#sorry this isn’t very coherent i have a lot of Feelings and 90% are just that meme of the crying cat | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skoulsons · 2 years ago

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hi. So I have nearly 90 drafts that have piled up over the course of about 3 or 4 months, so I guess I’ll start posting them now 😭 I haven’t really read over this or checked it and I think I wrote it at 4am, so I’m sorry if it loses any coherency

(Headcanon?? or im just down bad) but like, joel’s “if somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again” being the way he tells ellie he loves her is so incredibly profound to me. Love (WE’RE TALKING PLATONIC) isn’t a feeling. People act like it is, which is why so many people fall out of it. Love is commitment, serving, and choosing them every single day. It’s in your actions. Their entire story shows this. Even in the little things, like joel teaching her how to play guitar. But even in the greater things. Ellie keeping him alive all throughout winter. Sure, she needed him to get to the fireflies, but I think winter goes deeper than that. This is post-ranch argument. The ranch argument (and joel taking her back while they’re sitting above Jackson) and joel finding her with David are *their* moments. The moments when we see, okay, they are stuck together now. Even once they reach the fireflies, that’s not the end like we thought it would be a few hours ago. They’re going to stay together. Joel saying “I’m never gonna leave you again” to her in that silent moment immediately after he finds her after David is such a….I can’t think of the word oh my sjdhdjd but like their relationship is kind of solidified(?). Like their solidifying moment of “we’re with each other now”. And I think winter shows Ellie’s deep, profound love for Joel. Giving him literally all the warmth and as much as comfort as they could have (yes he was dying obviously just shhhh), probably nearly starving herself to make sure he got the majority of food and water she was able to get. She did that for weeks while he was knocking on deaths door. And joel, while she was just a job at the beginning, has still protected her from day one. And obviously his big moment of action that showed his love (no matter what way you view the end of the first game), was him saving her from the fireflies. He could not bear to lose another daughter, so he killed doctors and soldiers and everyone in his way to save her life. NOW to tie back to my first sentence in this whole spiel. I do believe they’ve both loved each other for years now, and I think it was always an understood thing between them. Joel’s love definitely never faltered through those last two years, though I’m sure you could argue Ellie’s did. Or didn’t, I don’t know. But it wasn’t something they ever said to each other. At the time of their porch conversation, tensions are very high. Ellie is still upset from the dance with Joel’s intervention, and she’s still giving him the cold shoulder bc of his lie. I think a lot of things go through his head when she says “I should’ve died in that hospital. My life would’ve fcking mattered. But you took that from me”. I think one thing is, and something I probably would not have controlled, is her saying her life would’ve mattered if she died for the cure. If I were joel I would’ve spewed about how she does matter and blah blah blah sappy stuff ynow. But he’s walking on thin ice here. He knows she feels betrayed. He knows they’re not how they used to be. He knows he can’t just say anything because he may upset her more, and that’s at the top of his list of thing he does not want to do. And so he waits a minute and tries to collect his thoughts and what he wants to tell her. He thinks of something that, while it combats everything she just said to him, also holds a lot of weight of their relationship and why he did what he did. I genuinely think that him saying this is just “I love you” in its purest, most raw, emotional, profound (I’ve said this like 7 times im sorry it just f i t s) form. If he said “I love you too much to let you die”, that would’ve scared her off. But he gave her something that she needed to hear and to start to understand why he did it and how he STILL feels, even after everything. And sometimes I wonder if the “I would do it all over again” refers to just the hospital, or their entire journey as a whole. Either way, I think it still tells her enough.

-And so she tells him she doesn’t think she’ll be able to forgive him and it BREAKS him. The thought of losing her, or not so much losing her, but never getting their relationship back to birthday level camping trip highs, kills him. His breath is shaky immediately. But then she tells him, maybe she could forgive him. But not that she could, but that she’d LIKE to try. She WANTS to get back to that birthday level camping trip high of the relationship they used to have. As hurt as she is, she misses it. He’s (I believe, personally) the most important person in her life, even if at this point. She wants to get back there as much as he does. And he starts to break more. Because now, there’s a chance, though incredibly small, that he COULD get her back. And that is more than enough. It could take years, but he’s happy with it. He’s thrilled to know that, even after everything, she is willing to try. Can you imagine early tlou2 if it were different and we got to see a cutscene of Ellie asking joel if he wanted to watch Curtis and Viper 2 that night? The smile that would’ve come to his face?

ALSO I FORGOT TO GO WITH THE LAST CHUNK OF TEXT.., him singing future days to her I think is also such a big profession of love. They’ve been in Jackson a few months and they’re living a “normal” lil family father-daughter life now. Not out every day fighting for their life. They get to settle down. And obviously his attachment to ellie has been going on for a while, but them being like,, they’re glued together now. They’re WITH each other. Joel’s adopted her ok ive talked to Neil druckmann myself I know things. But joel signing this to her is just so incredibly special. He loves her so much. I literally sat in my bed last night and was full on sobbing bc the degree that his love goes for her is beyond my comprehension. Every time I think about I CANNOT wrap my head around it. It’s so insane to me. But he loves her so incredibly much. He got a second chance at fatherhood and refuses to lose ellie, under any circumstance as we’ve seen, even if the rest of the human race was on the line, he can’t lose her. Now obviously as I mentioned above, we never hear the “i love you” sentiment actually said between either of them, but we see it in their actions. All their actions throughout the games, even the little things. And I think what joel says on the porch is as much of an i love you as you can get, i think I’m singing to her is just as much as well. He could’ve sung ANY song he knew on guitar, but no he picked future days to show her how much he loves her. “If i ever were to lose you, I’d surely lose myself. I believe, cause I can see, our future days, days of you and me” (yes I cut some lines out) BUT LIKE???? GDKDHDK but not even just talking about the lyrics or the fact that they show exactly what joel is trying to say, it’s also that this is the song joel uses to introduce ellie to guitar. To introduce her to something he 1) promised he’d teach her and 2) it’s something he LOVES. it’s just so,?:?!&,)?:,;@($ i love their love I love their story I love the little things I love overthinking about them

#have I mentioned I love them #because I don’t think I’ve made it clear enough #her not getting to tell him she forgives is the source of all my anger #the last of us part 2 #joel miller #ellie williams #the last of us #DONT SHIP THEM !!!#i will block on sight

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buttsmasher · 3 years ago

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You’re Not Safe Here

Warnings/Tags: Death by Orgasm, Teasing, Straight to Gay, Gay Anal, Male Succubus, Public Sex

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You’re sitting around bored at your apartment watching another dumb YouTube video online when you finally get the inspiration to do your college assignment. Grabbing your camera gear and car keys, you jump into your car and head to Fountain Park to get shots of the sunset. You’ve always thought the sunset looked prettiest here and you figure it’s probably the best spot around town to get the pictures.

You pull your shitty car into the empty spot and notice that there’s barely anyone around. Just two other cars are in the parking lot but you don’t see them around. You assume they're probably walking around the trail like all the locals do. You get out of your car, pick up your camera bag and start to head towards the spot you know the sunset always looks the best at.

As you walk you pass a sign that in big bold letters say: FOR YOUR SAFETY, DO NOT STAY OUT PAST SUNSET. Sadowski county is not responsible for any accidents that may occur. You ignore the sign knowing this is the one place that you’ll get those shots.

You make it to the clearing and you stare in awe of the beautiful scene in front of you. You quickly assemble your camera, adjust some settings and take multiple pictures of the beautiful sky. The sky is purple and orange and you turn slightly to take pictures of the sky when you nearly bump into a guy.

“Oh sorry man.” You say pulling your camera down to see a young blonde haired man with a ball cap.

“You know you shouldn’t be here late at night.” You don’t know why but he seems familiar. Maybe he goes to the same college as you.

“I think I’ll be fine.” You snark as you raise your camera again to peer through the viewfinder.

“Yeah, you’d think that.” The light giggle grabs your attention and you lower your camera again. “There’s demons in this park that come out at night. If you’re not careful, they’ll take your soul.” His voice gives you slight chills, but demons, seriously?

“Is that so?” You say unamused. “Well, the sun is still visible, so I’ll probably be fine.” His smile shows a bit too much teeth for your liking.

“Sure, give it 15 minutes. You’ll wish you took my advice.” He gives you a wink before walking away, heading towards the direction of the parking lot. You take a picture of his back as he’s walking away.

“What a creep.” You mumble to yourself. “You shouldn’t be here late at night.” You mime as you go back to taking photos of the wildflowers, trees, and the sunset. Before long you notice that the sun has officially set and it’s getting dark. You decide you’ll try to get a few shots of the moon before you go, but unfortunately, it’s being blocked by large clouds.

You take a look at your Fitbit watch before deciding you’ll head out since there’s much else you can do here. You take apart your camera, putting it safely back into your bag. “Run.” Someone whispers in your ear. You quickly turn around expecting to see someone next to you, but no one is there.

“Been smoking too much weed.” You rub your forehead and start to head back to your car. As you’re walking you notice the other two cars that were there before are now gone and only your 90’s Honda remains. Someone out of the corner of your eye catches your attention and you turn to see a figure walk behind the restroom building. You figure it’s a ranger locking up the restrooms for the night and you run over to take a piss before he closes.

As you get to the door of the building, you hear giggling behind you. “Hello?” You say turning your head to look behind you. “Is someone there?” You listen, but there isn’t a response, just the wind blowing. You’re thoroughly creeped out but you rush into the restroom to do your business all the same.

You walk past the mirror and notice that your shirt is slightly ripped. You loudly huff, annoyed, and you go to the urinal to take a piss. You hear scratching, but you pawn it off as the trees rustling against the building.

When you go to wash your hands however, you see someone has written in, what looks to be dripping blood red letters. You’re Not Safe Here. You use your index finger to touch it and it feels like it was just written. “What the fuck?” Confused, you begin to exit the bathroom. You stop in place to ponder whether that warning was there when you entered the bathroom or not.

You turn back around and find that the warning is gone, instead replaced with a poster. You immediately walk back so you can read the poster. What you see is unexpected.

A missing poster, with the young guy you saw earlier has replaced the warning. Nehemiah Wyatt - Missing. It says he went missing five years ago at the age of 18. Last seen in the park that you’re in right now. “Hello?” You look around the bathroom again but don’t see anyone and all the stalls are open. Underneath the poster it says, They Got Him in the blood red letters.

You decide that this is a little too creepy for you and you’re going to head for your car and get the fuck out of here. You shoulder your camera gear and walk quickly out of the restroom where you bump right into Nehemiah. You can’t help the yelp that escapes your lips. “Fuck man, you scared the shit outta me.” You huff.

“People say I do that.” He puts his hand on your shoulder.

“Uh,” You glance at his hand. “You know you’re missing right?” Your eyes meet his, and you swear for a second his eyes were pure black.

