#showing that the characters and the actors they’re played by could always return

[stripesysheaven]

finally finished stargirl, crying definitely very emotionally unwell right now

[blackreaderfics]

🎃Wildcard | Jason Todd x Reader🎃

↳ Pairing : TitansDCverse!Jason Todd x Virgin!Reader

↳ Rating : E (18+ minors dni‼️)

↳ Summary : A round of Cards Against Humanity gets a little wild during “Game Night” at Titans Tower

↳ W.C : ~3.4k

↳ A/N : welcome to spooky season. this is my first ever fic for kinktober🧡👻 idk if this is controversial buuut I love that actor’s portrayal of Jason🫣

↳ Tags + Warnings: dubcon elements, oral (male receiving), face-fucking, orgy, stripping, degradation (“slut”), coercion, alcohol consumption (beer), teabagging, bullyish!jason x shyish!reader, reader wears glasses, reader is a virgin, jason is kinda a dickhead lol, side characters (rachel, rose, gar, and conner) are there, for sake of convenience they’re all 21+

Part 2

“Oh come on,” Jason groaned exasperatedly as you set your glasses on the coffee table. “Glasses don’t fucking count!”

After a successful mission and saving the world for the hundredth time, the Titans decided to unwind in the best way they knew how: a night in with board games and beer.

As usual, Jason had tried to make the games a little bit more exciting by adding a “fun twist”. Jenga became a drinking game; drink if you make the tower fall. Uno had become “draw or dare”, you could choose to draw four cards or get off scot-free by doing a dare. 

The “grownups” of the team—Dick, Kory, Hank, and Dawn— had excused themselves to do “grownup things” leaving you and the remaining group of young adults in the living room. Currently, you were now in the middle of another particularly heated game of Cards Against Humanity, the interesting twist being the person with the best card could choose for someone to strip an article of clothing.

Jason had been targeting you the whole night; teasing you for the baggy clothes you always wore. Purposely, just to annoy him, you’d only taken off your accessories and your zip-up hoodie.

Admittedly the clothes you wore didn’t really fit you right. You’d opted to wear oversized sweaters over fitted shirts, and unflattering pants over a more hip-hugging and slimming fit. Before you became a Titan, you were shyer than you were now. It had only been recently when you started to come out of your shell and get closer to your teammates. 

“Be for real. Glasses do so count!” You retorted. You had all but discarded your outer layers and were now left in pants and a tank top. You could take up a few turns with your socks and shoes if you needed to.

“Why do you guys wear so many layers?” Gar piped up. All he had on were his boxers and a single sock. Conner, who was sitting next to him, was equally fucked, only, with no socks as a buffer.

“Because we play idiotic games like this,” Rachel remarked dryly while drawing an extra card from the pile.

You and Rachel were the only ones currently safe from any unnecessary exposure. Rachel did wear a lot of layers, and despite having lost multiple rounds, still looked very much clothed. Rose sat far off on the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal looking on with about as much judgment as a girl with one working eye could. 

“You know, offer still stands. You can still join us, Rose,” Jason addressed the grey-haired, eye-patch-wearing girl without looking up from the cards in his hands.

“Hard pass. I’d rather watch you losers get destroyed.” She then unceremoniously returned to munching on her cornflakes.

Your gaze settled on Jason who’d shed his leather jacket and still remained in a plain black tee and jeans. He was unfairly attractive in the most basic of clothes. And though you hated his playground jibes and dirty humor, you couldn’t help but develop a little bit of a crush on the messy-haired boy. When his eyes caught yours, you could see the wheels in his brain practically turning as his smirk grew wider.

“How about…” He started slowly, “Boys versus girls. If you guys win, then we’ll get naked. If we win, you guys get naked.”

Of course he would suggest that, you thought to yourself glumly. The thought of showing your naked body to your crush didn’t excite you, it only made you more nervous.

“You’re just saying that ‘cuz you’re losing,” you said, masking your anxiety with a chug of your beer, “Conner’s literally only got his underwear left.” 

Conner, hearing his name, suddenly perked up. “For the record, I have x-ray vision. I can already see everything anywa—” Gar nudged him in the ribs to keep him from talking.

Jason shook his head. “It’s no fun if we already know who’s gonna win. Let’s vote on it then. Who here agrees to a wildcard match?” He raised his hand, and predictably the two other boys followed suit. “And who wants to play the way we’ve been playing; the boring virgin Y/N way?” He taunted cheekily.

You felt your cheeks warm again. He was never letting you live down the fact that you had confessed you were still a virgin during a past game of “Never Have I Ever”. You raised your hand and looked around for support. “Rachel,” you hissed desperately when you found she had not raised her hand. 

“Seriously? They suck at this game. It’s not like they’re gonna suddenly win out of nowhere," Rachel whispered back.

“In that case, I’ll play too,” Rose hopped off the counter and plopped on the couch next to you. 

“So nice of you to finally join us,” Jason crooned. “I’ll let you do the honors.” He passed her the deck he’d been shuffling for her to deal and sat back. 

After Rose had dealt all the cards, you looked at your hand. The deck you were playing with was a custom-made deck that Dick had ordered to round out the Tower’s impressive board game collection.

As a collective, you all pooled in ideas resulting in a deck of cards ranging from the peculiar to the mundane; from “taking shots off Nightwing’s ass”; to “Batman’s Worst Nightmare”; to names of each of your superhero aliases including all of the Justice League. For some reason, however, all the cards in your current hand were names.

“Make me laugh,” Rose ordered primly as she set down her card and folded her arms in expectation. It read: 

“If I could fuck anyone right now, I would fuck ______”

“Damn,” Rachel sounded impressed, “that’s certainly one way to start a round.”

Gar immediately threw his card down, followed by Rachel, then Jason. Only Conner and you were left.

“Time’s ticking Y/N,” Jason tapped a nonexistent watch on his wrist. Usually you would fire a comeback at him, but this time you could only frown as you chose your safest option and slid it tentatively over to the pile in the middle. 

“Time’s up, Conner,” Rose said as she gathered the cards. He passed it over face down, obviously not very happy about his choice. 

“Okay, we have a ‘Wonder Woman’,  a ‘Poison Ivy’….” She glanced around the room to see if anyone would give themselves away. “A ‘Robin’—wait...” She barked out a laugh. “I can’t not address this. I pick this one. Who fucking put down Robin?”

The room erupted into fits of laughter rivaling a high school classroom as they watched you sigh and bashfully raise your hand. 

“Oh, would you now?” Jason raised a curious eyebrow at you. 

“I-in my defense, there’s more than one Robin,” you sputtered pitifully before he could tease you further. You watched him stand up and begin to raise his shirt, giving you an eyeful of v-line and toned midriff. “W-what are you doing! I didn’t pick you!” 

Despite being only in a tank top, you felt yourself getting hot. Gar and Conner had equally toned bodies, but they weren’t affecting you the way Jason had been. Just to spite you, he kept his eyes on yours as he raised his shirt as suggestively as possible, bringing it up over his head and tossing it in a pile on his leather jacket.

“Just giving the person who wants to ‘fuck me right now’ a little preview.” He said, smile smug like he was doing charity for letting you see his 6-pack. 

Yea, real fucking Mother Theresa.

“Well, too bad I can barely see it.” You waved a hand in front of your face, “No glasses remember?”

“Come sit on my lap, mama, I’ll give you a closer look.” Jason plopped back on the sofa, abs flexing as he reclined with his legs spread wide, inviting you to sit with a pat on his thigh and a wicked smirk to match.

“Ugh, gross,” Rose made a face but appeared to be humored by Jason’s antics. 

“Anyway,” you interrupted desperately trying to change the subject. “Since I won, technically that means the girls won too. Rules are rules.” 

You had barely even finished your sentence when the boys immediately moved to take off their clothes. Your mouth went dry as they sat nonchalantly before you now, cocks resting against their stomachs.

In any other situation, you’d probably find this extremely inappropriate. They were your teammates. Sure, you lived together and had walked in on the occasional member changing or just getting out of the shower, but you were a bit buzzed off of the booze already, and this was different— you couldn’t help but stare.

“So uh…what now?” Gar’s nervous laugh broke the silence and everyone turned towards him; he blushed under the newfound attention.

“New game?” Conner suggested. He appeared to be just as clueless as Gar but with less of the blushing.

Rose looked over at you and Rachel for guidance, but seeing as neither of you knew how to react, the grey-haired girl merely shrugged back at the boys. “I’m down.”

“Ok, new game,” Jason agreed. “If you can make all of us cum in 10 minutes then the girls can get TV remote control privileges for the rest of the year.”

“All of you including Conner?” You asked brow raised, “He’s a super, that’s not fair.”

“What? It’s not like he has ‘super cum control’ too.”

“Actually, yea I—”

“Don’t answer that,” Jason cut in, annoyed. “Ok fine, I’ll give a handicap. If you can make one of us cum in 5 minutes untouched then the TV’s all yours.”

“Do you think we’re stupid, Todd?” Rachel narrowed her eyes at him. 

“Well…” He paused and tapped a finger to his chin to consider Rachel’s rhetorical question, flinching playfully when she raised her fist to jab in his direction. “Ok ok, but 5 minutes is a long time!”

