke lang. ;-) Para ma-easyhan mo lang ang pinong-pinong pagtatapos na mala-baseball bat ang hagupit. And I, thank you.

6 Will you may turn back time, the truth is that you can never freeze time and the memories that come with it.

Syempre, feel na feel ko na Harry-Dumbledore kami ng nanay ko at tito kong mga Taurus. Eto na naman po. Sumisibat. However, I'm at the point of no return. WAW. Sana etong time na 'to e sa ngalan na ng pakak 14 going 40, ano po. Again, 'di ko sure if I'll reach 40, but, sige. Sa ngalan ng Europa at mga Harry Potter sets on the way to Diagon Alley and Platform 9 3/4, subukan natin.

There were so many delulu solulu times na gusto ko ng Time-Turner 'yung birthday wish ko. HAHAHAHA. Kasi feeling ko talaga, I can save my mom and my tito. 'Yung kaya ko pang itawid na mga senior citizens slaying life sila levels. Pero, mhie. Iyak-tawa ang ending. Kasi nga, their health conditions are slaying the trolls in the dungeons.

Matigas ulo ko e. Legit din. So, habang walang bakas most of my birthdays when they expired o kaya naman may malalang BTS mga pa-birthday surprises sa akin, gets ko na. Okay? Okay na! Hahahahaha. Tanggap ko na kahit ayoko pa rin 100% na: Time wasted beautifully is not wasted time.

Mom is time-rich. Tito is cash-rich. Both of them super OA na nonchalant ang takada. Passive-aggressive levels: Out of this cosmos. OCD: Wagas pero 'di halata unless may task na nilapag.

O 'di ba? Both ended their stories before they reached their 60s. Mga Taurus talaga cancer ng universe ko. LOL. And while I'm gonna be dealing with this twin loss na colossal damage talaga sa human nature ng noona n'yo, andito na tayo sa point na sige na nga. Sige na. Tama na pag-replay ng scenes to punish myself na ano pa bang dapat at hindi ko dapat ginawa? Finally? Sana! We're taking it one day at a time na ngayong H2 onwards. EMS.

Syempre, andun pa rin ako sa "almost is never (ever) enough" in Venti, pero, medyo may character arc development na tayo salamat sa pag-focus sa mga bagay na out of focus the past 12 years like: You can only do so much, so tumigil ka na diyan sa mga what if mo ng nakaraan, mhie. Malaki na bat wings and apron belly mo for those shit na poetic pero horrific. Lekat ka. Pak.

I can go on and on but, let's practice restraint. EME. Akala mo naman napaka legit ng mga lessons e 95% completion pa lang ang Expecto Patronum kasi nga, bobo tayo sa mga left and right and perspective. Eto 'yung time na gusto ko call a friend 'yung tagaggawa ko ng drafting plates ages ago na walang kapalit maliban sa kasungitan ko. HAHAHAHAHA. Pero big girl na tayo kaya isang leg na lang kulang and we're officially off to our next Lego build, baby.

[hollow-keys]

For the Doctor Who Asks: 2.0 game- All of the questions! (Or all of the ones that you feel like answering.)

Okay, alright!

1. Why do you love Doctor Who so much?

I'm a big fan of sci-fi in general honestly and always have been, especially if it has a lot of media to pick and choose from and lore to sink my teeth into. Doctor Who is specifically very interesting as a time travel show with a rotating cast and media in several different formats which lends itself to perpetual change and creativity and you can revisit prior eras without derailing the current one.

2. Which Doctor would you most want to travel with?

Two or Three. It's no secret that I love Two, Jamie and Zoe so it is ofc a dream to hang out with my faves. Three is kind and considerate of his companions but he's also the realest when people cross him so I think he'd be nice without being Too Nice yk. I made a joke post about this, but he wouldn't beg the Master to regenerate after tormenting his friends and the entire planet for a year (looking at you, Ten).

3. Which Doctor and Companions would be your perfect Tardis team?

My fave canon team is Two, Jamie and Zoe (Though Five, Tegan and Turlough is also great) but a non canon team? Uhhh. Two, Jamie and Tegan could be fun because she's a strong personality like Zoe but also a layperson like Jamie. I've already said Jamie and Leela in another post (sensing a pattern but he is my guy), Bill could be great on pretty much any team as a true everyperson because she truly is just Normal. Like, the other TARDIS team members are arguing and she just says something that seems obvious in retrospect but nobody else thought of. She can just cut through bullshit frfr.

4. Would you rather hang out with Jamie Mccrimmon or Sarah Jane Smith?

Jamie. Sorry Sarah Jane but he's my guy.

5. Classic Who or New Who?

Classic. NuWho takes itself so seriously sometimes like it's trying too hard to be Mature™ and distance itself from the "silly show for nerds" reputation the Classic series got. I appreciate the budget and the added emphasis on emotional arcs but watching the Doctor go through the same character arc again and again and make a speech about how much murder they've done and how ~morally ambiguous~ they are at least once per season is tiring. This is why later One era, Two, Three and Early Four is peak Doctor Who to me. They're just a bit of a tetchy guy travelling the universe and helping people.

6. Would you rather be a Dalek or a Cyberman?

Would I rather be shot or shot? Hmm. If I choose Cybermen can I be one of the good ones like Bill?

7. What's your favourite story from each Doctor 1-15

Okay, That's tough so I'll give a maximum of 3 per Doctor.

One: Planet of the Giants, The Celestial Toymaker and The War Machines

Two: The Evil of the Daleks, The Mind Robber and The War Games

Three: The Mind of Evil, Day of the Daleks and The Three Doctors

Four: The Arc in Space, The Sun Makers, and State of Decay

Five: Castrovalva, Earthshock and Frontios.

Currently on Six's era and not familiar with Seven or Eight.

I don't remember most of NuWho well enough to comment rn (planning on a rewatch once I'm done with Classic) but for Tenteen (who shouldn't be a separate Doctor to Ten but whatever) it's obviously Wild Blue Yonder and 15 only has two stories which are both kinda mid.

8. Do you think any creatures have been overused? If so, which ones?

Yes. Daleks, Cybermen and to a lesser extent, the Master. The Daleks are a one trick pony, and their one trick can be done better by other villains. The Cybermen are interesting but aren't always utilised effectively/are overused. The Master is more versatile as a three dimensional character and a Time Lord who can regenerate and therefore, change personality but is still sometimes overrelied on where re/introducing other three dimensional villains would have more variety.

9. Who is your favourite Doctor Who writer?

Umm, I don't really have favourite writers? I have stories I enjoy but I don't really have a specific writer where I'm like "This guy gets it!"

10. What is your favourite piece of music from Doctor Who?

And if I say the theme tune is that a cop out? It's just so good.

11-15. Are about Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures and I've never watched Torchwood and can't remember enough about SJA.

Thanks for asking!