“Yeah, but I think you found me.” He moves his hand sensually down your chest.

You clear your throat and pointedly step away from him. “Well, uhm, you should probably tell the cops or someone you’re okay.” You walk past him and you readjust your camera bag. You look over your shoulder to make sure he’s not following you, but he’s not there anymore. You reason he probably just went into the restroom. When you turn around again, he’s right in your face.

“Fuck!” You exclaim as you jump backwards.

“Where you going so fast?” He grabs your arm and moves your hand so it’s holding onto his ass. “How about we have some fun.”

“You know, uhm,” You take a gulp. “I’m good. I’m just going to head home.” Nehemiah keeps your hand on his ass.

“You sure? I hear I’m a good fuck.” The way he licks his lips reminds you of someone just about to eat a meal.

“Yeah, totally, I’m good. I’m straight dude.” He just giggles.

“You’re straight huh?” His hand cups your dick. “You might want to tell that to your dick.” You look down and he’s right, to your surprise you’re sporting a hard on.

“What the…” Nehemiah uses the palm of his hand to push your face back up so you’re looking at each other. He leans in and starts kissing you nice and slow. Your eyes flutter closed as you get into the makeout session. Your hand squeezing his nice ass. You can’t lie, it’s not a bad kiss, probably one of the best you’ve ever had. Your eyes widen immediately when you remember that his other hand is stroking your hard cock in the very public park.

You quickly push him away. “What the fuck are you doing? We could get arrested!” He just giggles.

“I don’t mind. Come on, don’t you want some of this?” His lips hover next to your ear, making you shutter. You don’t react quick enough so he drops to his knees in front of you and mouths at the outline of your cock. The friction feels great and your thoughts get jumbled. Then you remember, you’re straight and this is extremely illegal. You pull yourself away again.

“That’s not the-I do not-I am straight.” You struggle to get out a coherent sentence. He licks his lips again as he stands back up. He grabs your arm again but you pull away. “Don’t touch me man.” He just gives you a cocky smirk and you push your way past him.

You quickly walk towards your car only to see a naked Nehemiah sitting on the hood of your car. You turn around to see that he’s gone from where he just was. “Tha-that’s not possible.” You say confused as you slowly turn back to look at your car.

Nehemiah is now putting on a show by bending over your car and shaking his hairless ass. Your mind gets overwhelmed again, this time by thoughts of you impaling him with your fat cock. “I’m straight. I’m straight. I’m straight.” You tell yourself over and over.

“Come on big boy, let me feel your fat cock in me.” He makes it a point by sliding two of his fingers into his hole without any resistance. The moans that he lets out are so intoxicating that you feel yourself take a step forward. “I’m so horny,” You can hear him moaning lewdly. “If only there was a straight hunk to come fuck me.” Another step forward.

“Fuck.” You say to yourself as you feel your dick pulsing in your jeans.

“Come on big boy, give me a ride, show me how good of a fuck you are.” You feel a bit warm and you take a few more steps closer. Your hands move down to the fly of your jeans and you start to unzip. “That’s it, come over here and fuck me daddy.” He pulls his fingers out of his ass and instead uses his hands to pull his asscheeks apart giving you a perfect view of his hole.

Your mind goes blank with the only thought of, Need to fuck now. You fish your fat dick out and stroke it giving him a show. “Just a little closer.” You close the distance between the two of you and easily slide your fat dick inside of his tight hole. “There you go.” He moans as he bottom out again his ass.

“So tight.” You pant.

“Yeah? You like that?” He pulls himself off your dick before pushing his ass back against your balls.

“Mhm.” Is all you can manage to get out.

“Better than any pussy you’ve ever fucked?” His hole flexes around your cock making you shiver.

“So much...better.” You slowly thrust in and out, amazed by how good this is feeling.

“I thought so.” He laughs below you. “Can’t wait to feel you load my ass up.”

“Fuuck.” You can’t even get a coherent thought out. Just in and out, in and out. The only thing you can think of is how perfect his ass is. “You’re so tight baby.”

“I know daddy.” He keeps eagerly pushing back against you every time you thrust back in. You’re starting to speed up when he pushes you off him.

“Baby…” You moan as the cold air blows against your dick.

Nehemiah turns around and grabs you to pull you into a passionate kiss. He's moaning against your lips and pulls you down so he’s laying on the front of your car.

You lay on top of him continuing to hungrily kiss him, your dick is leaking precum like a faucet. He wraps his legs around you and uses his flexible frame to pull you tightly against him. Your dick slaps against his dick and the friction makes you moan. “You like that daddy?” He says seductively against your lips and all you can do is nod your head. “Good boy.” One of his free hands reaches down and lightly carrasses and strokes your hard cock.

He adjusts your cock so it’s pressing against his hole and you can’t stop yourself from pushing in. Your whole body shakes as you enter his warmth again. There’s nothing you’ve ever felt that can compare to his tightness. “Ooh daddy, you’re so big.” He throws his head back against your car as you hump away against his tight ass. You have no problem bottoming out into him again.

The moans he’s making under you are so lewd it makes you thrust harder and faster. “Yeah right there, hit there again daddy.” You do as he says and thrust hard against the same spot making him moan ever louder.

“You like that?” You say out of breath. “You like it when daddy fills you up?” Nehemiah smiles underneath you.

“Yeah fill me up daddy, fuck my ass, feed my greedy ass.” You barely miss his eyes turning black as you lean down and lock lips again. You can feel your humps getting more erratic and you know you’re not going to make it much longer. “Daddy, I need your cum.” He moans against your lips.

“You want my cum?” You whisper breathlessly.

“Mhm, I want you to cum in me.” His ass works your cock and you can feel yourself starting to get close. “I want you to fill me up so much that I’ll be leaking your cum tomorrow.”

“Fuuck.” You moan as you feel yourself starting to tighten up. “I’m close baby. I’m going to load you up”

“Do it. Cum in me!” He yells out and you seat yourself fully inside of him. Torrent after torrent of cum shooting out of you giving you the best orgasm you’ve ever had. You groan out as you lay your head on his shoulder. You keep shooting your load and you absentmindedly think that it probably should’ve stopped by now and your body is starting to become over sensitive. “Fuck yes, it feels so good!” Nehemiah moans out loudly. You start idly rocking your hips against him, still unsure why you haven’t stopped cumming yet.

And as you continue you shoot load after load into him, you start to feel weak. You look at your hand that’s on the car and notice it’s severely wrinkled. “What’s happening?” Your voice sounds foreign to you, like an old man. Your cock still getting milked by Nehemiah’s tight hole that’s flexing around your cock.

When you look at Nehemiah his eyes are black and he’s giving you the cockiest grin you’ve ever seen and you watch as your hand begins to turn to dust. “Thanks for the meal daddy.” He rubs his cum filled stomach. “Best meal of 2021.So far.” He laughs and you scream in horror as you turn to dust.

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Is the last thing that you hear as you disappear forever.

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oureuphoria · 5 years ago

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Worst of You - JJK 04

You meet him under horrible circumstances but that doesn’t stop you from developing a very abnormal and completely unsolicited crush on your local hot police officer™. Too bad you have a bitch of a best friend, anxiety and an inability to learn from your mistakes which cripples your chances to be with the man of your literal dreams. Oh, and he has a lifetime’s worth of emotional baggage at 23.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.” “Cool, I’ll let everyone know that you’re moving in then.”

Genre: fluff, angst, comedy

Pairing: officer!jungkook X collegestudent!reader

Word count: 2,067

Note: Admit it, we’ve all panicked over grades.

| 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 |

You were never this anxious over a grade before but that essay had to have been some of your worst work yet. You were distracted - so much so that you forgot to fill out a misadventure form - by not only the traumatic events of that solemn Saturday night but also a specific officer that rudely invaded your thoughts and a best friend who wanted nothing to do with them. So yes, you were completely and undeniably panicking.

Unfortunately, there were still 7 hours before you’d get your grade back and you had no idea how you were going to kill the time. You dwelled for a bit, which was a pretty great distraction for the 8 blissful minutes that it lasted, but to no avail. You had nothing to do. Your morning class was cancelled, you had no students to tutor and you’d just finished the only Netflix series that you’d actually enjoyed and with it left your hope.

Sure, you were a little dramatic but there was absolutely no way you were going to get through the day without crying if you didn’t find a distraction and fast. Your mind went to a lot of weird places like taking a walk, or cooking, all very normal everyday activities that you would frankly rather die than do voluntarily.

However, the worst place your mind went to was when it hovered over Jungkook’s contact for a moment too long. Your finger slipped. No, it literally slipped and you didn’t even realise you were calling until you heard his distant voice from your phone. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” “Hello, who’s this?” You panicked and your hands began to fumble with your phone like it was some foreign object. Eventually you grew the courage to just greet the poor confused man on the phone.

“Hi.” The line went silent and you looked to check if he’d just hung up but he was still there, you could hear his breathing. “Who’s this?” Right. He didn’t save your number, and therefore gave you a chance to hang up and pretend this entire ordeal never happened but you didn’t think that far and before you knew it you were telling him your name. “It’s Y/N…” You heard a sigh of relief and then a sound of realisation before Jungkook started using coherent words. “So, Y/N, what’s up?"

“Did you try your best?” You groaned in frustration at his very general and unhelpful comment. “Of course I tried my best but this isn’t kindergarten. I’m not being graded on effort.” You angrily poked at your burrito and Jungkook just blinked in astonishment. Comforting you was a challenge and now he was fighting it first hand. “When I invited you to lunch, I’d assumed you’d be eating it.” You stopped poking the poor burrito and looked at him with a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, I’m just stressed.” He waved you off, mouth full with his now devoured burrito.

After he finished his mouthful, he was staring at your food obviously. “Are you gonna e-” “Just take it.” He smiled before taking a giant bite of your rather untouched burrito. “Chief has us working double shifts, spring break is approaching, kid’s are getting reckless, you know the drill.” You nervously laughed though in your current state everything you did was nervous.

“Jeon!” A man dressed in a similar uniform approached the desk you were both seated at. You gave him a small smile once you noticed the badge that read ‘CHIEF’. “I’m sorry to cut your break short but that stolen car you’ve been looking for has been traced. You should go check it out before it’s moved again.” Jungkook nodded and gave you an apologetic smile that you immediately waved off. “Go save a life or something.” Although your comment was entirely sarcastic, Jungkook gave you a playful salute in response with a smile that made your heart swell. “I’m sorry, let me know how that grade goes.” You nodded absentmindedly, you’d momentarily forgotten about the grade and the fleeting feeling made you sad in its absence.

You walked slowly back to your dormitory from the police station and allowed yourself to be distracted by anything and everything. You even followed a pigeon for hell of it but just like you, the pigeon was going in elongated circles. You needed to return to your dormitory eventually and face the sad truth that was your grade.