“I meant the untouched part.”

“Your handicap is you can’t touch us, and our handicap is Logan.” He jabbed a thumb to gesture at Gar who looked like he was meditating to calm himself down. “He’ll probably reach the big ‘O’ before he reaches nirvana.”

“Deal, but if it’s gonna be like that then let’s raise the stakes a little.” Rose countered. “Not just remote control privileges. We get control privileges. Over you guys. If we win, you have to do whatever we say for the rest of the year.”

Jason fished his phone out from the pocket of his jacket and set the timer for 5 minutes. “And if we win, the same for us too.” He started the timer and sat back.

You, Rachel, and Rose made a beeline for Gar, who’d still had his eyes squeezed closed in the middle of the sofa.

“Fuckin’ hell, I should’ve known you’d try ‘n cheat,” Jason grumbled and stopped the timer. “No double or triple-teaming. One to one only and I get to choose the pairs.”

“And why should you be the one to choose that?” You turned toward him, trying (and failing) not to look at his dick. It was long and thick, with a slight curve and a pretty pink color at the tip.

“‘Cuz you wanna fuck me so bad,” he simpered, an impish grin playing on his lips.

“Oh god,” You rolled your eyes.

“Let him choose,” Rose challenged unfazed at Jason’s constant goalpost moving. “Whatever strategy he thinks he has isn’t gonna work.”

Jason ignored her and carried on with making the pairs. “Rachel and Conner, Rose and Gar.” He pointed directly at you, “You and me.”

Upon his directions, the three of you moved to stand in front of your now-designated partners. Finally satisfied, Jason set the timer again and pressed start. Almost immediately Rachel and Rose set to work on their mission, stripping their clothes down to their underwear. You tentatively followed suit, shimmying out of your jeans and kicking them aside. Jason eyed you, fully reclined in his seat with his hands comfortably behind his head. 

“Well, this is gonna be easier than I thought,” He yawned, looking as nonchalant as ever. 

“I doubt your porn-addled brain has ever seen a real woman before, Jason.” The taunts you directed at him should’ve sounded more confident, but instead were dulled by your nervous fidgeting at the hem of your shirt. 

This was the first time you’d ever been half-naked in front of a boy. And not just any boy, but a boy you liked. But the way he always seemed to tease you and make sexually insensitive jokes at your expense made you anxious. It wasn’t overt bullying, but the little comments he would sneak here and there were beginning to eat at you. If you showed him any more of your body, would he make fun of you even more?

“Trust me, I’ve seen plenty,” He assured, “But how ‘bout you jog my memory and demonstrate?” His gaze moved down your chest and back up to your eyes, daring you to take it off. 

You fidgeted again under his stare, feeling a sensation growing in the pit of your stomach. It was a mix of anxiety, embarrassment, and something else you could quite place. When you glanced over to the other pairs, Rachel had already taken her top off and Rose was in the middle of a strip tease. 

“Four minutes,” Jason announced, with a bored expression. 

Feeling a sense of urgency, you pulled off your tank top, exposing your lacy bra. When his dick twitched, both your eyes shifted to the hardening situation in his lap. You could see him fighting the urge to touch himself now, and that gave you a burst of confidence. 

Rachel and Rose were now in between Gar and Conner’s legs, not touching them, but teasing them by blowing hot air on their cocks. You followed suit, with only three minutes left you had to do something. After all, forfeiting your will to the whims of three boys with raging hormones didn’t seem like a fun idea, especially since you knew how playfully vindictive they could get. They’d probably try and make you human furniture or whatever other sick and twisted thing they could think of. You shuddered at the thought of the kind of torture they could come up with.

You sank to your knees and sat between Jason’s legs. You watched him involuntarily swallow and sit up straighter, pulling his hands down from his head to steady himself and clutch at the couch cushion beneath him. 

“Three minutes,” Jason glanced at his phone, but he wasn’t as confident as he was before. If anything, he seemed much more distracted by your presence at his feet.

Satisfied with his change in demeanor, you only smiled at him, fluttering your lashes at him as you brought your mouth closer to his balls. You opened your mouth and exhaled softly.

He hastily brought a hand to his cock—beads of precum already spilling from its tip—and made minute motions with the pad of his thumb to calm himself down. His chest raised with shallow breaths as he looked down at you now, eyes heavily lidded with lust and wanting. 

“Fuck it—” He hissed and without warning, reached his other hand around the back of your head, pushing your nose into his balls as he began to jerk off. Your eyes widened, taken by surprise at his sudden actions.

From where you were kneeling you could already see Rachel and Rose giving their partners full-on blowjobs, completely forgetting the game they had agreed to earlier. The sensation in your stomach moved down to your clothed sex, and you could feel a tingling sensation as he rubbed your face obscenely against his balls, moaning with need.

“Open your mouth —oh fuck— please.” His voice sounded strangled as he held you at the base of his cock, masturbating desperately to chase his release.

You obliged his request, opening up and taking his balls into your mouth, looking up at him as you felt his grip on the nape of your neck tighten. He was clearly getting off from the sight of you beneath him, massaging thoroughly with the flat of your tongue. He brought your head back and, with his other hand, held his cock by the base. 

He groaned again when he saw your lips now glossy with spit. “Open f’me again, baby?” he asked despite the fact that the tip of his cock was already being pressed to your lips. Your cheeks warmed as he let out a moaning “fuuuck” when you opened your mouth again to allow him inside. He pushed your head down deeper to take all of him in, and your eyes began to water as the tip of his cock grazed the back of your throat. 

“You don’t know how fucking pretty you look with my cock in your mouth, Y/N,” he murmured, releasing the pressure off your head for you to catch your breath. He let out a short laugh as if your gasping for air was funny to him.

“Had no idea you were such a fucking slut under all those clothes. How’re you a virgin when you’re takin’ my cock this good, hm?” His voice was gentle and soft but borderline condescending as he spoke. 

Jason brushed away a tear from your eye and leaned over to bring you into an open-mouthed and sloppy kiss, tasting himself on your tongue. A string of saliva connected at both of your lips when you separated. 

“Gonna fuck that pretty little mouth of yours. Keep it open,” He instructed. Within seconds he was guiding your head back on his cock, bucking up into your mouth and against your throat. You made a garbled sound, which only seemed to make him thrust harder. 

“Oh fu— that’s so fuckin’ good, baby keep doin’ that,” he moaned, though you weren’t doing much except letting your head loll up and down like a brainless doll with the support of his hand at the back of your neck. 

The living room was now filled with the pleasured moans of the three boys and the gagging ‘gluck gluck’ sounds of the three girls as each of them fucked into your mouths, getting off on the lewdly slick sounds of their cocks pistoning in and out in a relentless rhythm. Your mouths became just another hole for them to fuck.

“Shit—” His hips stuttered; he was close. He brought both hands to your head pushing it down so your nose pressed against his base. “You know how to swallow right, baby?” He grunted. 

You couldn’t respond with words readily—your nose was plugged and his cock clogged your windpipe— instead, your throat closed over his tip, as if a Pavlovian response to his question. He groaned and not shortly after, you felt his hot cum shooting down your throat. 

When his softening cock finally left your mouth, you swallowed his sticky release as best as you could with your punished throat. He swiped some of the cum the had dribbled down your lips with his thumb and pushed it past your lips, making you suck it. 

“You’re so fucking hot,” he said breathlessly as he watched you suck his thumb, mesmerized by the way your eyes locked on him. A loud moan from Gar interrupted, making both you and Jason tear your eyes off each other. The green-haired boy was currently stroking his cum onto Rose’s waiting tongue. About a minute later, Conner came too. 

It was only then that you realized that Jason had come the fastest; faster than the “handicap” he’d claimed Gar to be.

“So…I’m guessing that means we won?” Rachel had already started pulling her clothes back on. Since she started dressing, everyone else mundanely followed suit. 

Jason tugged his jeans back on, “Sure. Fine. Whatever, we’re all yours for the next three months,” he sounded less than enthused but still took the time to find your discarded tank top and jeans and toss them over to you as well.

Rose threw her shirt back on and adjusted her eyepatch. “Girls, what are we thinking? Anything we want our new servants to do for us?”

“Hmm…” You tapped your chin in mock thought, giving Jason a sly look that could give one of his own cheeky smirks a run for its money. “Oh, I‘ve got a few ideas.”

©️ blackreaderfics // dividers by cafekitsune & poison-aesthetics

[cellarspider]

7/30 germs.

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We return to a movie that disrespects the archaeological importance of roads, Prometheus.

I am still not over that. I will never be over that.

This time, content warnings for continuing frat boy archaeology, cringeful application of racist terms to lily-white androids, me screeching about site contamination some more, and Apollo’s dodgeball striking this movie with a glancing blow about masking.

So, back in the theater in 2012, I had already lost sympathy for the cast. They were being set up as stock horror movie characters, they were doing their jobs in a way with a certain flair for the incompetent.

And one of them, I suspect, the movie intends to make into a “flawed but you feel for him” kind of guy. Or, I hope they intended to make him “the guy in the slasher movie who you hate and want to see die”. That’s Holloway, one of the two archaeologists. He’s robot racist.

