#secret reunited

[chinghon]

“I was honestly so fucking happy to see him. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see him again,”

“To not only see him again but to see him thriving and in such an amazing space, mentally. He’s a very spiritual person in general and a very soulful person. And you can see that in his work. It comes through. He has such a depth to him. And I just was so happy to see that he is full of life and light, and he’s also hilarious. We laughed a lot.”

~~~~~~~~~~

On the day of the accident, Johansson was shooting the upcoming Apple movie “Project Artemis” opposite Channing Tatum when she woke up to the news that her “Avengers” co-star Renner was nearly killed in a snowplow accident in Tahoe while digging out his nephew’s car.

“I was very upset,” she remembers. But as Renner’s prognosis quickly improved, she and her fellow Avengers began joking with their convalescing cohort. “On the Avengers text chain, we’re like, ‘OK, you beat us all. That’s it. You won,’” she says. “That’s like real superhero stuff. It’s unbelievable.”

FROM: Variety

Secret reunited. 😉 And no photo out? I've just seen Evans...

Super glad renner's okay!

I really love their relationship!🥰

It's just like REAL LIFE CLINTASHA!!

Love those two 💜❤

[forgetme-eternally-blissfully]

“So, babysitting?”

Alberu follows after the delinquent. From the record the vice-principal gave him access to, Cale frequently drinks alcohol, he often gets himself into a lot of fights, and he barely passed his classes at the end of the grading period. The teachers never call on him in class, girls and boys avoid him alike, and he is- supposedly- completely intolerable.

Which is why Alberu Crossman, who’s only a little older yet infinitely more mature has been assigned by the principal (his father) to get the troublemaker under thumb. Cale's father is quite wealthy, actually, and since there isn't much known about the successor to the Henituse family... it'd be bad if he had to be expelled.

Cale scowled. “Yes, babysitting, your highness. Please, leave if you must,” He jeers at Alberu, but internally he thinks, 'No, really. Please leave.' Otherwise, he might get caught in the act.

Of not actually being Cale.

Roksu aims a sour expression at Alberu, who returns it with a more flowery one. Acting as his twin for the day had been easy enough, mainly because being trash is great!- until Alberu Crossman strolled into his lunch period and introduced himself.

He is even following him out of the school to his job. Well, this job is Roksu’s and not Cale’s, but because he can’t ditch work nor can he get glib-tongued Alberu off his tail-

Well shit.

Thankfully, the kids call him hyung. Except Raon, who calls him human. Hopefully Alberu doesn’t look into it too much. If everything goes right, Alberu Crossman will be Cale's problem to deal with tomorrow. As it should have been.

“I didn’t know you liked kids, Cale,” Alberu smiles charmingly, walking side by side with Roksu. “Can you introduce me?” Roksu struggles to not put on his own disarming smile out of spite, instead plastering on a classic Cale Sneer™. It fits on his face perfectly, like he’s playing a character in a play.

They enter the building and ‘Cale’ guides Alberu to a colorful playroom, decked out in toys and a fountain of running water as the centerpiece (A gift from his father, who is still upset that Roksu doesn't visit more often). There’s a tray of fruits and oatmeal on the small table in the corner of the room, except not a soul to be seen. Picking up a bowl of oatmeal and finding the ceramic to still be hot, Roksu almost smiles.

Alberu frowns. Where are the kids he's supposed to babysit?

Roksu tells the empty air, "Come on out."

Three children appear out of nowhere in front of them.

“Hyung!”

“Human! You’re back!”

“Hyung, nya.” On examines Alberu some more.

All of the kids had been revealed the moment that Roksu spoke, as Raon unveiled the invisibility on them.

Raon runs up and grabs Roksu’s hand, who places it on his head, rubbing the black hair comfortingly. “Mm.” Raon beams at the affection.

“Raon, On, Hong,” they each look up at him at the call of their names. “This is Alberu Crossman, he is doing a report on my trashy behavior. Don’t be rude."

All three children become hostile immediately. “He isn't trash!”

On observes Alberu with an intense glare. Raon shifts under Roksu’s hand, his deep blue eyes glinting with magic. Roksu positions him away from the older teen’s view. Raon grips onto Roksu’s pant leg with a vengeance. Hong stares openly, offensive.

Alberu smiles at them.

"I'm visiting with Cale Hyung for today, nice to meet you."

Hong gasps suddenly.

“He-!” On gives her brother a look, and he clamps his hands over his mouth. Alberu feels a deep curiosity, as if something isn’t quite as it seems.

Roksu sighs. It’s going to be a long hour.