Eventually, the time for the results to be uploaded had come and you were patiently waiting for your grade. You needed a 90 to maintain your GPA but you braced yourself for the outcome. All you needed was to pass and yet even that seemed so out of reach.

89.9%. You tried to laugh but it lacked emotion. Your professor had to be kidding. He seriously couldn’t just round that 0.1% to the 90% that you were sure he knew you needed. “Asshole.” You muttered under your breath but you smiled nonetheless. You did a lot better than you expected and this incredibly frustrating score was still a miracle.

Before you could get a chance to scream into the void, your phone lit up and the quiet buzz caught your attention. You were just expecting a message from your classmates wondering what your grade was so you certainly didn’t approach your phone with enough preparation for what you were going to face.

Jungkook 👮‍♂️ Hey, how are your results? Read 7:28pm

You stared at the phone for far longer than normal trying to formulate a reply but it was like all the brain cells in your head had collectively decided to combust without prior notice.

You Not my best but way better than I expected!!! Delivered 7:31pm

There was no time to dwell over your excessive use of explanation marks because within 2 minutes he was already reading your message. When the typing bubble began to show up you nervously gnawed at your lips to distract yourself from the anxiety. You were just talking about a grade and yet your fear was almost tangible.

Jungkook 👮‍♂️ That’s great! We should celebrate. Cafe at 3 tmr? Read 7:36pm

You were definitely not expecting that. In fact you were so unsuspecting that you almost replied with a thumbs up emoji. You typed and deleted at least 10 times before you replied with, ‘yeah sure :)’. Unfortunately, you couldn’t throw your phone into the depths of the pacific ocean from shame so instead you turned it off and prayed the horrible, tacky smiley face would erase itself.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

#jungkook #jungkook imagine #jungkook fic #jungkook smut #jungkook x you #jungkook x reader #bts #bts imagines #bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts fic

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onepdumpsterfire · 4 years ago

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Summary: Usopp moves to the city after a year since his mom died in a way to feel closer to her. There he looks for a roommate and finds none other than Zoro himself. what fate has in store for them is left for a later date lol

Roommates

Usopp . Zoro

It’s been almost a year since my mom died. She’s been sick for a long time, so I knew this was coming for some time now.

Even so, knowing didn’t stop it from hurting just as much.

Since her funeral, all I’ve done is coop myself up in our house. I’d probably turn into a hermit if it weren’t for my neighbor, Kaya. She came around whenever she had the chance.

That was nice of her considering what she has been going through…

But the more she worried about me, the guiltier I felt.

I know that she can't help but take care of people. Hell, It's why she’s been studying pharmaceutics, but I also know she can do so much more with her life. She could be some big-city doctor or researching to cure cancer!

Wouldn’t that be so much cooler than being stuck in a no-name city, too small to even afford more than the one clinic it has?

In any event, that’s only one of the reasons why I’ve decided to move away for a while. I think some time out of this house would do me some good.

The city that I’m moving to isn’t all that big and a bit further than I’d like it to be, but that’s the point of moving, right?

One way or another, I chose this city because my mom fell in love with it. She used to tell me about how, when she was young, she used to travel all over! She’d seen it all. Every tourist attraction and big-name city, but there was something about this city that just took her breath away. She told me that this place managed to calm her need to be constantly moving. This is also where she got pregnant with me then later she moved back to where she was raised and had me.

As much as she loved it there, she wanted me to go out on my own and find a place that would ‘sate my most wild urges and fuel my deepest desires,’ as cheese-ly as she put it.

At first, I thought she was joking.

I thought that she only liked that place because it’s where she met dad… It’s also why I hated this city.

My father was a coward that ran away as soon as my mom got sick. Though, she never blamed him for it. I never got to as her why, though. Years later, I did ask her if I was right. That she only romanticized this place because she fell in love there. However, she told me that he was only part of the reason why she loved this city so much, and that if I didn’t believe her then I should go find the depth of this city for myself.

I debated with myself for the longest time. Whether this was the right choice, or if I was ready to set foot in the place I used to loath so much. But being here now, I feel so much smaller than I thought I was. I’m nowhere near the heart of the city, but the sheer enormity for this place makes it feel like it’s trying to swallow me whole.

Sure, back home we had a lot of open fields and the horizon was always noticeable, but here the buildings towered over everything. It felt like a tsunami that threatened impact but never collided. The horizon was replaced by millions of stars that fell from the sky and sat just out of reach so that if you got too close thy’d turn into someone else’s day. Someone’s life.

There are so many people here that It almost made it feel lonely. Being surrounded by so many lives yet being so far from them. A mirage in a desert, one could call it. It promises life, but the closer you get the more you realize you could never get close enough.

I guess I was too much of a coward to be as alone as I felt when I first stepped foot here, though, I’ll keep telling myself it’s because the apartments here are too pricey and I only managed to land a job as a gas station attendant. Nevertheless now I’m sitting on the first floor of a fully furnished two-bedroom apartment checking a roommate wanted ad I posted earlier this week.

So far there have been only two people who wanted to move around this area, but one ghosted me after a few messages and the other ended up creeping me out so much that I had to report his account! I just hope the last person that answered my ad isn’t as much of a weirdo as the previous two.

They seem to be a bit curt, but I shouldn’t get too picky. Rent for next month is gonna be due soon, and there is barely anyone who wants to live near this area as is!

I’m sure that they’re nicer in person! I shouldn’t worry. It’s just two days.

Two days.

-2 days later. Thursday 2:30 pm -

When I arrive at the coffee shop, I walk straight to the back of the line. It isn’t that long and I’ve got here thirty minutes early, so I should have time for a drink before they get here.

Should I get something for them too? No, that’d be weird, and it would probably get cold by the time they get here.

The person in front of the line leaves and we all step forward.

Shit.

Someone arrives and lines up behind me.

I didn’t ask for their name! I don’t even know if they’re a boy or a girl!

The next person leaves and we take another step forward.

Is it too late to ask? Would it be weird if I did?

Another step forward

What if they’re a girl? Would they feel uncomfortable living with a guy?

“-ir?”

I did put on the ad I was a dude though…

“-cuse me, sir?”

“Huh?” The barista’s voice brings me back to earth. “Oh, sorry!”

“It’s okay!” her chipper voice rung out, “could you repeat your order? I didn’t quite catch it.”

“O-oh, sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to talk out loud. I was lost in thought, I guess... haha ...” I looked up to their hanging menu, more so to look away from her than to figure out what I wanted.

After putting in my order I take a seat at the very back.

Ten minutes later my drink was ready and my anxiety was rising again.

What if they don’t come?

Five minutes later and I sent them a message to let them know I’m here.

Maybe I could’ve phrased it better?

That sounded weird…?

God, is that a typo?

five minutes later

They haven’t answered, but that’s okay! It’s only been five minutes. Can’t expect them to be by their phone 24/7 right?

I’ll play some games on my phone to distract myself. Yeah, that’ll be fine. It’s fine.

I take a big gulp from my drink

I downloaded that new game. My hopes aren’t high for it, though. I found it via a random Facebook ad. Hopefully, it’s not one of those scams that say 90% of people can’t pass level five, but it’s only ‘cus no one lasts long enough to get to level five.

Hmmm… it seems plays well. A bit of a lag but the graphics are awesome! The old-style, pixelated art and bright, neon, solid colors give it a very retro vibe. The ads between levels kind of ruin the experience, though.

Guess they gotta make money somehow, right?

I wonder if they’ll go away if I turn off my data and Wi-Fi.

I shouldn’t just in case the person I’m meeting tries to reach me.

Could be fine for a round or two, though, I’d anxiously suffer through all of it.

I shouldn’t just in-

A sudden scraping sound from the chair opposite of me jolts me from my hypnotic state. “Hey,” a green-haired man in front of me mutteres before taking the seat he pulled out.

Taking in his form as he makes himself comfortable, my mind begins to race. Green dyed hair with roots of black hair showing. Fitted, sleeveless Nike shirt and black basketball shorts paired with a white pair of sneakers.

Oh, god. What’s with the green hair? He looks super buffed. Am I about to be mugged? No, that’s stupid. He wouldn’t have sat- in a cafe, really?

I quickly glance down at my phone for the time.

Exactly 3. Is he super punctual? More than likely a fluke, but impressive nonetheless. What if he’s a perfectionist?

My thoughts continue to swarm around my head, buzzing in an insatiable mob until a humming silence washes over me. Like one of those box televisions from back in the day. Not broadcasting anything in particular, stuck on a blue screen, droning on in silence.

The sudden stillness in my thoughts came so abruptly that it almost gave me whiplash. That aside, I need to focus now and answer him.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t ask for your name-” I left my statement open so that he could fill in the blank“-Zoro”

“R-right, Zoro. My name’s Usopp,” I waved my hands like the gesticulation would somehow help my words form into a coherent sentence, “but you probably already knew that from my ad... Hah..” I gave a quick huff before pushing through my awkward inexperience with ‘interviews’. “I was thinking we could talk and get to know each other before I take you to see the apartment.”

“That’s fine by me,” Zoro relaxed further in his seat. “What do you wanna know?”

Right at home, ain’t he.

~Do you smoke? “No”

~Are you a messy person? “I don't have a lot of things other than clothes.”

Doesn't quite answer the question but ill take it.

~Do you have friends over often? “No”

~What do you do for a living? “I’m a bouncer at a bar near here.”

Explains the muscle.

~Can you pay rent on time? “Yes, actually I brought the first month’s with me. Your ad said that split cost between the both of us plus the utilities would be $487 right?” Zoro dug around his pocket before pulling out a folded wad of cash and handing it to me.

“U-uh yeah,” tentatively I reach over to take the money. “Yeah...” I doubt I can find someone else by the end of the month. Zoro’s my safest bet at getting a roommate before next rent's due. He doesn’t seem so bad, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.

...I guess this means there’s only one more question to ask.

“Do you wanna see the apartment?”

#modernlivingau #one piece #one piece zoro #Pirate Hunter Zoro #roronoa zoro #one piece usopp #god usopp #one piece kaya

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blaugreen · 5 years ago

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Nine Albums Later, Tegan and Sara Are Finally Ready to Discuss High School

In a new memoir and an album of songs they wrote as teenagers, the feminist pop stars look back at their traumas, triumphs and life as identical twins.

By Jenn Pelly and Liz Pelly Sept. 24, 2019 Updated 6:33 p.m. ET

To be a twin can be a psychological house of mirrors. And so where better to meet up with Tegan and Sara Quin — feminist pop heroes, freshly minted authors, and, like us, identical twins — than at a kaleidoscopic infinity room in Chelsea? As we left the small mirrored room at the kitschy Museum of Illusions, where our likenesses warped and refracted, we encountered a third set of twins. Reality grew ever more psychedelic, and we snapped a photograph of the six of us to commemorate it.