Like, seriously robot racist. The whole crew is, David literally gets referred to as “boy” here, which isn’t so much a dogwhistle as a tornado siren. No wonder David is quietly starting to show his disdain for the human crew.

“They're making you guys pretty close [to human now], huh?”

“Not too close, I hope.”

One of the few themes the movie handles halfway competently is the parallel between the humans stumbling all over themselves as they rush to go meet their makers, while David is already experiencing the disappointment of actually meeting his, and finding out they’re a bunch of clueless assholes. Are we supposed to believe the same of the Engineers? I don’t know. They definitely think of humans as lesser, though. More to come on that later.

Because right now, an expedition is barrelling toward the alien structure–again, driving all over the FCKING ALIEN ROAD–and they’re doing it with only six hours of daylight left, because Holloway literally says “It's Christmas [...] and I want to open my presents.”

I cannot communicate how heinous this character felt. The actor did a perfectly fine job playing him, but if Charlie Holloway was real, his name would be said with the same venom as that of the man pictured below: Heinrich Schliemann, the man who found the real, actual city of Troy, and immediately dynamited a trench through the royal palace, destroying who knows how many artifacts from the period the Iliad was based off of. Yes, I picked out the most assholish-looking photo of him I could find on purpose.

Also, Holloway’s an anti-masker, apparently.

I’m going to step back for just one second and list the one practical, movie budget reason why characters might take their helmets off. The costume designers did an admirable job coming up with something that fits the general requirement of a helmet in major studio releases, prior to The Mandalorian: make the actor’s faces completely visible, because without actors with a strong sense of physical presence and voice acting, you’ll lose connection with the audience.

They did a great job with that. Unfortunately, shiny helmets are a bastard to digitally edit film crew out of. 

It’s not impossible to place lights and crew so that the audience won’t notice them. Alien certainly pulled it off. Clear plastic elements in helmets also mean other logistical challenges, though: fogging being the main one. This, and cooking your actors in a fishbowl under studio lights.

Both problems can be simultaneously combated by installing A/C fans within the helmets, but because these helmets are entirely clear, you’re limited to hiding them down near the neck, and anybody who’s done similar for a cosplay or suit will know that it’s potentially noisy and not always effective. You can actually see condensate on the helmets in the movie, though whether that’s from the actor’s breath or a deliberate choice, I don’t know.

All this adds up to increased time resetting actors (i.e. cleaning sweat off of them without disrupting their makeup), more exhaustion from said actors, and the worry that the highest-paid, plot-critical actors may decide they don’t want to do a sequel if the shooting experience is too physically unhealthy.

And then there’s also more time spent carefully arranging crew and lights to hide their reflections, or more time making some poor VFX artist erase a transparent, curved reflection from frame and replace it with something else, or make the actors more comfortable by adding the glass in later with CGI, at the potential loss of some realism. The average modern movie studio would choose one of these VFX-driven options and demand it done in a week, which is why VFX artists need to unionize.

So. I understand at least a few logistical reasons why you don’t tend to make actors wear helmets for too many shooting days. But it has to be balanced with the story. It has to feel believable. It has to fit the story. It has to not make your characters look like mud-witted morons.

As soon as they find liquid water and the oh-so-deadly CO2 levels start to drop, Holloway takes his helmet off.

“Don't be an idiot.”

“Don't be a skeptic.”

Flames on the side of my goddamn face.

Now, this is the moment a lot of people lost sympathy for the human characters, even back in 2012. It was a dumbass idea even then, in the pre-’rona years. Sadly, Millburn the biologist isn’t written smart enough to punch Holloway in the nuts over even thinking of doing this, because we have two problems with what Holloway’s doing here: Biology, and biology.

First, biology.

(https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/13-viruses-virus-3d-model/1071200)

Obviously, they don’t know if anything’s in the air. He could find out that humans are deathly allergic to alien dust mites. He could have just caught himself a case of space covid, which he and the lemmings that follow him can then transmit to the entire crew if he’s not kept in quarantine. They can sterilize the sealed suits, but they can’t sterilize the inside of his lungs. Yet.

Second, biology. 

Specifically, Earth biology. Do you know how carefully modern space agencies sterilize anything that’s headed for Mars, or anywhere else that might have a biosphere of its own? A lot! They sterilize everything a lot! Because microbes are hardy little bastards. We’ve never found extraterrestrial life, only precursor molecules that show the capacity for life to develop in other places. How are you going to verify you’ve found alien life, or even those precursors, if you can’t prove that your samples are uncontaminated? What happens if microbes from Earth manage to survive the trip and establish a foothold somewhere? What if they destroy native life?

This movie’s characters treat this with only a fraction of the gravitas that the cinematography does, which is part of why this remains so jarring throughout. The practical sets, the art direction, and the camerawork are all excellent. The editing continues to do its best, though it almost feels like things were cut very tight through this to speed things along and to give more time, unfortunately, to what the characters are doing. 

their crimes against my sanity are not done yet

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As a side note, rounding up some discussion from a previous entry: The most excellent artist @noordzee pointed out that the clashing artistic style of the moon and stars slapped onto the carving of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I. In the previous post, I focused on the link between that carving and its use in ancient aliens conspiracy theories. But let's dig a bit into actual Maya iconography around celestial bodies instead.

Now, I am not an expert on Classical Maya stuff. Not in the slightest. And there is a lot of information on their art that is linguistically inaccessible to me, as a non-Spanish speaker. But out of the Maya art and writing that survived the book-burning conquistadors, we have some iconography for the moon and stars, and they don’t look like what’s in the movie.

I wasn’t able to find any specific pieces of art that contained stars, but I did find the glyph for star, ek’. 

I was only able to find depictions of a crescent moon in the context of the moon goddess, where she tends to be sitting on the crescent like a chair, or one part of it is shown behind her, almost like a tail (though I can’t be certain whether that’s due to chipped paint).

The moon by itself was somewhat harder to find. I couldn’t find any Maya depictions of it with my limited poking around of the spanish internet, but I did find a (much later) Mixtec depiction of the moon, complete with a lunar rabbit! Much like East Asian cultures, the darker markings on the moon are culturally interpreted as a rabbit shape.

Thanks again to nordzee for pointing out the dissonant art style, because the real mesoamerican art on this subject is phenomenal.

Next time, the movie will hurt me more, so if anybody else has fun facts to share or details to point out. PLEASE. Ease my pain.

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Alt text citations:

None this time. Many ramblings, though.

[zukosdualdao]

stage kiss

zutara month, day 8: actors au, @zutaramonth

summary: katara just needs to earn enough to make passage to the northern water tribe, so she begins working as a seamstress for an acting troupe in ba sing se. fine enough work in theory, until the leading actress is out sick and katara is asked to step into the role.

other notes: au in which the avatar never returns, and the war is still going on. katara is 16 and just left home, zuko is 18 and let go of his search for the avatar two years ago.

Katara doesn’t believe this is happening.

Well, alright, she mostly does, but. Come on.

All she’d wanted when she came here was to find work that let her earn enough to book passage to the Northern Water Tribe. She had known it would be difficult—her own tribe hadn’t had contact with them in many years, for much longer than she’d been alive—but she hadn’t expected there would be no official transport there when she got to Ba Sing Se. 

It had quickly become apparent that her options were to either book passage through a sketchy crowd of characters—sketchy mainly in that she didn’t like the way they looked her up and down, so she’d have to decide which ones she ‘trusted’ the most—or to… purchase a ship herself. And get a crew. And probably learn how to steer it.

She’s still figuring it out.

In any case, she had to earn one way or another, so she was relieved to find the acting troupe when she did, as the director seemed eager for a seamstress right away. Apparently, the last one had quit with barely a word.

Guiltily, Katara does not mention her plans to leave as soon as she has enough money to make passage.

It goes well for several weeks. A lot of the troupe is friendly, if a bit rowdy for her tastes—one earthbending boy has broken so many props she doesn’t know how he hasn’t been fired for it yet—but she’s met some really wonderful people too. Some of the girls her age have taken to talking to her about things like boys and far-off places they’d like to see and makeup and fights with their families, and it makes Katara feel a little choked up. She’d had Gran Gran, of course, and Sokka, and all the little kids she adored and the elders she respected, but she’d never really had someone who was a friend her own age.

The one person she hasn’t made much headway with is a boy a tall boy with dark hair and a scar that clearly came from a burn over his left eye. She’d come to understand quickly that most of the war refugees were blocked off in the lower ring, and they’re in a sort of in-between state, where artisans and food stallers live—it all makes her feel sick to her stomach if she thought about it too hard—but she can’t help but wonder if that’s how he got it. 

Zuko, the girls tell Katara his name is. He’s quiet and snappish and glares a lot, only seeming to come alive, to become softer, in those moments on stage when he’s being someone else.

Katara finds herself a little fascinated, despite herself, but it’s nothing to pay any mind to. In the weeks ahead, she’s just got to focus on her work.

It goes well. Until it doesn’t.

“Xiu Bao has fallen ill,” the director says as he implores Katara to take the lead’s place. “We would be ever-indebted to you.”