At the midway point, Alberu has easily disarmed the children. They look fascinated at the magic he shows them, while Roksu can only rub a palm over Raon’s shoulder as a warning to keep his dragon magic under control. He's still just a child that wants to brag. Everything is going well.

Bang!

“Hey Roksu! How was-“ Cale bursts through the door, bright red hair equipped with a shit-eating grin, wearing clothes far less fancy than his usual. He tenses up, frozen in place when he spots Alberu on the floor, politely sitting "crisscross applesauce" with the children. Roksu narrows a withering glare at his twin.

“… Roksu?”

Alberu looks at ‘Cale,’ sitting next to him, the one he's spent the entire day with, who is trying to send what must be the real Cale into the sun with his eyes.

“Ha… ha?” Cale winces. Roksu wipes his expression from his face.

“Cale-hyung, run! That’s the human’s bad look!” Alberu’s eyes widen as he watches the confirmed real Cale bolt back into the hallway and out of the front door. Alberu whips his head back toward the stranger behind him, who is a perfect replica of the Cale who ran like Hell. Cale has an identical twin?? Since when? Why doesn't he go to school?

Roksu levels an emotionless gaze at Alberu. “Hello, your highness. Don’t mind me.”

Alberu can only watch in astonishment as this stranger walks out of the playroom, with a smooth and deadly gait as he hunts down his twin like a predator would to prey. He recalls the look 'Roksu' gave him and it sends a shiver down the principal’s son’s spine. That gaze held secrets.

Something about this stranger is even more interesting than the sudden appearance of a twin.

On walks up to him, sitting down in his lap and looking into his eyes. “Roksu-hyung will be back soon, nya!” Hong bounds over and sits next to his sister, grinning widely. Raon huffs and looks at the door. He wants his human to come back.

[prismatic-ink]

what if Lizzie didn't die?

nobody's ever fallen out of the void before, so no participant has ever come back to tell the tale of what that's like. the communicator says she's eliminated, and everyone shrugs and carries on, because for all they know, she is. Maybe there is a ground to hit down there, or some monster that swoops in and kills in a single blow.

but the thing is - there's no end in a void. it just continues forever. and ever. and ever. it's simple physics; a void/vacuum is a blank space, a complete and total absence of anything at all. there's nothing there that could have killed Lizzie because, by definition, nothing is in the void at all. not even time could have gotten her.

now imagine being condemned to a place (or as close to a place as the void can get) where you will never see anything again, hear anything again, falling falling falling, towards a ground that will never appear. a place where you can never look into anyone's eyes ever again. eventually, a green streak in brown hair is the only memory you have of another human existing that hasn't been lost to the millennia you've spent falling. this place where you will be the only thing that exists, the only thing that will exist, and the only thing that has ever existed, slipping through the cracks of time, eternally in solitude.

wouldn't that be a fitting place for a woman who spent all her time on solid ground alone, with almost nobody to care for her? falling so far out of the bounds of reality even the watchers don't know she's still alive? so beyond the reach of anybody that nobody will ever hear her calls for them to come to her, let alone heed them? and let's be honest, if they could hear her, would they even come?

and who knows, maybe when the next season rolls around, for some strange, inexplicable reason, the watchers can't find Lizzie. It's no trouble, they can construct a new Lizzie from her memory, even if it's one season behind. and maybe this time, Lizzie has better luck and lots of friends. she doesn't really get why Scar is so apologetic, or Joel so clingy, or even why she constantly feels like she's teetering on the edge of a precipice, about to fall. but that's just her being silly, right?

all the while the original Lizzie falls forever. forgotten again.

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

Those of you who haven't watched BigB's Secret Life episode I am begging you to do so.

He lied the entire episode, about everything, for absolutely no reason. It was insane, and hilarious

[fl0werf0rest]

life series scar and grian r crazy when i think abt them i fall to my knees…

they fall in love during 3rd life and that ends up so tragically that grian spends like 3 seasons pushing him away and feeling guilty and ultimately hurting scar more in double life

THEN when he starts to finally come to terms with it The Watchers force scar to isolate himself despite grian Finally reaching out.

anyways im gna go stare at my ceiling

[goodtoembrace]

I really hope we get to see Bianca on the show and she has as much of a close bond with Armand as she did on the books

[rhaemartell]

on starklings, for @xvalhallax, happy secret sansa!

[castielsprostate]

genuinely though if they continue venom without tom hardy, or without eddie brock, i will blow myself up and not in a good way

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[teecupangel]

Thoughts on Desmond/Aiden Pearce from watch dogs

Well, I happen to like Aiden so I am obligated to say that they would make a good pairing.