In their new memoir, “High School,” the Quin sisters alternate chapters to detail their teenage years. Growing up in Canada, they worshiped Nirvana, Green Day and the Smashing Pumpkins. They discovered and explored their sexuality. They sneaked out to raves, dropped acid, fought authority. When a classmate spewed homophobic statements during a lesson on STDs, Sara hurled a chair across the room. In the end, the twins competed in a life-changing battle of the bands. “If we don’t win tonight,” Tegan said onstage, “our mom is going to make us go to college.” They won.

While gathering their research for the book, Tegan and Sara found cassettes of some of their earliest songs. And so “High School” is accompanied by a new album, “Hey, I’m Just Like You,” featuring polished-up re-workings of those unearthed demos. Some of the songs evoke the ’90s indie pop of the band’s Lilith Fair era, while others could be the seeds of electronic-dance bangers. The connective thread is the unguarded emotionality of a teenage perspective.

This multimedia set is yet more experimentation from a band that, across nine albums, has moved from folky indie rock into synth-driven dance tracks and mainstream pop. Tegan and Sara sang “Everything Is Awesome” (“The Lego Movie” theme song) at the 2015 Oscars, and have performed with Taylor Swift. In 2016 they launched their Tegan and Sara Foundation, to benefit organizations committed to health, economic justice and representation for L.G.B.T.Q. girls and women.

During a conversation at a downtown cafe, Tegan was forthright and unapologetic, while Sara was analytical, using an app to astrologically survey our twin-by-twin dynamic. They frequently chipped at each other’s memories and perspectives to hone the truth and soon turned the questions on us: Did we feel ever competitive with each another, or encroached upon, as twins with the same career? These are excerpts from the conversation.

JENN PELLY As identical twins, we have strengths and weaknesses that are different but complementary. I often think: If you put us back together, we would be a perfect person. Do you relate?

TEGAN AND SARA QUIN 100 percent.

SARA I wouldn’t be as extreme, if Tegan wasn’t Tegan. I would have balanced myself differently. When Tegan would go through a dark stage, and be a little more chaotic, I would straighten up and be more disciplined. When Tegan went through a punk stage and started getting tattoos everywhere, I was like, I’m going to wear tailored clothing.

LIZ PELLY I think some twins learn early on that collaboration requires compromise and patience.

SARA A lot of people will say, “I have mommy issues” or “daddy issues.” I have Tegan issues. A lot of my hangups or dysfunctions in relationships are based on our primary relationship as children — what worked for us, what didn’t, how difficult it was to share the same face.

Most people sort of break up with their mom or their dad when they go out into the world and become adults. With us, it’s like we broke up, but decided to co-parent our music career.

TEGAN I believe there is a deep desire in Sara to define herself outside of this duo, like she’s cutting off an appendage. It’s not sad for me anymore, but it was at first. We are better together. Our songs are more developed together, and we stand out in a crowd together. It’s very complicated, to want to sever and tether at the same time, this mix of emotions that’s feuding inside of you at all times: We desperately want to be apart, and be our own people, but I need her to thrive and survive.

JENN Explain the mirror on the cover of “High School.”

TEGAN The mirror is distorted, and so is our perception of ourselves, and of the past, and of each other. In writing the book, it was like: That’s what you remember? That’s what you thought was happening? Over the years, I’ve realized there’s this unfair weight put on our shoulders to represent both of us. It’s a psychic burden; you’re responsible for each other.

JENN One passage that shocked me was when you discover you’ve both been playing music alone. Liz and I talk about cryptophasia a lot, a secret language that some twins share. Is that how it felt?

SARA When I discovered the guitar, I didn’t need to know Tegan was also discovering the guitar. When I figured out I was attracted to my best friend, I just assumed Tegan was figuring out she was attracted to her best friend. I assumed there was this parallel experience happening at all times.

TEGAN I was shocked you had been doing the same things.

SARA Discovering the guitar and writing songs felt like an epiphany, like a miracle. I had been so bad at so many things. This was the one time in my life I picked something up, and I knew how to do it. It felt like a gift, like it saved me. I wanted to protect that for a second, in that little tiny moment where I was doing it alone. But playing with Tegan, I knew it was bigger and better and more special and more seductive to people.

JENN You write about not fitting in with the punks, while also offending people in school because of the way you dressed, like outsiders among outsiders. Did you embolden each other?

SARA I felt alienated at punk shows. I walked in with that chip on my shoulder — “I don’t belong” — and Tegan threw her bag on the wall, walked into the pit, banged her head and thrashed.

TEGAN I always felt, if you want to be in that room, go in that room. If you want to be invited there, go. If you want to be a part of things, be a part.

JENN I wonder if some of this confidence comes from having a built in support system — the us against the world type thing.

TEGAN I never needed an external source to inspire me. It’s inside of me. I want to make my own rules. I don’t want to ask permission. There were long stretches of our career where I felt Sara dwelled on meaningless things. But she was finding a way to work through, and I worked my way around.

There were certain criticisms made of us, early on, that felt unfair. They did not feel like musical criticisms. They felt borderline or blatantly misogynist. My reaction was to design a T-shirt with all of the quotes — Spin magazine: “Wicca-folk nightmare.” Pitchfork: “Tampon rock.” I wanted to sell it on our website, and embrace the part of our history that made us as tough as we are now — not hardened, not bitter, but thrilled to be a part of this still. Because we got around it, and she got through it, and we’re still here.

SARA I always had a more institutional perspective. It wasn’t “tampon rock” that bothered me, it was sexism that bothered me. It was homophobia that bothered me.

The only reason I’m still making music, in this band, is because Tegan was championing me and cheering me on and trying to get me past these obstacles. But I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I felt furious at the industry, at the institutions that were inherently flawed and discriminatory. Even as a young person, I thought: If we’re the ones making it, and I feel this bad, Jesus, what does it feel like to be the artist that isn’t breaking through? I appreciated Tegan going around the obstacles, but I was like: I want to put dynamite under the obstacle and blow it up. We really have struggled with that dynamic.

A lot of that was planted early in our lives. Tegan’s coming out story is so different. She didn’t face the same type of homophobia. She didn’t have the same type of trauma as I did. Tegan holds her girlfriend’s hand on the street. I don’t. I’m afraid. I don’t care how big WorldPride is or how many cool new queer artists are on the covers of magazines. My experience informed how I react to the world. And that sometimes is hard to reconcile.

JENN I was thinking about your song “Nineteen” from “The Con,” which also describes your teenage years. Do you feel you’ve been reflecting on this part of your life for a while now?

TEGAN When we started talking about other songs that could be included [on our upcoming tour], the first song I thought of was “Nineteen.” I thought about how much of our music harkens back to that high school period. We’ve been diminished over and over throughout our careers for only writing love songs. But what we were really writing about was relationships, including the ones with ourselves — about family, friends, work. You talk about everything when you’re talking about relationships. There’s something about tethering the old songs to the modern age that becomes very cinematic for me. It starts to tell a bigger story.

LIZ You’ve described “You Go Away and I Don’t Mind,” from the new album, as being about the futility of fame. What is it like to reflect on that now that you are famous?

SARA I think that is the most strangely prophetic song. It was very surreal to read those lyrics all of these years later. Because for me, it’s very coherent. Since we were little, we had drawn undeserved or unearned attention. We would go to the mall as little kids and people would touch us. And that’s very disorienting and destabilizing as a young person. I think we did feel popular but it felt false. And in a lot of ways that echoes what it feels like to be famous or to be a celebrity in some ways. It can feel very empty.

JENN In part of the book, a friend’s brother asks you to jam, and you talk about how badly you wanted to be taken seriously. Was there a point in which you finally felt like you were taken seriously?

TEGAN To this day there’s a part of us that doesn’t feel like we’ve been taken that seriously, and I think all women probably feel that way. But we’ve now spent the majority of our adult life doing the thing we love, and we’re approached every day by people who are like, “I exist because of you.” Things like the Grammys become less important when you have an entire generation of people who are grateful you were bold and open about being gay before it was cool.

SARA We want journalists and fans, and culture at large, to reconcile how we see young women as artists — and when we begin seeing art as valuable. With our new songs, there are going to be people who say, “Oh, isn’t it cute? They released songs from when they were in high school.” But we want this music to be taken seriously. Not because we’re 38 years old and rerecording these songs, but because we were 15, 16 and 17 years old when we wrote them. And as 38-year-old women who have been around the world, who have experienced so much, I still think there is value in what I had to say. I went back and listened to that music and decided it is valuable.

TEGAN Actually I did first and then you did two months later.

SARA We are challenging people to see this work as sophisticated and mature and ahead of its time.

When we were teenagers, our music was written about as “rudimentary, but geez, there is something there.” It wasn’t rudimentary. There was something remarkable about what we were trying to say. There is something so profound about your first experiences. I fell in love multiple times. I was depressed. I was suicidal. I was passionate. I fought with my mother. I broke up with my sister. Those are some of the biggest moments of my life. How am I supposed to just write them off, like, “Oh who cares, I was a teenager.”

LIZ We’re taught that thinking in an emotionally-charged way is something for your teenage years. But actually, that sort of emotional intensity is powerful to carry with you throughout your life.

SARA I have a visceral memory of sitting down to write the song “Hello” at the end of grade 12. I had been devastated by this girl, Zoe, in the book — I loved her, and she was like, “I don’t like girls.” I was grappling with all of these big things. And I remember thinking, “I wish I was older. I wish I knew how to get through this.” I’m 38 years old, and every time I sing that line, I feel that right now. I wish I knew how to do this better. I don’t understand why I’m still suffering. I don’t understand why I’m still not better.

TEGAN It’s powerful to acknowledge that you don’t have all of the answers yet.

SARA When I sat down and listened to the demos, I just thought: I’m so glad little Tegan and Sara wrote all this music. They were better at addressing my feelings than I am right now.

#tegan and sara #tegan quin #sara quin #tns interview #sweet baby jesus hi-res photos #beat the paywall

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justlightthefirstspark · 5 years ago

Text

As promised, my analysis/opinion/thought piece on today’s MUWFC game vs Spurs. Everything is chronological which I feel like should go without saying but in the interest of clarity 🤷🏽‍♀️ but not everything is tagged to the minute cause I am an idiot that didn’t realise that that would be helpful til like the 2nd half. Also, if I missed anything, or got players mixed up or anything pls lemme know and I’ll edit accordingly! I’ve never really done any from of sports based writing before (I don’t think tweets count lol) so pls be nice, merci 😘

Line up as follows, I guess this is pretty common knowledge but you know, coherency and such.