“But I’m not an actress!” Katara exclaims, feeling her heartbeat grow ever faster.

All she’d wanted was to learn waterbending. Now, she’s being asked to join an acting troupe. Temporarily. But still.

“It’s no matter,” he says. “You’ve seen the play many times over by now—and you don’t have to say the lines exactly,” he adds, a bit urgently. It is, after all, only a few hours until the show is meant to begin. “Just… to the best of your memory.”

Katara purses her lips. She’s not an actress, but her storytelling was well-regarded in a way that always made her proud, if a little squirmy—just like your mother, the elders in her village used to say—so maybe that could translate.

“And I’ll be paid?” she asks.

“Of course,” he assures her. “Yes—thank you, Katara,” he adds, turning heel before she can point out that she hasn’t technically agreed yet. 

Probably smart of him.

When she finds herself on stage that evening, made up and in Earth Kingdom robes, she tries to tell herself it’s just like telling a story. Mostly, it works. She remembers the lines surprisingly well.

Something else surprises her, too—the way it barely feels like acting as she stands across from Zuko. His role is still quiet, surly, a romantic lead of few words, but there’s a charm to him, an openness, and she doesn’t know where she possibly draws it from.

It’s near the end of the thing when she remembers with sudden clarity—they’re supposed to kiss here. 

How did she find herself in this situation?

When he strides toward her, placing his hands on her waist, Katara’s breath stutters, and that… that isn't acting.

He looks at her searchingly for a moment—does the scene always take this long?—and when she gives a slight nod of her head, he leans forward. Their lips meet, and it feels like the world around them just… stops. His lips are soft and gentle against her own, and from this close, Katara can tell he smells of firewood and cinnamon. 

When he pulls back, they rest their foreheads together. Katara breathes in shakily. Zuko is supposed to have a line, Katara’s pretty sure, but he's looking at her with a swell of emotion. The director clears his throat from the front row, and it's only then that Zuko remembers this fact as well.

Katara smiles to herself a little as the scene goes on. Maybe acting wouldn't be such a bad way to earn her keep and save for her travels while she stays here in Ba Sing Se.

[death-himself]

ok episode 6 thoughts

decent episode, doesn't top episodes 4 or 5 for me but it was good

kronos being portrayed by his headmaster is an interesting choice

the iris message is so much blurrier than I always imagined i'm crying

144p iris message you would think it would be clearer but nope that's so funny to me

with how involved rick is with the show that means that's always what he imagined iris messaging looking like I can't iris messaging is ruined for me

we didn’t get percy talking to the zebra T-T it’s fine tho i forgot that even happened in the book until i checked after watching

their whole conversation while watching the animals escape i love them

their chemistry is perfect in this episode

THE LOTUS CASINO HAS A ROLLER COASTER WHAT

i get people wanted poker face, but the dua lipa song is perfect, it’s like a slightly more modern version

i don’t know fashion throughout the centuries so i can’t really say anything about the costume designs, but i kinda wish there were more obviously out of place outfits in the lotus

is augustus mentioned at all in the books? i don’t remember a satyr named augustus so i guess he was made just for the tv series?

luring grover in with pan is a cool change

grover slowly losing his memory was played pretty well

i keep getting impressed by how good these kids are as actors

i honestly don’t know why people hate on lin manuel miranda so much, i think he made for a pretty good hermes this episode

but also the way they’re portraying hermes feels a little bit off?? i don’t really know how but something didn’t feel right about his character

i do feel like he’s the most “human” out of the gods introduced so far, and i think that came through pretty well

“to be so close to someone you love, knowing neither of you has any choice but to keep hurting each other?” that line is just-

as someone with a really complicated relationship with my dad that line just hurt goddamn

the flashback percy had??? i feel like that line doesn’t 100% relate to percy and sally’s relationship, but i see how that’d be how percy would feel

unless i’m dumb and that was referencing his relationship with poseidon lol

ok the end of their talk with hermes i wanna talk about that a bit

parenting sometimes being watching your kid struggle and being powerless to stop it: completely true

“we’re all just doing the best we can” now that’s some godly bullshit

the difference between that first quote and gods being parents is that they’re literally capable of doing anything

they could be more present in their kids lives, they just CHOOSE not to, that’s how it works in the books

sure it’s coming from a place where he thinks interacting will only make things worse but???

i can’t articulate my thoughts, i liked this scene tho, my thoughts on hermes are mixed as they should be

ANNABETH STEALING HERMES’S KEYS

“i’m multi-talented” I LOVE HER

percy forgetting grover felt so unsettling to me

hermes driving a taxi so real

percy trying to drive, i’m not gonna lie, that scene went on a little too long for me, but i was laughing the whole time so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ok percy getting 4 pearls instead of 3??? idk why but that change pissed me off

i paused to get out the book, and i guess it makes more sense then hades just deciding to return her

but at the same time there’s the line in the prophecy, he’s supposed to leave her in the underworld for that part of the prophecy

are they just going to end up accidentally breaking one of the pearls or trading it or something? that’s the only way i can see that still working out

i feel like these episode reviews always turn out sounding more negative than positive, but i swear i’m enjoying the hell out of this series, i just have trouble articulating joy lol

[autodach64]

Meet You at the Blossom

Is this a good drama, objectively? No. Did I have a great time regardless? Hell yes!

Summary from Mydramalist: Jin Xiaobao, the son of the wealthiest man in the Jiangnan region, falls in love with icy, white-clothed beauty Huai’en due to an unexpected meeting. This young woman he sees as his future wife, however, seems to have aroused a lot of enmity. When he comes to the rescue of an injured Huai’en, who's tainted by an aphrodisiac, the true identity of this beauty is revealed.

Haphazard notes and thoughts, crossposted from my Dreamwidth:

This drama is actual BL, thanks to being produced in Thailand! By my standards, it’s very tame – there’s kisses and fade-to-black sex scenes (not in that order, lol) – but the fact that it’s explicitly gay is very refreshing for a Chinese drama.

The main couple: Bisexual King Jin Xiaobao is a delightfully air-headed and well-meaning person. He lives a pampered lifestyle with simple aspirations - his main goal in life seems to be spending time with various beauties, but he does have a sense of duty/chivalry. Not used to censoring himself, he’s very earnest and speaks his mind openly. Zongzheng Huai’en is Jin Xiaobao’s foil: Cunning and manipulative, he hides his thoughts and intentions and doesn’t mind underhanded tactics. He’s also an unhinged maniac. His actor has great control of his facial expressions (which is as good as the acting here gets). Initially, Huai’en uses Xiaobao to achieve his own ends, but we all know how these things go, hehe. He falls for Xiaobao entirely against his will, but he falls hard. Xiaobao is just immediately smitten. I kinda wish there was just a little more complexity to it from his side as well, but they’re cute. Xiaoboao does get a simple “growing up” personal arc, though.

The supporting characters are fun, too. Both of the mains have two retainers each, their personalities befitting their masters’. The grumpy miracle doctor gets to be a side pairing with one of them. Xiaobao’s parents are also important characters, and ended up more complex than I initially thought.

The show’s tone is light and goofy. It’s not quite a parody, but pokes fun at and plays with lots of tropes. The underlying story could have worked with a more serious execution as well (if you add some subtlety and polish), which is always a good sign. Xiaobao’s developing maturity arc has some genuinely good moments. Once he has grown, he cannot go back, and he knows this. He refuses to return to the person he used to be, even when it would be convenient and everyone wants him to. That he of all people is the one to strive ever forward would have been unthinkable at the beginning of his story.

I actually loved this drama. It was mindless, cheesy fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome at 12 episodes. The story is 100% predictable and kinda stupid. The budget was low. It’s very obvious the creators knew exactly what they were aiming for, and in my opinion they did deliver. No need to reinvent the wheel - in the first episode, we immediately set the mood via crossdressing and sex pollen, and it’s super trope-y in general. Thankfully I’m not sensitive to second-hand embarrassment, because Xiaobao really is dumb, and Huai’en is smart only in comparison to him.

One detail I appreciated was long hair actually (almost) getting in the way. The characters do little movements, like holding hair out of the way while sitting or lying down, that make it seems they’re used to the length.

I’m adding the novel to my endless to-be-read list!

[lostsyren]

I think rafe and sofia have alot of potential and the writers kind of screwed up with how they introduced her. we’ve obviously seen how soft he is with her and how he’s already comfortable by him asking for advice and how much of an influence she has on him already. like cmon she literally changed his mind on him having his father killed😭 i think that flew over alot of people’s heads tbh. and i think they will have a lot of scenes together and hopefully a lot of domestic and intimate moments together, i have hope for that considering she’s been upped to a series regular🤞🏼also we didn’t really see a lot of behind the scenes of fiona BUT i think that’s because they were hiding her?? or maybe people just didn’t recognize her to be taking pics of her. cuz i saw an interview of someone asking her of any projects she’s working on and she responded with “ i don’t know if i can say.” but she did confirm her character (sofia) was returning back to a tv show she was in last year. also his smile when he was looking at her?? i nearly died seeing soft rafe on my screen i already love them so much😣. i almost forgot people recorded drew, chase and austin having lunch and they were with two girls and people were saying it was fiona and the actor who is playing toppers love interest. so yeah i have a lot of hope we’ll be seeing her and rafe together🙏🏼🙏🏼

and with what i think should happen between them in season 4 is i’m hoping she’ll become rafes safe space and the person that’s always there for him. since ward was always pushing rafe to be tough and just being an asshole to him, maybe rafe could have someone he could turn to when things get hard or he just needs someone and sofia will be there <33

sorry this is so long i just loving talking about them😭 im seriously rooting for them🙈

Noooo don’t apologise for the long answer! I love hearing from you, and i feel the exact same way– it’s so fun discussing theories and overanalysing!!