Although, Aiden’s path of revenge happened along the time period of Black Flag’s modern day setting (and we’re setting them in the same universe, fuck whatever Ubisoft says) so around 2013.

We can set their meeting as somewhere before 2012 then.

Perhaps during one of his hacking ‘sessions’ with Damien, they got a lot of money and they decided to celebrate in Bad Weathers. That’s where he and Desmond first met and they grew close.

In this one, Desmond and Aiden started dating before 2012 and Desmond became one of the few people Aiden loved.

Now, Aiden and Damien would attempt and fail to hack the Merlaut Hotel on Oct 2012 but… before that…

Desmond disappeared on September 1, 2012.

Maybe Aiden even sees it happening but is unable to save Desmond because Cross jumped on him and knocked him out, only leaving him alive because the order was ‘no bloodshed’.

When Aiden wakes up, the trail had run cold and Aiden spends the entire month trying to find him.

Finally getting a hit… in Italy.

Desmond’s phone was in Italy.

So, before Damien could even pull Aiden to helping him hack Merlaut Hotel…

Aiden had already booked a flight to Italy.

.

On Desmond’s side… having a very techie boyfriend has some upsides.

Like… knowing a trick or two to bypass certain surveillance and security programs embedded in computers and see the good stuffs.

So by the time that he had relived Altaïr’s fourth memory block, Desmond already knew about Project Siren and about Subject 16.

He also knows…

He needs his phone back.

While he can’t fully understand them (hell, the most he understands is that Aiden modified his phone to have apps that lets him hack to other devices connected to the internet or to any other type of connection with really easy UI. Desmond mainly uses it to force the lights to turn red so he can cross), he does know… that phone is the key he needs to get the fuck out of this place.

[thekuraning]

sometimes your boyfriend has a chicken and sometimes he needs to infodump about the chicken and the chicken’s power marble

[dophaminezest]

Petition to call Etho & Cleo's duo the 'Remaried duo' or 'Undivorced duo', Since in Limmited Life they were divorced parents 💀

[lurkingsomewhereinsecretshanghai]

phoebe: *being chosen the world's most annoying little sister*

alisa, whenever roma was in the vicinity: hah! watch ME.

[dyemelikeasunset]

I just rewatched Brandy's Cinderella with some friends on discord, and I sincerely think Asian American mascs don't talk enough about how much this movie meant for us culturally. Paolo Montalban's performance as Prince Christopher was everything to little me. The way he was dressed, presented to the audience, his SONGS. I don't think I had ever seen an Asian prince before then (outside of media created in Asian countries), and he was portrayed so handsomely, noble, gentlemanly, KIND, and even clumsy and wistful at times. He was so dreamy and so human and had so much presence in that film, and for him to be looked at with such adoring eyes from a princess as beautiful as Brandy-- who sang and acted her ASS off-- just meant so much to me as a kid. AND THEY HAD MULTIPLE ON-SCREEN KISSES!!! To this day, it's actually still so hard to find movies that hit that same chord for me as Cinderella did

[oopensandwich]

So much has changed, so much has stayed the same. He remembers raising these kids, but did they really grow up?

Hi, @akagami-no-kitsune, I’m your santa for @op-secret-santa 2022! I read your Rayleigh fic while looking around for ideas and I really loved it (stayed in my mind for weeks! Lovely writing) so I hope you don’t mind getting something Rayleigh inspired? Here he is, catching up with old subordintes that may have grown into tall, widely-known pirates of their own, but will never fully grow out of familliar hijinks. (At least they had the courtesy to bring him gifts).

I hope you have a lovely end of the year!! 

[somebluemelodies]

thinking about spiderbit and wondering how they’re going to be once they’ve ultimately reunited

and i don’t mean the state of their actual relationship, bc we all know it’s not gonna deteriorate or anything. q!Cellbit and q!Roier are so fucked up individually and so in love and dedicated to each other they’re gonna be fine in that morbidly wholesome sense

but like, some of their actual dynamics? is nothing going to change? are they gonna stick closer together than ever, not wanting to leave the other alone for longer than they have to?

the whole murder husbands thing? bc i don’t think we’ve completely lost that plot/arc, we just got robbed of having it sooner rather than later, rip. bc they both despised the feds before, but look at what’s happened since their conversation right before purgatory started. now they’ve both been taken, tortured by cucurucho. now they have a better reason than ever to be violent. are they going to plan? is it gonna be on sight?

(and thinking about those bloody paw prints on the teaser, and the whole polar bear syndrome that affects the workers, the lore potential with spiderbit is astronomical)

either way, i just know shit’s gonna hit different O_o trying to prepare for at least one category 100 spiderbit moment that will emotionally wreck all of us