Tbh it was kinda hard to see *a lot* of this game, especially on the far side of the pitch and by both goals because of the weather, felt like I was watching Silent Hill for a little while there, but I did my best. My wifi is also horrendous atm, and we all know that the FA Player can be problematic so there’s a very good chance I might have missed something due to a lag or buffering btw. Just drop me an ask if you notice anything that mightn’t be quite right, and I’ll fix it asap! Some ~analysis~ (if you could call it that lol) is more detailed than other bits cause there was a lot happening and today I learned that it’s kinda hard to write one thing and watch another at the same time lol

First half:

Quick, fast and almost successful start. A much-needed improvement on the stagnancy vs Bristol a few weeks ago, and obviously we couldn’t see the midweek game vs Brighton so I can’t compare them.

I have to say I’m not a massive fan of all the back passes, all the time. I think a more attacking FB might be needed in the summer, or maybe Ökvist should be given some time to acclimatise to the WSL soon? I was never the biggest fan of Harris last season, I personally don’t think she’s fast enough – she gets outpaced down the flank by attackers 90% of the time, which isn’t good. I think A. Turner is the strongest FB option currently, at least defensively, and she’s shown she has a decent attacking ability, and has a wicked long ball, as well as crossing. My only issue is sometimes those tackles of hers can be a liability, giving away unnecessary fouls. It’s almost like she doesn’t think before she flies in sometimes, which is a shame, cause I love them. A lot.

There were a couple of really good chances in the first half, including a great ball in and run up from Galton, which should have resulted in probably the opening goal but whether it was as a result of the weather or just misjudged timing and placement from both Ross and Sigsworth, the chance went to waste. Groenen had an excellent chance to net her first for United but unfortunately sent it just wide. Another glorious link up between A. Turner and Galton led to another decent chance, a gorgeous cross in from the right to the opposite side of the box, and the perfect header which unfortunately was aimed straight at the keeper. Very unlucky to head in at the break with nothing.

There was an incredible double save from Earps around halfway through the first half. I have to say, I have some anxieties with her sometimes. She is quite good, but has a tendency to make some silly mistakes, and doesn’t always make the right call for a save. But my god she was on her game today, even if a potential error might have led to the first save. Didn’t disappoint me anytime she was called on this afternoon.

A few frustrations started to show around the 30 min mark, a few sloppy passes and challenges making the rounds. It was also around this time that I realized I’d picked a pretty poor game to start this thing on because I could barely see anything.

Zelem seems to be back in form, which can only be a good thing. But I would very much like it if somehow she could drag some of the other girls back up with her.

There were a fair few soft calls going Spurs way, which I wasn’t entirely convinced by. But then again I’m probably just naturally biased towards my girls.

Another great ball in to Sigsworth from A. Turner which was just *chefs kiss* but unfortunately came to nothing. There was also a spin move either to commit or avoid a challenge, I couldn’t really tell tbh, which was very impressive, as was her chase down on Mitchell at around 43 mins. (Amy’s my favourite player, can you tell?)

Booking for Kirsty Smith just before half time, but I gotta be honest I couldn’t see it due to the fog, so I have no idea what happened. Couldn’t find anything about it in the United post-match report either so apparently we’re just deleting that from the history of the earth which is completely fine by me to be honest.

Second half:

My main takeaway from this game is that both Sigsworth and Ross always seem to be looking for the same ball in the penalty area, and there very rarely seems to be anybody else around looking for a potential rebound. I think that James (who missed today’s game due to suspension) seems to be our main (only?) front line creator and finisher; Sigsworth is fine, that girl works like a dog and always gets the job done, I think she may have just needed another goal to boost her confidence, but I have no real concerns with her. Ross, however, I’m not entirely convinced by, I think a lot of her finishes have been a bit lucky and flukey so far. I’d start Toone over her for the rest of the season to be honest, Ross hasn’t done anything that tells me she deserves the starting place. Feel free to disagree with this of course, this is just my own personal opinion.

56 mins – confusion has entered the chat. McManus ends up pretty much through on goal, and then the ref whistles for what I assumed to be an offside. So naturally I nearly kicked my laptop out the window. The ref then awards a United penalty, and I’m even more confused now than I was in the beginning. I genuinely didn’t see anything but did hear a few shouts from what I’m assuming was the United bench for handball, so I have no idea what happened here.

‘58 – GOAL. Who else? God bless Katie Zelem is all I’m saying.

‘61 – Hanson 🔁 Ross. I think this was a good swap. I don’t think Ross was particularly good today, and Hanson immediately sparked that RW. I would have subbed Ross off sooner but that’s my only issue.

’64 – GOAL – Sigsworth with a pretty perfect if slightly scruffy strike from a corner.

A much better corner than previous attempts, and Spurs hadn’t defended any of them particularly well. I think that we have a major issue with set pieces, I dunno what exactly the problem is, whether they need to allocate a new taker or whatever but before today had we scored from a corner all season? Lemme knowwww.

’65 – A few decent chances for Spurs around this time. One pretty clear run in from the right, and one or two shots bounced right of the crossbar and the post. Basically my heart stopped for about 8 mins.

’66 – I DO NOT WANT TO SEE BACK PASSES IN THE BOX AS OPPOSITION PLAYERS SWARM IN. CLEAR IT. I DON’T CARE WHERE IT GOES JUST GET IT OUT. (sorry for the caps but my anxiety was out in force this afternoon)

United started playing much better after both goals, think they just needed a kick up the arse. *Ahem* A confidence boost. 👀 Much better intensity for the final 30 mins than the previous 60 imo.

’68 – Another decent chance for Spurs, with Earps coming way too far off her line than sat right with me. Very lucky nothing came of that.

’69-72 – Around this time I started to get *very* confused between Amy and Abbie cause they both had yellow boots on and literally the only thing I could see on the far side of the pitch was feet. That was fun.

’73 – The wasteful corners made a return. Slightly less panicked about that one considering we were already 2-0 up but still, I would like to see the glaring set piece issue sorted asap thanks girls x

’75ish – Toone 🔁 Groenen. Man I love Jackie Groenen. She really has been immense for us so far, and there’s a definite difference in how we play without her.

’78 – Harris 🔁 M. Turner. I’ve said my piece about Harris above but man, can we take a second to appreciate Millie Turner. She never, ever stops. Literally the heart of our defence.

’86 – GOAL – Oh captain, my captain. Beautiful strike from a free kick just outside the box, with the perfect bend around the wall and subsequently the keeper to make it 3-0.

United were very obviously stronger in the second half, almost looked like a completely different team at times. Whether they just got the hairdryer treatment at the half (I would imagine Casey is terrifying when she’s mad.) or the goals gave them that spark they desperately needed to kick on, they definitely made up for all the missed chances in the first half.

’90 – 4 additional minutes.

’92 – Another United free kick. McManus found herself almost clear in (again!), but due to an unlucky fumble with the ball at her feet unfortunately nothing came from this one. Surely a 4th goal otherwise.

’93 – FIIIIIIIIGHT. Kinda. You love to see it. Spend a little while conducting some, scientific research 🌚 and have concluded that Toone was tackled from behind just as the ball left her feet, which led to the ~scuffle~. Have to say that Amy walking away with Ella was extremely 🥰🥰🥰 (This is my research - https://twitter.com/48hours8/status/1218896406020349953?s=21)

’94 – Red card for Tooney. I would assume for her reaction more than anything but the camera didn’t catch it so I guess we’ll never know. I would have thought a yellow would suffice, considering that’s all the Spurs player in question received, but apparently not. 🤔 I’m still kinda confused tbh.

’95 – Full time.

Thus concludes what was certainly an interesting match. Please enjoy this comparison of United vs Spurs chaotic energy from @danieljamesmufc

Also thanks for reading if you got this far, it’s a bit stop-starty and clunky cause I just wrote down thoughts and whatever as they came into my head and then pieced it all together later on. I also just wanna say that I was massively impressed with Smith today. She hasn’t had many chances to prove herself this season, but that combo of herself and Galton down the left was lethal today imo. 🔥

Some extra thoughts:

I’m not a huge fan (like, at all) of fans singing men’s orientated chants. Let the women’s rivalries develop on their own, in their own way, and don’t drag the vulgarities across! That said, I do think that particular group of United fans has the potential to be a very, very good thing.

Also, just wanna say that these are my girls, and I would die for every single one of them. None of my criticism is meant to be intentionally negative, I just tried to be as objective and realistic as possible, without being a fangirl lol. Even my faves aren’t immune to criticism unfortunately.

And this picture is now my favourite thing ever to exist

#that was actually pretty fun to write #living for katie and jess scoring in the same game #this took longer than i care to admit #pls be nice i’m fragile lol #muwfc #manchester united women #my writing

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bat-lings · 6 years ago

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Opinion on Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne relationship as a father-son?

ALRIGHT the human rambling disaster that I am struck again

Jump to the conclusion if it’s too long!

It’s just really hard discussing anything about Jason without acknowledging the sheer mess that DC’s whims made of him. To take that inconsistency into account let’s consider his relationship with Bruce from three angles:

Before Jason’s death / during his Robin days as portrayed before Starlin;

Before Jason’s death / during his Robin days as portrayed since Starlin and up until Jason’s resurrection, through mentions & flashbacks;

Post-resurrection.

Sadly enough the first era is the only one that bothers to portray a father-son dynamic with enough content to have a real opinion on, but I’ll take what I have. And what we have then is pretty great.

Jason’s Robin days

We’re in the 80’s, and Jason & Bruce’s relationship is the most ridiculously pure thing to have graced our poor souls. It’s soft and good.

They have great interactions, a real proximity, and overall bring a lot into each other’s life. Alfred and Bruce are happy to have another kid at home, and Jason is as much in need of guidance & of a family as any other kid. Jason doubts himself a lot and Bruce does his best to reassure him. He’s also is a teasing little shit and that’s great.

[Batman #377 || Detective Comics #579]

[Detective Comics (1937) #573]

JASON YOU’RE TOO CUTE. Also the tired dad feel is strong in that one lmao. Jay, lad, my son, my life,, what have you done to the newspaper,,,,

Ahem right, less gushing more commenting.

As you can see, Jason and Bruce’s relationship before his death/resurrection is pretty peachy. The slice of life sequences strengthen their father-son bond into the reader’s mind. We’re shown they’re father and son rather than just told so.

At some point Bruce’s custody of Jason is temporarily threatened, and that arc is a vivid telling of how strong their bond is.

[Detective Comics #542 || Batman (1940) #377]

Just. That whole speech. “Only Jason is real.” Definitely one of my favorite papa-bat moments.

And as Robin? Jason is clever, often brings valuable insight during cases, and respects Bruce’s teaching and authority. Bruce makes a good job at addressing Jason’s insecurities and guiding him, both through his training and by honing his moral compass.