I agree, they could’ve done so much more with her introduction, even just a small shot of rafe and her making eye contact in the country club before the party, just to give a bit of context to where she came from would’ve helped so much without eating the screen time. But ultimately i think they’re just quickly setting her up for the next season so they can flesh her character out then. (Hopefully!!)

Exactly!! Like yes she was just used as a plot device, like a manifestation of Rafe’s conscience almost, but that’s so interesting– and I don’t think she falls under the “I can fix him” trope, she doesn’t think there’s anything to fix. It’ll be a breath of fresh air having someone who doesn’t know Rafe’s past, giving him an incentive to be good.

You’re so smart!! Like that makes sm sense of why we’ve barely gotten any bts of the two. And both Fiona and Drew hardly ever post, so I’m not surprised somethings hasn’t slipped. And I doubt much of the fandom know/remember who fiona is :(

That’s so sweet!! I agree wholeheartedly– rafesofia soft scenes will be the death of me!! And the people saying him being with Sofia will take away from his villain arc– I think it will intensify his villainy even more if there’s a possibility he can be good and he just chooses not to. And especially how that will play with Sofia’s character. I think we as an audience will definitely feel the suspense, waiting for the moment rafe slips and becomes villainous towards her and that will just make his character that more enamouring and entertaining, whether you root for him or don’t!!

[misty-caligula]

Okay let’s talk about gender.

(To get it out of the way, we’re going to be talking about Van as a cis AFAB person, because Liv’s gender is unrelated to Van’s. And while I do agree that it’d have been cool to have done something with that, and as a trans person I’m always looking for opportunities for that, I don’t think that just because an actor isn’t cis they can’t play cis characters, it’s a valid character choice in a vacuum. This post isn’t about that, anyway, so like... ramble over)

In S2E9 one of the coolest things they did was they took a very gendered conversation trope and then they immediately twisted it around and said “Yeah we’re not doing that, sike!”

So Coach returns to the cabin and he bumps into Natalie, and he tries to convince her to leave with him. He comes at her with a really male > female argument (because Coach is society-pilled), and it’s framed as logic vs emotion. So it goes:

Coach: I think you and I could probably survive the winter together. You don’t have to stay here. You’re not like the rest of these girls.

Natalie: Actually, I’m worse.

Coach: How can you say that?

Natalie: I let him die in my place. It was supposed to be me. You’re a good person, Coach. You really don’t belong in this place.

Now for me, it’s that use of the specific phrase “You’re not like the other girls” that made me sit up and take notice. I’ve written already about how Coach sees the rest of them as evil monsters, but he’s holding Nat up on this pedestal, in that way men so often do. And he thinks he’s using a logical argument, and that she’s using an emotional one.

“You don’t HAVE to stay here. You’re not LIKE them.”

And he thinks that she’s responding with emotion.

“Actually I’m WORSE.”

But the table flips, when she gives him a logical response. She’s worse, because she took part in it. Because she’s not just like the other girls, she’s not just one of them, she actively sacrificed Javi so save her own skin. She’s taken the logical side now, and flipped the argument on its head. Coach cries, because he has nothing to say to that. Without the veneer of logic and rationality, he doesn’t have words to cover for his emotional state. He doesn’t know how to handle her when she’s broken his mold. And then she throws his own logic back at him:

“You really don’t belong in this place.”

So he leaves. Because he just has no answer to that.

Cut to the very next scene, and Van and Travis are having a similar conversation. Again, Travis is the logical man, trying to make Van the emotional woman. And the way they’re talking is, again, so gendered.

Travis: You should be ashamed.

Van: Well I’m not.

Travis: The fact that you can even say that...

Van, interrupting: I'm not ashamed, Travis. I'm glad I'm alive. Just like you are.

Travis can't respond to that and turns away, as he takes the emotional side and Van hits the logical.

Van: And I don't think that any of us who are still here should feel ashamed of that. Ever.

Again, Travis has nothing to hit back on with that.

Van: Let your brother save you, Travis. After everything he went through out here, don't you owe him at least that?

Both times here we have male characters who are trying to control the conversation, who are coming at it from a perceived point of authority. Who assume that the women they’re talking to are going to respond with emotional (read: empty, weak, stupid, irrational) answers, and are not expecting push-back. And both times they receive a slap in the face. A response they weren’t anticipating, and cannot answer.

For Coach, he can’t handle the loss of authority, as an adult, as a man, as an authority figure, as Nat’s protector. And he finally snaps when he sees her ascend to the throne and decides that he’ll assert himself with violence.

Travis started the show with so much toxic masculinity. He pointed a gun at Nat for calling him a name, was SO insecure and fucked up about his own masculinity and his place in this new society, where his perceived authority and competence was challenged again and again. And now he’s grown to a place where he can really listen, can really hear what Van’s saying. And he acknowledges the truth in her words, and as hard as it is for him, he accepts her argument and joins in eating Javi. And that’s literally WHY (from a script-writing, thematic point of view) he survives to be rescued and Coach doesn’t.

Travis isn’t perfect, by any stretch. None of them are. But I feel like he’s gone through so much growth since we met him. And in S1 I found him so frustrating because so many of his plot beats were about the ways in which he conflicted with the ‘jackets, because he just struggled to let go of the social conditioning of toxic masculinity. And for their part, the ‘jackets treated him with a fair amount of toxicity too. The doomcoming didn’t make ANYONE look particularly great... But he’s really been putting in the work, and it’s not just about getting softer, but about being more open, and seeing the people around him AS people. Capable of having thoughts and understanding just as valid as his own.

Coach watches Nat get down off the pedestal he put her on and he hates her for it. She’s gotten her perfect halo dirty. Travis watches Van assert herself and remove herself from the pit he’d placed her in. And he respects her for it, acknowledges her, and re-evaluates, and changes.

Be like Travis.

[delusions-of-glamour]

Ok now that I’ve seen the eras tour film a couple of times, I have some notes!

Her performance makeup is GORGEOUS. It’s so impactful yet so soft. Just lovely.

The tolerate it dancer/actor 🔥🔥

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Taylor look so confident performing. She always puts on a great show, but in Eras she just seems so relaxed? She knows she’s a star and she’s enjoying it. She’s not trying to win over the audience, she’s just doing what she loves. Feels less like she’s trying to be cool/sexy (1989 Tour) or play a badass idgaf character (Rep Tour) She’s letting herself be a silly little weirdo when the mood strikes. She IS a sexy badass, but she’s also cute a little goof and I’m so happy she’s letting it out.

Sparkly brogues with a bodysuit was… a choice. They look great with the 22 look but with the other Red costumes they’re a miss for me

Folklore dress sleeves go flip flip swirl 13/10 would get married in that dress

Look What You Made Me Do sounds great with those electric guitar twangs. I wish the studio version sounded like that!!

I’ve been saying this since the 1989 era…. Rock album WHEN

Love seeing the dancers give it their all. I know they’re performing, doing their jobs, but they really look like like they’re having the best time and they’re a joy to watch. I hope they return in future tours

Seeing all the perfectly pin-straight hair screen visual Taylors during Blank Space is hilarious when the real Taylor’s hair has gotten pretty wavy by that point in the show

Eras tour Style & Blank Space >>>> 1989 tour Style & Blank Space

Someone make Taylor wear a pedometer I wanna know how many steps she takes by the end of the show

Delicate hits so different live. Idk what it is but I don’t think a studio version could ever have it

My husband said the Red bodysuit looks like a coke bottle and I can’t unsee it (complimentary)

I love all the camera angles, I love feeling like I’m ON STAGE with all the performers like I have any right being there

When this goes on streaming the gif makers are going to have enough material to keep them busy till the next tour

[cardsagainstthelibrarians]

Hi! I always love your librarians posts so I wanted to ask but I hope this hasn’t been asked before. I know everyone is talking about how the next chapter could go since Jake stone is the only returning character. Do you think they’ll mention Eve at all? I mean I feel like Eve had such an influence on all the librarians so for Jake to be the only one returning I would hope they would reference his development into a librarian somehow (without just saying the others got killed off/ eve tied to the library etc). I think I’m just gonna really miss the mamma bear Eve energy with the other librarians. Jake will obviously be a more developed character depending on how long it’s been since the show has ended so I’m curious how they’re going to explain the new librarians and guardian. (@no-e-estelle posted something earlier about how there should be more librarians world wide so I’m hoping this might play into it and they’re all just fine and Eve is chillin in the library or something).

I hope this ramble made sense. Thank you for any response I love talking the librarians rn it’s time for a rewatch!

Okay so bear with me with me if I sound rambly...I just woke up and am lying in bed trying to pysch myself up to get up and get dressed for work but decided to answer this now.

I personally do agree that yeah it's gonna be kind of weird if they really truly do only show Stone and never even mention the others...and yeah, Eve, Jenkins, and Flynn were my favorites from the first TV series (okay, Eve, Jenkins, Flynn and Moriarty but I'm trying to think about the mains before I think of him) but I have a few theories about what could happen.

1. Theory one is the one we don't want which is that they really are just going to show mention Jake. I try not to think about this one too much because as mentioned before Jake is my least favorite and I see Christian Kane as a generic actor who plays the same general character over and over again. But also it would just feel...weird.

2. Theory two as to why they just seem to show/mention Jake. Most of the main actors in the new series are British. Maybe I'm the only one who noticed it because I got sucked into a bunch of British TV by random despite living in the Midwest, but this gives the implication that this new series might not take place in Portland...I guess Stone's the one they were able to put on lone and he might seem like a good supplement for busy Eve because she taught him the fighting stuff.

3. Kind of ties in with two, but what if Stone won't be the only one guesting at times, but he's the one we were told about. We know Noah Wyle will be there in a behind the scenes/brains capacity so he might be coming up with storyline. Also, not to circle back to British TV but there's a show I watch that finished the 13th season a couple months ago. At the start of the season a couple months ago. You know which notable guest star we knew about beforehand? One of the main actress's biological son (which no ragging on him...I was super excited to see him). You know who else appeared? Past character A who was giving birth on another continent. Past character B who lived on a different island. Past character C who had been traveling the world and is again a series lead. Past character D who had been in witness protection. Which is to say maybe there will be others but they're just good at keeping them under wraps.

[sassylittlecanary]

Cynicism and God Complexes: Thoughts on Batman v Superman

There’s good stuff about this movie. Clark and Bruce are especially well cast, some of the costumes are pretty, Wonder Woman is there, etc. But as for the rest? I just rewatched this film, and here’s my two cents.

Bruce's Characterization

I appreciate how the beginning shows Bruce’s compassion for people (especially kids), but then it’s … not really relevant ever again? What Batman does to the sex traffickers is certainly satisfying, but it's also more in line with Huntress or Red Hood’s tactics (which comics!Bruce hates). So, by making him more like Frank Miller’s Batman (aka the Punisher in a cape -- seriously, The Dark Knight Returns had horrendous characterization and we should not be basing movies on it), it erases everything about his character that defines him as Batman, which is VERY relevant in comics batfam dynamics. Furthermore, there's the moment when the media is criticizing the bat brand, and Bruce says, "They’re criminals, Alfred — they’ve always been criminals. Nothing’s changed.” This is not who Bruce is! This is not his mindset! Where is the Bruce Wayne who gets a former villain a job at Wayne Enterprises and works toward reform and doesn't see anyone as a lost cause?

There's also the question of the dead Robin (not that you can really tell it’s a Robin costume because it's freaking BROWN) who is probably Jason Todd, which makes Bruce's characterization here even more implausible. Bruce didn’t kill his arch nemesis (who’s still alive and played by Jared Leto) who tortured and murdered his teenage son, but sure, he’ll kill Superman happily!! I call BS.

Clark's Characterization

This film is all about fear of Superman, and this is best personified by Bruce and Alfred's perspective — that Kal-El is a god coming down from the sky who could reign terror on the earth and answers to no one. Sure, they’re unreliable narrators, but this narrative still ruined many people’s perceptions of Superman. Despite scenes showing Clark’s kindness, fear of Superman (plus the idea that we SHOULD be afraid of him) is woven throughout the entire film. The entire point of the Knightmare sequences is fear of Superman. Even if they’re simply meant to demonstrate Bruce’s paranoia, they still serve to instill fear of Superman in the audience as well. (Also the Knightmare sequences are literally just Injustice ripoffs and I HATE IT. Literally the worst thing to take inspiration from for a Superman movie.) It's noteworthy that Superman's first appearance shows him looking scary and imposing. That's the image many people remembered.

Also, the core of Clark's character is that he cares about people. He does literally everything in his power to protect them. The idea of him allowing (or causing) destruction to befall innocents just so he can save Lois is ludicrous. Actually, the (heavily Injustice inspired) idea throughout the DCEU that Clark prioritizes Lois over other innocent people is awful. Clark cares about all of humanity — whom he lives among and is not isolated from  — not just Lois. (Also, while I love the tenderness in their relationship, it's just not a Lois & Clark relationship. Where is the banter? The flirtation? These two are cute together, but they were also made into a very generic couple.)

Additionally, I hate Superman as a Christ figure, and I hate the "he's a god among mortals!!" narrative. Y'all. This is post-Crisis. John Byrne got rid of that. We've moved past this.

The Villain

I hate Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. I get that he’s Luthor Jr, but still. He’s kinda just playing the Joker without makeup. He’s just pathetic and annoying and I cringe when he’s on screen. It's honestly embarrassing that every other actor who has played Lex Luthor was both more menacing and more compelling. 

The Tone

Beyond a doubt, this movie's fatal flaw is how bleak and cynical it is. The tone, the characterization, the very premise, and even the color scheme are so cynical. It takes all the fun and meaning out of the genre. Thanks for turning these inspiring and beloved characters into another sad soulless action movie!! Love you Zack 😘

Also, the beginning bothers me. Bruce doesn't like Clark because of all the violence he causes -- except comics!Clark cares about protecting civilians. It's just that Zack Snyder followed the 2010s action flick trend of adding tons of gratuitous, gritty violence, and now BvS is reckoning not with the characters' actions, but with Snyder's directorial choices from Man of Steel. Which is lame and I hate it.

Snyder's choices in general just bother me. He literally took one of the brightest, most colorful, most fun genres ever and was like “Actually, what if everything was DARK and BROWN and SAD.” And you know what? I do not vibe with that. Not everything has to be Game of Thrones.

Honestly, all this cynicism and moralizing would've been more suited to an Authority film than one about the DC Trinity.  I don’t WANT a dark and realistic take on Superman and how people might view him. I don’t want a movie where Superman is put on trial or burned in effigy! I want a movie where Superman saves people and brings joy and hope to the world. I want my kind and inspirational beacon of hope. I want the hero whom children adore and adults admire. Give me a real superhero movie, not a hopeless grimdark action movie with superhero characters.

[ridiasfangirlings]

In an AU where they are actors, Fushimi and Yata were cast as rival characters who have their own respective love interests. They didn't get along irl and so their rival relationship onscreen was realistic. This also meant when they finally became friends and got close irl, their rivalry onscreen look like there's something more and the fans started shipping their characters. Denying it in interviews just made fans think they're being tsundere.

They are tsundere though XD Imagine actor AU where maybe they were friends as child actors, like Fushimi is the son of high-powered executive Kisa and popular bad boy actor Niki and so of course he was pushed into show business. Yata just liked acting and was lucky to get a break, he acted in some commercial alongside Fushimi and it was the only time Fushimi ever enjoyed acting. After this they shared a few jobs together and became close, but then say Niki died of like an overdose and a bunch of scandals came out about his activities that made it difficult for his son to get work anymore. Yata didn’t have Fushimi’s contact info and wasn’t allowed to talk to him because it could affect his own career, though he tried to secretly send letters that always got returned to sender. As a result Fushimi assumed Yata didn’t care for him anymore and was tossing him aside just like everyone else.

Many years later Fushimi returns to acting on his own merits, having been nabbed by Scepter 4 Acting Agency and carefully pushed back into it by Munakata, who can see that Fushimi does actually enjoy acting. His big break is in some TV drama where he plays like a bad boy character and it just so happens that Yata is playing the delinquent with a heart of gold role. Yata is initially thrilled to see Fushimi again but of course Fushimi thinks Yata left him behind and so immediately starts mocking him. Yata doesn’t understand why Saruhiko became such an asshole and now they’re rivals, Fushimi deciding to make Yata hate him and Yata just confused and hurt. Their onscreen chemistry ends up just being even better because of this though, say their characters are also former childhood friends and the bitterness between them is so palpable that it just makes the onscreen rivalry feel more real.

Of course eventually they do end up actually talking their issues out (they probably get locked in Fushimi’s trailer or something and have no choice but to have a good fight and tearful reunion). While they’ve made up their characters are still rivals and both are good enough actors that it doesn’t affect their onscreen chemistry…except that now their chemistry is even better, like when Fushimi pins Yata to a wall and mocks him it somehow makes everyone wonder if they’re going to kiss. Imagine in the drama they both have love interests and the chemistry there was always a bit negligible (because Yata gets nervous around female costars and Fushimi can’t even fake being heterosexual) but now it’s so much clearer where the real chemistry is. The director is initially concerned about it until they see the fan reaction and everyone is just going wild for Yata and Fushimi, the ratings are up and all the online chatter is about these two characters.