(Note that I said honing, ‘cause Jay’s moral sense is very much present well before he meets Bruce. He was cool with stealing to survive but Ma Gunn’s school was too much for him.)

He’s initially nothing like the violent angry kid he’s now known as. Pre-Starlin, the only times Jason acts brashly is when confronted with his father’s killer. When Bruce addresses the matter, it’s not about blaming or judging him. ‘Cause he gets it, but it’s also his job to make sure Jason’s not compromised.

[Detective Comics #580 & 581]

And when Jason promises to keep himself in check, it’s all it takes for Bruce to take him back on the case. That’s how much he trusts him. Read the end of the issue and see how Jason proves himself worthy of that trust.

Not only does Jason understand Bruce as much as Bruce understands him, but he’s very perceptive in general. He tends to be straightforward with what’s on his mind… at least when it comes to calling out Bruce lol

[Detective Comics #579]

(They’re talking about Leslie on the last one btw. She was Bruce’s surrogate mom after his parents’ death and they have a great dynamic. Another pearl straight outta the 80′s!)

They get each other, they trust each other, they respect each other. Honestly Bruce’s relationship with Jason was the most healthy he’s had with any of his kids.

We can kiss all of that goodbye after Starlin has his way with Jason. And since Starlin’s “““characterization””” is the one that crossed the years, of all things, we can consider Jason’s initial portrayal pretty much retconed— and his relationship with Bruce with it. Shame, huh?

Of Flashbacks and Victim-Blaming Robin days, 2.0

From the 90’s to the reboot there is… few material about Jason’s relationship with Bruce. Or about Jason outside of his death/Robin.

Whether Jason is mentioned or appears in a flashback, the goal isn’t to recall a father-son relationship. It’s to drive through the point that Jason was reckless and violent. That new portrayal has its predictable impact on their relationship, and that’s pretty much all there is to say.

[Gotham Knights #43]

Obviously Bruce doesn’t trust Jason, since Jason is now a “reckless angry kid who likes to inflict pain on criminals”. Beatty delivers cool stories, but if you read that arc you’ll see that he lies it very thick when it comes to victim-blaming Jason.

Depending which writer/comic book you’re reading, it’s implied or affirmed that Jason is Bruce’s son. You’ll probably have a line about Bruce’s unending guilt, or Jason’s (*sigh*) recklessness. Mostly Jason’s a cautionary tale addressed to either Tim (who never gave much of a shit about Jason btw) or Cass (Batgirl #7 is a rare instance where it’s done without victim-blaming because Pucket is da bomb).

But there’s legit no material about Jason’s childhood in the Manor, or how him and Bruce acted around one another, what they talked about, Jason’s personality aside of “angry”, how Bruce addressed his son’s self-doubts – oh right modern!Jason is an arrogant brat who claimed the Robin mantle for himself so that’s out.

DC rolled with Starlin’s portrayal, and didn’t bother to construct anything else between Jay & Bruce to replace the parts they chose to erase.

[Batman (1940) #645]

The point is: Jason and Bruce’s father-son relationship before Jason’s death is barely spoken of. We don’t know shit about how Jason was as a kid. Bruce loved him but didn’t trust him since his “mean streak” made him sooo dangerous and unmanageable. That’s it. Jason is the bad Robin first, the dead Robin second, and Bruce’s son last.

Resurrection and onward

Jason and Bruce’s relationship post-resurrection is complicated, for obvious reasons, and has interesting potential. My main problem with it is that it’s seldom addressed after Jason makes his dramatic return in UtH & the arc is closed.

For all that I have a love-hate relationship with Winick’s writing, and for all that I don’t like everything he’s done with Jason, his narrative is mostly coherent (and a good read overall!).

Winick doesn’t talk outward about Jason and Bruce’s bond before Jason’s death, but enough is implied. Jason’s damaged psyche centers around Bruce and what wrongs Jason considers to have suffered from him. He reorganizes his entire identity and actions around Bruce.

It’s not only consistent with Jason’s mental health at this stage, it’s telling of Bruce’s importance for him. The same way Bruce must have been his world after he took him out of the streets, Bruce is still very much his world when Jason is on a vengeance frenzy.

Killing Bruce, taking revenge against Bruce, making a point to Bruce; everything is about Bruce. It’s the whole “the opposite of love is apathy not hate” thing. DC could’ve expanded on that and made it evolve into whatever, but they just, y’know. didn’t.

[Batman (1940) #650]

I like Under the Hood and Lost Days well enough except for the Jason/Talia ugh. Problem is, DC obviously had no idea what to do with Jason after that, so his relationship with Bruce stays at a status quo.

Post-resurrection Jason isn’t so much estranged family than an antagonist who makes some cool appearances here and there— when they’re not so terribly written that they make me cringe.

There are some other interesting things here and there, giving depth to Jason’s estrangement from Bruce & the batfam…

[Green Arrow (2001) #72]

… but those elements are few and far between, and fail to establish a solid construction/development of any kind between Jason and Bruce. UtH!Jason put on some interesting bases but afterwards? Jason as a character is stagnating, and so is his relationship with any member of the batfam.

And then there’s the n52 & Rebirth I guess. It obviously wants to deliver a father-son narrative, but doesn’t do great job at it. Again, aside from a few cute scenes, the “he’s my son but he does baaaad things” eternal dilemma, and Jason’s newfound proximity with the batfam coming out of nowhere (especially with Tim wtf), I didn’t find much content to have a solid opinion on.

(Salty) conclusion

My opinion of Jason & Bruce’s father-son relationship is that it’s hella cute pre-Starlin and that Winick’s version of it makes sense within his Under the Hood & Lost Days narrative (I personally cut out “bad seed Jason” and keep most of the rest).

I think we lost a lot of potential when Starlin’s work became the reference. I think the Red Hood and his baggage with the whole fam could’ve been richer and more interesting if Jason’s initial characterization was kept in mind.

Yes, Jason and Bruce’s initial relationship could’ve used some more tension/conflict in between the sweet moments but… as far as I’m concerned Starlin’s writing wasn’t the way to go.

I think the only way to build a coherent interpretation of Jason & his relationship with the fam is to make a patchwork of canon elements and to fill in the blanks yourself. Thus what I have on Jason & Bruce that takes the Red Hood into account isn’t so much an “opinion” on canon material than a personal construction.

I’m sorry Anon, I bet that’s not what you expected when you sent that ask, but it’s all I have to give :’) Hope the answer is still okay & thanks for the ask!

#jason todd #bruce wayne #batfamily #batdad #batfam #red hood #batman #robin #dc comics #meta #dick grayson #barbara gordon #zae chatters #asks #my stuff

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inkstainedfanfics · 5 years ago

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My One and Only Shot

Summary: Clint’s by your side, always, except for the one time he isn’t. A study in love, loss, and healing.

Word Count: 1,549

Pairing: Clint Barton x Reader

The arrow clatters to the ground, and so does your hope of ever improving.

Bow to thighs, you stare at the arrow, one among many scattered over the floor, shaking your head. “I can’t do this.”

“You do realize you have a world-class archer right here, right?” He grins in the doorway, leaning against the metal frame. Withering. You think it may destroy you, that smile of his.

“I’m not sure even a world-class archer could save me right now. I’m ten feet from the target, and I still managed to miss.” Arm out, you gesture to the blue and yellow target and the smattering of arrows around its base. Failures. A massive pile of failure after failure.

Clint, though, merely raises an eyebrow, the smile still playing on his lips. “You know, some people might say that missing from that close takes talent.”

“And some people might say that it means I suck. Because I do.”

He straightens, then, and stretches. “Well, I wasn’t planning on performing a miracle today, but what the hell, I’ve got some free time.”

With a quick roll of your eyes, and with burning cheeks, you counter his joke with your own sarcasm. “Wow, it’s almost like you’re funny.”

He laughs, the sound wide and adoring, and you’re already lost in this man you’ve only known a few months. “It’s a talent.” His smile returns, sharp and quick like an arrow, and you swallow your heart, failing to shove it from your throat back into your chest.

“Whatever you say,” you manage. You should say more, you think, but then he has his arms around you, and you’re a goner.

He lifts the bow, adjusts your stance, and fixes your grip. Your heart is in your throat again and refusing to budge as he places two hands on your waist, twisting your gently. Chin hovering over your shoulder, lips near your ear, he nods. “Now,” he says, voice low, soft, “Shoot.”

It’s a bullseye.

He asks you out a week later.

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“I can’t do this.” Words broken in a sob, hardly coherent, but he understands.

Blood on hands, you can only see the blank gaze, the reddening blue of Pietro’s suit. Can only hear the crumble of gravel under his body as he falls.

“I can’t do this, Clint,” you say, voice quaking. The tears come hot, streaming over your cheeks, past your mouth, to drip off your chin and onto Clint’s shoulder.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Hands rubbing circles against your back. You clutch his jacket, hold him tight, cling to him and try to swallow the guilt of knowing you’re glad, too glad, that it isn’t him lying motionless in the dirt.

What a horrible person you are.

“I’m here,” he murmurs into your hair, holding you as tightly as you hold him, running tears away with a thumb. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

You hold on tighter, praying you do not fall apart. It almost seems like enough.

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“I can’t do this.”

Clint knows what you mean. An ache in the chest. He’s so far away. “I know, babe. I’m sorry.”

“They just…vanished. Just gone. Poof. Dust.”

Clint runs a hand over his face. You can’t see it, but you know. You know him as well as he knows you. The crush in the archery range seems like eons ago.

“Clint?” Voice fragile and soft, you worry Clint can’t hear you over the static of the phone.

But he does. “Yeah?” He asks, voice stronger than yours.

You can hear the weary in his voice, the exhaustion, and guilt overtakes your chest. “I’m glad you’re still here.” The words are still quiet, softened by the memory of so many others that were less lucky.

A pause. A deep breath on the other end of the line.

“So am I. I’m glad…” He trails off, and it sounds as if tears, a hiccup in his breath, the grateful turning into relief that makes it hard to breathe. “I’ll be home soon. I promise.”

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“I can’t do this.” Words shaky, uncertain, said aloud, searching for a response, but there is nothing. Of course there is nothing.

There is no smile, no laugh, no touch. Just silence. A new, cold silence in his room, one you’d never heard before. His room, filled with blankets and clothes and memories, but still so very empty without his smile, his laugh, to fill it.

You draw your knees to your chest, one of your shared quilts wrapped around your shoulders. It smells like him—warm, home. “I can’t do this,” you mumble again, and the tears that come must be chased away by your own hand. You wait for a hand against your back, kisses in your hair, comforting words in a voice you would give anything to hear.

Instead, nothing.

“I can’t,” you say, and fingers curl into fists, dragging tiny scratches into biceps, “do this.”