Eventually at least some of the fans start assuming the two are dating, like imagine Yata and Fushimi having their own contingent of fans who look at their clothes and interviews and try to find like signs and secret codes that the two of them are together. What no one realizes is that Yata and Fushimi are idiots, so while of course they’re in love neither one has realized it yet. When they get asked about their ‘special relationship’ in interviews Fushimi just clicks his tongue and Yata talks about what good friends they are, the fans are like ‘okay they are definitely dating.’

[dominickeating-source]

Connor Trinneer And Dominic Keating On “Disrespectful” ‘Enterprise’ Finale And Eagerness For More Star Trek

MARCH 14, 2024 | BY: ANTHONY PASCALE

Two stars of Star Trek: Enterprise held a panel at the ST-SF convention in San Francisco last weekend. Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating covered a lot of ground, discussing some of the ups and downs of the series, their hopes to appear in new Star Trek, and the future of their podcast.

Finale was a “misstep”… wanted more Trip/T’Pol and Section 31 for season 5

After four seasons, Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled, ending 17 years of original Star Trek programming (and four series) that had started with The Next Generation in 1987. Executive producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman decided to turn the finale (“These Are The Voyages”) into a what they called a “love letter to Star Trek” by bringing in Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis to reprise their Next Generation roles, framing the story. This decision proved controversial with fans, and both actors agreed it wasn’t a proper finale for the series. Dominic Keating talked specifically about how a recent rewatch made him feel:

“I just watched that episode on [Star Trek: The Cruise VII]. I had seen it in times past and it has not bothered me. This time, I have to say it really bothered me… Particularly—and I love Jonathan and Marina—but to see them jauntily wafting around our last episode like nothing’s going on, and it ticked me off. It didn’t in the instance. I guess as an actor, I was like ‘We’re done’ so I was moving on to get another job. But when I look back now twenty years on, yeah it was disrespectful—I think to Scott and to our cast. I understand that Rick and Brannon were wrapping up a very long sojourn of an unparalleled TV accomplishment of 17 years on a variation of a theme. It is incredible. But I think it was a misstep. We should have had a standalone episode to end our series.”

That being said, both agreed they had fun working with Frakes, especially in the scenes when he was playing Chef in the galley.

Connor Trinneer and Jonathan Frakes in “These Are The Voyagers” (Paramount)

Had the series continued, both actors had some thoughts on where they would have liked to have gone with their characters:

Trinneer: “I would have been interested to see what kind of relationship that Trip and T’Pol would could have actually had. That would have been an interesting storyline. They were going to try once every seven years to have a baby, so that would have been interesting.” Keating: “That Section 31 stuff was quite fun, wasn’t it? That would have been worth some exploration. I believe they’re actually in Toronto now exploring it without me. And you know, Malcolm was always good to be captain eventually. Good British captain, I would say.”

Connor Trinneer at ST-SF 2024 (Photo: TrekMovie)

Ready for more Star Trek… any Star Trek

There were a couple of funny moments when the idea of returning to Star Trek came up. First was this exchange with moderator Ryan Husk…

Husk: I don’t know how aware you are of the new Star Trek shows going on… Keating: We are aware of them. We are legacy, you know. Husk: So the question is, they come knocking on your door or texting your… [simultaneously cutting him off] Trinneer: Yes! / Keating: Yes! [laughing] Husk: Would you be willing to not reprise your roles but play a different role? [simultaneously cutting him off again] Trinneer: Yep, yep, yep. / Keating: Absolutely, keep talking… This is so easy.

Later a fan returned to the subject with a specific idea…

Fan: My question is a follow up… I’ve always thought that the best way to continue an animated series. If Paramount came calling… [simultaneously cutting him off] Trineer: Yes. / Keating: Yes. [laughing] Fan: Where would you like to see the stories go? Trineer: I don’t care. I just want that Paramount check. Keating: Probably in space, but I don’t really mind. Trineer: It could be broken in the shop the entire time. Keating: Animation is fun to do, you can show up in your shorts and tee shirt. Ask the Lower Decks people.

Connor Trinneer as Charles “Trip” Tucker and Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed in Star Trek: Enterprise (Paramount)

That time Bill Gates came to the set

When asked about funny or strange things that happened on set, Connor recalled a specific visit.

“Early on in season 1, I was taking a nap in my trailer and a PA knocked on the door and said, ‘Bill Gates is here.’ I was sleeping and I was like, ‘Who?’ ‘Bill Gates, he wants to take a picture.’ And I was like, ‘Can I stay in my robe?’ And I did.”

Both agreed that the billionaire founder of Microsoft didn’t care what people were wearing: “He could not be happier.” So if you’ve ever seen the picture of Bill Gates on the set (below), now you know why Connor is in a robe.

Bill Gates visits the set of Star Trek: Enterprise

Future of their podcast

Two years ago, Trinneer and Keating began The Shuttlepod Show on YouTube, which mostly featured the pair interviewing various Star Trek guests. In December, Keating announced he was leaving the show and last month Trinneer did the same. The subject of the future of the podcast came up a couple of times during their panel and Keating gave some context as to what is going on:

“As you know The Shuttlepod Show—let’s address the elephant in the room—has had to go away in its current iteration for Hollywood reasons. But we are talking about bringing it back. I think we’ll be back within six to eight weeks or something like that. So please watch that space… It was just untenable in its current status, that’s as much as I can say. But I hope you can forgive that and come and support us again when we reemerge like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.”

Later on, Keating indicated that details on a return have to be worked out.

“This weekend is going to be the first weekend we’re talking seriously with some people. Whether or not we come back? We’re not sure. [Connor injects: Wait and see] Yeah, wait and see. It would be sort of different. I’m not sure what we’ll call it right now. We might call it something different.”

Dominic Keating at ST-SF 2024 (Photo: TrekMovie)

Source: TrekMovie.com

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #636

Top Ten Actors Who Could Play The Master in Doctor Who

Today (or maybe yesterday; or maybe five days ago – I don’t know when you’re reading this. Maybe you’re from an advanced civilization a million years into the future, and somehow, inexplicably, this stupid blog is all that remains of human culture. Listen, if that’s the case: sometimes we were a lot funnier than this. Anyway…) the new “season” of Doctor Who begins. After the excitement of last winter’s sixtieth anniversary specials (Tennant! Tate! Trans positivity!) and the joy of the Christmas special (Gatwa! Gibson! Greedy little goblins!), we’re back into the series proper with the show’s third-ever first episode. I’m expecting monsters, weirdness, fun, and tears. I’m expecting a lot, frankly, because that’s what Doctor Who usually delivers. Come rain or shine, good shows and bad, Doctor Who is “a lot”.

Anyway, for ages I had a list tentatively planned about Doctor Who. The actual list itself has been in a lot of flux (no pun intended) but it was always going to be Doctor-adjacent. I do like to keep it relevant, y’know? But man alive, there has been a lot of news this week. I could write a list about the new Superman costume, or the fact that they’re making a bunch of new Lord of the Rings movies! And the magnificent X-Men 97 finishes up next week, and I wanna write something to go alongside that, so I can’t really just push something to next week… blimey, what a lot to go on, eh? The perils and stress of writing a stupid weekly listicle that no one reads.

However, I’ve decided to stick to the script and write about Doctor Who. Because – Christmas special notwithstanding – it’s the launch of a brand new era; the first season of the show in what I guess we can call “the Disney era”, when a co-production deal means that we get a ton of Mouse Cash splashed liberally over the TARDIS. As such, there’s an awful lot that’s new. And new Who means – inevitably – new actors stepping into classic roles.

One of the joys, of course, of Doctor Who is that the very concept is ripe for reinvention. The conceit of giving not just the central character but their entire race the ability to regenerate their appearance gives it a sense of life and refreshment denied most ongoing series; you can always have a new Doctor, and – naturally – you can always have a new Master.

The Master has been revived and rebooted many times, and their opposition to the Doctor is one of the cornerstones of Who. I’ve no idea when the Master will return; but it’s inevitable, at some point. Eventually Russell T. Davies, or his successor, will bring the Master back to fight (and flirt?) with the Doctor, and we’ll get another great actor to chew the scenery across all of space and time. The Master is a dark reflection of the Doctor – the classic staple of “just like the main character, but bad,” a character trope seen in everything from Reverse Flash to Face/Off to those slightly racist “Black Smurfs” – and as such the actor who plays them can be seen to be a reflection of, or commentary on, or compliment to, the actor who plays the Doctor.

So – because I have, once again, wanged on far too much – I’m just going to dive right in. I think you know the drill by now. I’ve picked ten actors who I think would be great casting for the Master; as usual, I’m trying to be more-or-less realistic (we’re never getting Tom Cruise, for instance) and applying my own odd little criteria. So let’s jump right in. Alons-y, and all that.

Paterson Joseph: if you want a Master who embodies the aristocratic tendencies of the classic portrayals, Joseph is more than capable of being both officious and supercilious. He’s also, of course, a Who alum; he was in the first series of the reboot back in 2005, and (depending on who you believe) was a candidate to play the Doctor themselves at one point. He can definitely do funny (see Green Wing, et al) but Wonka showed just how theatrically camp he can be when he twirls his moustache manically.

Mena Massoud: Joseph is basically twice the age of Ncuti Gatwa; often the Master is of comparable age to the Doctor. As a young person of colour, Massoud would be a good counterpoint to Gatwa. He’s also proven himself theatrically, as the lead in Disney’s Aladdin; bringing this energy to his performance would further allow for some cool counterpoints between the two.

Nicola Coughlan: of course, the Master has been the Mistress in the past. Time Lords, we know, can swap genders better than the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Coughlan, also of a roughly comparable age to Gatwa, would offer a fun, funny riposte to his energy. Also, it’d be nice to see a bit of subtle body diversity in these sorts of roles.

Rhianne Barreto: perhaps one of the least-recognisable names in this list, Barreto’s biggest deal so far is one of the leads in The Outlaws. She’s very telegenic, and is great as a brilliant and capable girl with a mischievous and dangerous streak; channelling that into a more malevolent nature as the Master, coupled with her young charm, would be really cool, especially acting against someone like Gatwa.

Gillian Anderson: okay, moving away from the relative youngsters, if we’re going to have a woman in the role, and we want to age it up a touch, then who would be better than Gillian Anderson? Imagine her naughtiness, her wicked way with language; imagine her interactions with Gatwa’s Doctor, coloured as they would be by their history on Sex Education? If this was the direction you’d want to go, there’s no one better.

Michael Sheen: another alternative for an older Master would be Sheen. He’s got a great history as a camp, officious sort; look at Good Omens. He could inject some evil into that portrayal and be a terrific Master. Alternatively, he can just go full-bore malevolent; his vocal performance as House in, er, Doctor Who is proof of that (he’s kissed one Doctor, tried to kill another; man’s got form in all departments). I’d make him keep his natural accent, mind.

Elliot Page: Doctor Who has always been a progressive show, especially so since its 2005 rebirth. Davies as a writer is keen to champion new voices and show as much representation as possible. We’ve had male and female Time Lords, but it would be fantastic to see the first trans man take the role; especially as Page is a brilliant actor. Most of the roles I’ve seen him in showcase his natural charm and likeability; it would be cool for him to turn those characteristics into something wicked. I can imagine him as coldly evil against Gatwa’s effervescent optimism.

Alan Tudyk: with Page, we’re already channelling Hollywood. Indeed, this era of Who has prior in this regard: Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker, and upcoming episodes featuring the likes of Jonathan Groff. Tudyk (who, of course, is in Frozen alongside Groff) is probably exactly the right level of prestige for this; and he’s just brill. A versatile and gifted actor (witness the range of his performances in animation), he’s a natural comic who can bring heart and warmth to any role. But he’s also played the Joker, so he can definitely do pantomimic villainy.

Colman Domingo: alright, we’re starting to veer away from the plausible. Domingo might not be an A-list Hollywood name, but he’s an incredibly successful actor who was nominated for an Oscar this year. I’m not sure they’d get him; I’m not sure he’d want it. Be he’s beyond talented enough for this, and he’s definitely got the wit and the vim to brig the Master to life. Plus, to see two queer Black actors, at different points in life and career, facing off against each other would be magnificent.

Jack Black: and now we go full-bore ridiculous. But imagine it: they’ve got Disney money behind them now. Perhaps they do some kind of event where this iteration of the Master is only in, say, a two-part finale. So you splash out, go for broke, and cast a proper superstar. Black already popped up as a guest in one episode of The Mandalorian; maybe he’d be up for this? But for God’s sake, just imagine it. Imagine him chewing the scenery as a proper baddie. He’d be singing and dancing! He’d make funny little scat sounds! He’d be charming and hilarious, then booming and terrifying! It would be a joy, an absolute joy.

There we are. Ten people. I nearly had Asa Butterworth on the list, but I tried to limit myself to only one Sex Education cast member.

[afatlotofchance]

Hey, do you remember “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”?

Normally everybody knows about it at this point, but if you don’t know about it, it is a dark comedy sitcom about a group of awful laughable jerks, bullies and sociopaths, constantly getting into improbable schemes that amount to nothing and who are convinced they’re the top of the world when they are just a bunch of delusional losers stuck in a series of dirty failures. And it is hilarious, even though this recap makes it hard to believe. (Mind you not all episodes are for everybody, it can get really dark, but it was on TV for a shit load of seasons and is still beloved today).

Why have people here heard about it? Because for the seventh season of the show, the actor playing the role of Mac (forgot his name) deliberatly gained forty pounds and became overweight to play his character. It wasn’t even something the writers asked him to do, it was his own idea. It was a reaction to how he noticed in sitcoms “normal” or “geeky” characters tended to get prettier as the seasons went by, despite it not being logical from a story point, so he wanted to do the episode and make it clear that as time went by “normal” characters getting older and not having the most perfect lifestyle could change in realistic ways. He did lose the weight pretty quickly afterward though, to maintain his own health - it was just a one season thing (in fact in later seasons he did the very opposite and purposefully became ripped to do another joke of disconnection with the story - but that’s another topic).

But anyway I just wanted to take a brief return to this. Found back some screenshots I took months ago, so I just thought why not share them here, you know?

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2022 MOVIE OF THE WEEK #29

jurassic world: dominion. this one was not previously on my list. i watched the first jurassic world in theaters but even now haven’t the seen the second one--the first one took the world to such a monster movie/horror place that i was not a fan. but @actuallylukedanes​ loves this one and wanted me to see it, so it was our most recent hangout film. and there was a lot i liked about it!

to get it out of the way, though, here’s what i didn’t like: the continued focus on dinosaurs as monsters, by taking the story to an extreme that forced humans and dinosaurs to be sharing the same lands, along with dinosaurs from different eras that weren’t meant to coexist. dinosaur fights-to-the-death, dinosaur ‘dog fights,’ and most scenes where carnivorous dinosaurs had to be hurt or killed so the human characters could survive. 

i logically agreed with, and completely understood, leander reminding me that the humans were acting defensively. but i flinched anyway whenever the dinosaurs were hurt, and cried through at least one bit where the caption on the dinosaur was ‘whimpers.’ which just tells me i’m not the target audience for movies like this because i can’t shut off the part of me that’s overly sensitive to animals experiencing pain and to me the dinosaurs are animals, who didn’t ask to be brought into a modern world and don’t have nefarious intentions like some humans--they’re just following their instincts.

the plot actually made sense to me, as depressing as i found it. i think we have good reasons to believe that if humans could make dinosaurs, they would do so with terrible consequences, and i think that if we were then forced to coexist with dinosaurs, things like black market breeding and poaching and treating them like an invasive species when we’re the ones who unleashed them...all of that would be likely. and sad. 

i could see what the filmmakers were going for with the beginning and end of the movie though (we watched the extended cut) in showing a more peaceful coexistence and the beauty of all kinds of dinosaurs--i just don’t think that wrecking everything for the whole rest of the movie was the only or best way to be able to then contrast a happy ending. like, ‘we broke it, everything’s horrible now...oh look we fixed it, isn’t that nice?’ felt as much like a way to revel in the horror bits as a path to the conclusion. and personally, i would’ve been happy with less horror bits--but again, i accept that i’m not who the movie was trying to entertain. 

all that having been said, i enjoyed this movie more than i could have. i’m not a chris pratt fan and just sort of waited out the parts that were centered around him...luckily for me his importance was mostly based in his created family, and i liked maisie in a ‘teenage girl who’s trying to figure out if she exists’ way--i connected with a similar storyline on btvs when i was a teen so it’s one that will always resonate with me. i’ve never loved bryce dallas howard much in anything (i’ve got no problems with her, i just can never seem to connect with characters she plays), but she gives great final girl energy here.

and by far, the best of what this movie has to offer comes from the return of the original trio. not only is it a super fun reunion in every combination, with the actors sparkling at each other across their genuine AND fictional history, but once everybody comes together--new cast and old, totally random rebel pilot ally 1000% included in what makes this movie better--the ensemble is really better than its parts. 

you get maisie constantly witnessing ellie/alan tension, kayla basically rolling her eyes at alan and owen sharing a Protective Men Moment, and (one of my true favorite parts of the whole film) ellie and claire giving up on ian’s attempts to tell them how to destroy a thing--just going full feral and taking it out with violence instead. the layers to that of wordless teamwork and men being useless and those two women in particular being so. very. done. with near-death experiences...i loved it deeply.

the ways they mixed and matched the new and old characters was full of so much potential, i actually think the movie’s need for constant action held that back. it could have been even better than one-line nods to shared trauma and fanboys of science, but the story they were telling just didn’t have room for (and wasn’t interested in) slowing down to explore and indulge in that. i would have enjoyed as much extra depth as they’d given us, if they’d gone that way.

i would watch this movie again, though, and it is the only jurassic world one i feel that way about. i would also happily watch a spinoff movie starring kayla (which i guess is a thing that might happen?), who didn’t just hold her own in this very white established world but came in and took up space and made it better. honorable mention also to dichen lachman, who i love in everything and whose character survived this movie and could theoretically therefore be a returning villain in a future spinoff. 

honestly, give me the ellie & maisie & kayla & dichen lachman post-disaster dinosaur movie i deserve! but in the meantime, i’m glad i saw this.