As if the mantra will draw him back, as if he will return from some long-running mission, as if he’s just a continent away and will rush to your side as he has so many times before, you repeat it. Over and over and over again, louder each time. Louder and louder, until you can’t hear the silence, until you can’t hear the sound of your heart breaking. You can’t do this. Not alone. Not without him.

“I can’t,” you say, the words hoarse after so much repetition, now nearly a scream as you stare at the high ceilings of his bedroom, nestled in the very blankets you’d both shared after long nights and missions, “do this! I can’t do this!”

Then, finally, the breakdown. Voice lost to tears, you crumble.

Nat finds you, rubs your back, up and down, not in circles. How strange it is that such a small thing could make such a massive difference.

Heroic, she says, though you both know that’s a worthless word here. He was always a hero. This was just death, nothing more.

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I can’t do this anymore. Words you can’t quite say, not anymore. 90 plus years have taken their toll, and today is the day you pay to cross the bridge from life to death.

“I was wondering how long you’d make me wait.”

A voice, familiar despite the years, and you spin around, heart in throat, hoping against hope.

And there he is, the same as he was when you last saw him. Dark hair, bright eyes, arrow sharp smile with a bow slung across his back.

“Miss me?” He asks, and you are running.

Grey hair shifts, returning to color you never thought you’d see in your hair again. Wrinkles fade, worldly aches and pains wither, and suddenly you’re young again.

You hardly notice.

Arms around his neck, you slam into him, holding him, face nuzzling into his shoulder, smile so wide it hurts. He smells the same, and he’s warm, so warm.

He stumbles back with a laugh, but he wraps his arms around your waist, one hand on your back, and that ache so heavy in your chest since Nat delivered the news fades. You’re home again.

“Is it really,” you ask, stepping back, hands lingering on his arms, “you?” The question is breathless, tinged with laughter and disbelief.

“In the flesh.” A pause, a smile. “Well, maybe not flesh. But ‘in the spirit’ doesn’t have quite the same ring.” A joke, a stupid joke, and yet tears well in your eyes.

“I missed you,” you say, and then you’re in his arms again, clinging to him.

He chuckles into your hair. “I figured you would,” he says, and jokingly winces as you squeeze him.

“You didn’t miss me?” You ask, knowing by the way he’s holding you that he did.

He draws back, meets your eyes, stares at you as though you’re made of stars. “I missed you,” he says, voice low and rough and honest, “more than anything.” His words ache as he runs his hand up your arm, cradles your face. He is, for a moment, utterly serious as he memorizes you like you memorize him.

“I thought I’d lost you. Forever. I thought—thought that—”

“Hey, hey, I know. I know. I thought that at first, too, but look, we’re here, we’re together again.”

There’s so much you want to say, to tell him, but for now, here, caught in his gaze as he rubs circles on your back, you can only manage a simple “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, looking at you like you’re made of stars, and your heart slams in your chest, stomach flips over and over and over and finally, you remember what happiness feels like. “But,” he interrupts, smile turning a smirk, “we’ve got a lot of stuff to catch up on, and an eternity to do so.”

“Oh?” You manage, sniffling.

“So how about we get started?”

You grin back at him as he presses a kiss to your nose, then swoops you into his arms.

Your laughter reaches across the fields of white that stretch beyond the two of you. You can settle with peace, you think, as he spins you around and around, into your future, your shared eternity. Together, you think, is more than enough.

#clint barton #clint barton x reader #marvel fic #marvel #hawkeye #clint x reader #hawkeye x reader #clint barton fic #clint barton imagine #this is what had me out for like five months and it's still something I'm going to return to eventually #but I need to post it and get it out there so I can move on for a while #bonus points if you know what song the title is from #had to name it after some of the lyrics bc that song inspired this entire thing #also sorry if this is formatted oddly on mobile I couldn't copy + paste the section breaks in

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viibechck · 5 years ago

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( elliot fletcher, trans male, he/him, fe3h ) * &. i know it must be scary for you, caspar von bergliez, after surviving the takeover. to turn into someone like casper beckham, a twenty-three year-old waiter at castle town diner & janitor at jungle gym’s, right here in castle town. just remember that you are as ingenuous as you are impulsive, and to be wary, be safe, be true to who you are : neutral through and through. ( hywia )

hewwo,,,, it’s hywia,,,, and due to PERSONAL REASONS i have gone completely off the fucking rails n holy shit i’m so excited bc i KNOW im gonna have so many fun w/ my lil violent ghost gremlin over here. STRAP ON IN bc this boy is a WILD RIDE and i am,,, 90% sure if i say i’m gonna keep this short it’s not gonna be so !! no promises !! / war tw under the cut!

BEFORE THE SNAP. / C A S P A R V O N B E R G L I E Z

So. Caspar. Fun kid.

CASPAR is one of the Black Eagles at Garreg Mach Monastery’s Officers Academy ; he’s the second son of a noble , but unlike the others which were destined to gain inheritance or the like , Caspar . . . wasn’t the firstborn , and he didn’t have a Crest , so he really had nothing going for him in terms of status aside from “hey I’m part of this family.” His father was the Adrestian Empire’s Minister of Military Affairs , and with a war hero father and an older brother with quite the rep , he had a lot to prove himself for.

So !! That’s why he ended up in the Officers Academy to begin with ; he decided that he’d make his own name for himself and prove his own worth , so he’d became a great warrior of his own volition at the academy rather than piggyback off of his noble background.

Character wise ?? He’s a fun one.

Caspar is the EPITOME of ‘chaotic stupid’ but he’s also got a huge heart - he’s very hotheaded , impulsive , and he does a lot of things without thinking. His heart is way bigger than his body , and he actually cares a lot about people and isn’t afraid to show it. His strong sense of justice is always something he prattles on about , AS MUCH AS . . . to often feel guilty about things he really shouldn’t , or aren’t his fault.

But sometimes u gotta point out to him he’s doin’ somethin’ wrong because . . . he’s not gonna know.

He’s very gullible n a lot of things tend to fly over his head and that’s why I kind of use the term ingenuous to describe him - bc he’s very innocent in a naive sense and often doesn’t get a lot of things somebody more streetwise would get. He’s quick to judge but also takes things at face value and can’t really read between the lines that well. BUT you find that’s a huge part of his charm , bc Caspar likes looking for the best in people , but also will beat your ass if immediately he sees you’re up to no good.

And this is why he’s so impulsive again - acts without thinking because he acts a lot on emotion , such as in his support with Byleth when he immediately moves to get some thieves away from hurting a group of kids . . . but years later , those same thieves attack soldiers under his command , and a lot of them don’t make it. He doesn’t really know the possible ramifications of his actions , but that doesn’t mean the outcomes are all bad. But he feels guilty seeing the damage he caused because he KNOWS that isn’t what he wanted.

But he’s an extremely caring & honest person and extremely trustworthy - like Caspar doesn’t know how to stab anyone in the back. He doesn’t know how to lie. He’s a good boy n he does his best and yeah he’s a little thick-headed bt that’s okay !! It’s okay to have a heart bigger than your brain n’ Caspar’s got a LOT of heart to fill the entire army !!

also uh he’s like. rly loud lmao he’s chaotic n loud n we love that for him

AFTER THE SNAP. / C A S P E R B E C K H A M

CASPER BECKHAM .... so. fun,

SO SORTA LIKE PRE-SNAP , he came from a wealthy upbringing but due to be the non-favored child , didn’t get the inheritance aka his dad’s clothing company.

so what does cas do in response ?? WELL , he pretty much has his entire family breathing down his neck to work in the company still as some kind of lower position. but he’s not really content with that and wants to move onto something he made himself.

and what does he do ??

he . . . becomes a streamer ??

his family does NOT approve that he chooses to use internet stardom as his career - but he gets really popular and that’s how he can support himself when they eventually kick him out.

so he gains that internet fame as a popular gaming streamer named “SHORT KING” and he’ll pretty much do... anything on camera he wants or his followers find funny.

and that’s it tbh.

in ct ?? he really is v neutral to the change versus fodlan but he’s also... skeptic to trust things bc the war is still heavy on his mind and he lost a lot of people he knew to it.

he’s kind of acting like everything is fine bt,,, is it really ?? lmao.

BT YEAH THATS IT I,,,, love my kid a lot n im rly excited 2 write him !! im so sorry if this isnt coherent i am having a Time

#castletown.intro #im not gonna #* . abt — ☆ ❛ ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ; ʏᴏᴜ·ᴠᴇ ғᴜᴄᴋᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀᴅ ❜#war tw

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lia-nikiforov · 6 years ago

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Spring 2018 Anime Final Review

So, uh, this is six months late. I’ve had half of this post in my drafts forever. To make it short, as I’ve mentioned previously, mom lost her job, which has not only been a heavy hit to my sense of stability for the last six months, but also means my time to watch anime was seriously reduced and even now a slight change of plans fucks up my whole schedule and sets me back for a full week. Anyway, nobody cares about any of these shows anymore so let’s get straight to it? I’m gonna ommit the two-cours that continued into the Summer - hopefully I’ll be able to make that post soonish? idk. Worst to best, same as usual

The crappy gender politics pit of shame

Darling in the FRANXX: I think everyone has ripped this show to threads at this point and there isn’t much I could add to that. It is quite funny to me to see how many people flipped out when the show went completely bananas in its last few episodes. Feels a bit like KADO, I’ve been telling y’all this was a ton of empty crap since episode 2, it just took the writing to completely self-destruct for everyone else to notice. A part of me feels tempted to do a long post breaking down just how badly the show collapsed in its final shebang, specifically how every single twist and turn completely nulled any remote kind of message or central thesis the show may have had, but at the same time it doesn’t seem worth the time. In the end, I may have given What is Internal Consistency, The anime way too much credit. It’s not hateful antigay propaganda, it’s just dumb as shits, with a writer and creators who didn’t think for half a second of the implications of what they were doing, and who were so incompetent they couldn’t even conserve the minimal plot and character coherency within a single episode, let alone 24. In other words, Darling isn’t saying “gays shouldn’t exist” but “I have no idea of anything regarding gay people”. What makes it egregious is that the show spent so much time acting like it was “meaningful” and “important” and yet it ended saying absolutely fucking nothing. Except mayb “have babies”. Down to oblivion you go, along with the likes of KADO, to the void of shows that couldn’t even be offensively bad and no one will remember a year from now. Bonus garbage points for the half-assed “bury your gays”.

Nil of Libra Admirari or whatever this show was called: I’m not trying to diss on the show, I just genuinely never remember the title because I have the JP and EN all mixed up. Not that it matters much, as far as I could tell, the show could call Shalabalabatuna and it would have the same significance in regard to the content. But the title isn’t important. In fact, it may be a bit unfair to have this show in this section. For the most part, Main Girl is very self-determined and has an active role in the story.... but then the last two episodes heavily featured a lot of rape threats or rape themes and forced pregnancy (real and threat) and I don’t really understand why they’d go there all of a sudden. One of them was treated relatively well, even empowering the victim in the process, but when the ikemen bad guy was rambling endlessly about how he wanted to impregnate the protagonist it really turned me off :/ I’m also not a fan of “main boy was her secret fiancé all along”, but at least they also handled that somewhat decently. It’s a very disposable series, but since I watched all of Amnesia, I think I owe every otoge adaptation at least the smallest chance to clear that very low bar, and Libra of Nil does it, more competently than most other stuff in the same genre.

Hisone to Masotan: I really, really wanted to love this show. Even now, as I put it in the pit of shame category, I’m pained. There was a good show in this, and a lot of it made it to the screen: an adorable, charming little story about a woman finding her place in the world, making new friends, finding her calling and bonding with an adorable dragon. Unfortunately, it got buried down under this opressing, horrendous gender politics that tried to do something with bringing attention to sexism in the military only to cancel it out making the one dude that embodied that sexism getting rewarded with the affections of a girl he explicitly tried to crush. It also called back on the virgin or whore fallacy and even managed to shove in a “bury your gays” trope. Even though Hisone challenges the ritual bullshit, it’s too little, too late, and she does end up carrying it out anyway, so the defiance to the status quo is of little importance in terms of problematizing the ritual itself. Sorry BONES, it wasn’t meant to be this time.

The ni fu ni fa section

Ni fu ni fa is a Mexican colloquialism for “It was okay but it didn’t change my life.”

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu HAPPY KISS: This soft reboot of the franchise had some really great episodes and did an actually good job of developping its characters. For the most part, it achieved what its predecessor did in terms of satirical comedy and I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, what bunked it down so low in the list was the final episode. At some point, the writers forgot they were doing a parody and made the show somewhat self-serious, way closer in tone to the magical girl anime it was supposed to be making fun of, rather than the satire its predecessor was. Whereas S1 ended with the whole Magical boy stuff being revealed as a crappy space reality TV show, this one ended with a real cheesy conflict about happiness and family and blablabla. Which is not bad by itself if this were a Precure show, but that kind of self-serious plot development just didn’t work for this series. I still enjoyed it, and the fanservice episode is one of the best of the whole franchise, but I’m a bit sad the finale missed the mark so badly.

Hinamatsuri: Hinamatsuri was very hit-or-miss for me. There were some truly brilliant episodes, a lot of funny vignettes and heart-warming stories, and then there was some stuff that made me uncomfortable -like every single Hitomi story- or felt unnecessary and dry. It also threw me off that the superpower dynamic completely disappeared in the second half of the show, especially in Anzu’s part of the story. It was okay but I feel like I needed something that felt like a closing, and choosing to end it with Mao who featured very minimally in the show overall didn’t cut it. It’s a fun show, I’d reccommend people check it out, but it felt a bit too disjointed for me

Persona 5: The Animation: This is a hard show to place because I love the looks of it and I think the concept is interesting and pretty cool, but there is something that’s keeping me from connecting emotionally to the story. The part where changing the villains’ heart makes them repent from their sins and become “good” feels very artificial and very tasteless when you’re dealing with rapists and abusers. I ended dropping it at episode 16, I just couldn’t find the motivation to catch up with the 6 episodes i’d fallen behind on because my schedule is a tragedy

Tokyo Ghoul: Re: I guess it’s fair to say I’ve kind of outgrown Tokyo Ghoul. There’s something messy and confusing about how this season panned out, and there comes a point in which misery porn just doesn’t cut it anymore. I still watch because Ishida has a way to make every single goddamn character extremely sympathetic, which makes for an emotionally engaging viewing even when you’re not sure of what the plot is supposed to be or who you should be rooting for. I tried picking up the new season that just started airing and immediately found I had no idea of what was going on, who was on who’s side and in general, who the fuck were 90% of the characters, so I dropped it.

Nanatsu no Taizai: Imashime no Fukkatsu: I’ve mentioned it before, this second season had the opposite problem than the first one: the pace was too slow. It took more than half of it to get to Escanor, and then the season ends at a kind of random spot. I really thought we’d get further along on the story, since Gowther’s backstory was hinted at in the openings, but no such thing happened. They did manage to give us a variety of cool moments and fights, and I love Ban so his scenes with Zhivago and Elaine made me quite happy, though I really wish the romance between Elizabeth and Meliodas wasn’t su dubious and cringy. In light of some revelations that take place further along the manga, going out of their way to emphasize that Meliodas was a sort of mentor figure for Elizabeth when she was a toddler seems unncessary and just very squeamish. I do hope we get a third season though, and an OVA of the Vampires of whatever side story would be great too.

Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori: I was pleasantly surprised by this show, and it’s closer to being one of my top of the season than it is to “meh”. It had some weaker, cheesier segments, but it also managed great whacky moments and a genuine soothing atmosphere. What surprised me most is that the vanilla looking cast of moderately handsome dudes managed to develop into interesting, funny individuals with a dynamic that made every episode enjoyable. A solid reccommendation for anyone wanting to see delicious looking food and moderately handsome dudes being ridiculous. Also, the cat episode is the best episode of anime ever produced.

The I’m probably the only person alive who enjoys these shows

Mahou Shoujo Ore: This is a difficult show to place because it wasn’t quite as great as I wanted it to be and its parodic nature took me by surprise, but somehow I was still seriously entertained more often than not. The twists in the final quarter and the absolutely bonkers finale was a total riot, but I definitely advise caution before going in, given that some of the jokes may seem insensitive or in poor taste in regards to gender presentation, sexuality and there are even some mild harrassment jokes that certainly made me roll my eyes.

Yowamushi Pedal: Glory Line: I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but I think through half of the show’s 25 episode run, I was convinced the title was actually Glory Road. It’s kind of anticlimactic that it’s called Glory Line if they don’t actually reach the final Goal btw. Anyway, I feel I say this a lot, but really, if you didn’t like the previous Yowapeda seasons, there’s nothing here for you, and if you did, you’re probably not gonna hop off this late in the game. This season does suffer from the same dragging than its predecessors, with the added issue of being quite pessimistic for no reason in about half the episodes, and a diminished presence for Onoda. I really wish they hadn’t dragged the Day 2 goal so long, I really hoped we’d see the end of the race, but no such luck I guess. Still love most of it and hope we get one more season or a movie to complete the story.

The favorites of the season

Golden Kamuy: In spite of its pacing issues, terrible animation and general clunkiness, I can’t help but love this show. When season 1 ended my feelings for it had mellowed quite a bit, but as soon as I picked up season 2 this Fall I just fell in love all over again. It’s fun, unique, over-the-top in some ways, incredibly grounded in others, and the dynamics between the characters are incredibly charming.

Hozuki no Reitetsu: It’s hard to talk about this one because it feels repetitive, given how tonally the show remains just the same across its three seasons. It could’ve very well been a one-season, 36 episode show, for how little it changes in spite of the time that transpired between the first season and the second. But in short, the comedy continues to be as spot on as always, the Zashikiwarashi twins are the best addition to the cast. It’s definitely a show I could watch endless episodes off, and the rare case of an episodic series with no overarching plot that I can enjoy wholeheartedly.

Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card arc: Over the course of the series, I’ve expressed a few concerns and misgivings about how the story of this 20th anniversary sequel was playing out. The final episode was particularly troublesome in that it left the story unfinished in spite of deviating from the manga. In spite of this, more than anything I’m very happy that this continuation still retains what made the original so special, that they captured the magic behind Sakura’s “everything will be alright” spell and gave us the chance to spend more time with these beloved characters and see their stories continue. The slow but sweet development of Sakura and Syaoran’s puppy love is a definite highlight. Needs more Touya/Yukito and Yue in general.

Piano no Mori: This show got heavily overlooked because it was kidnapped by Netflix (pls stop immediately), and then when it was finally unceremoniously dumped a month or two ago, it came under fire for the wonky CGI during the piano scenes -and it is indeed very wonky-. But beyond that, I found the story very engaging, especially because Kai is such a fascinating protagonist, his intense rivalry-friendship with Megane-kun (sorry, it’s been six months, i can’t remember names) is exactly the type I can’t help but root for. Kai’s participation in the final episode gave me goosebumps. I’m very happy we’re getting a continuation, can’t wait to see how the Chopin competition develops.

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii: Sweet, funny and absolutely delightful from start to finish, Wotakoi was easily one of the highlights of the season. Although there were some aspects about Cosplayer-senpai and Yuri Otaku-senpai’s (I’m really trying to remember the names, I’m sorry!! ;---;) that didn’t work for me -namely the izakaya segment- Narumi and Hirotaka more than made up for it with their clumsy yet adorable romance. I spent the entirety of the amusement park episode screeching. I really hope we get a continuation -and get a chance to see more of Hirotaka’s brother and his gamer friend too- and that in general we can get more anime about adult stories

Megalobox: Who would’ve thought that a show that wasn’t even in my radar before the season started would’ve end as one of my favorites, possibly of the year? Even as someone who’s only marginally acquainted with Ashita no Joe and has no interst in the sport of boxing, I was completely enthralled by the style and passion of this production. As I said a bit above, intense rivalries are very appealing to me, and the build up in the tension between Joe and Yuri was almost palpable, their mutual respect gave me chills. Definitely the surprise of the season, made even better by its optimistic happy ending to contrast with its predecessor’s tragedy. Megalobox is a unique anniversary project that is closer to an homage and it works perfectly. Definitely check it out.

That’s it for the Spring season! I hope i can do the summer season this weekend and maaaybe even my watchlist for the Fall season. Fingers crossed i won’t get swallowed up in other stuff :’D

#anime final impressions #spring anime #god i've forgotten 95% of my tags #darling in the franxx #megalobox #wotaku ni koi wa muzukashii #piano no mori #card captor sakura clear card arc #hozuki no reitetsu #golden kamuy #yowapeda #mahou shoujo ore #rokuhoudou yotsuiro biyori #nanatsu no taizai #persona 5 #tokyo ghoul: re #hinamatsuri #hisone to masotan #binan koukou chikyuu boueibu

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shotfromguns · 6 years ago

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Overall, I think Avengers: Endgame was... about as good as we were going to get, given who was involved in making the film and what had already been established (or had failed to be established) in previous films. It was for sure massively better than Age of Ultron and a noticeable improvement over Infinity War. But there were still plenty of flaws (including things they easily could have fixed) and a few things that outright frustrated the hell out of me.

My thoughts on Endgame follow under the cut. There will obviously be spoilers. This is for @pantsvaporation, but anybody else is welcome to read/comment/etc. as well.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was a minimum of obvious “actors swinging at CG enemies that hadn’t even slightly been described to them.” And while there were definitely places the film could have been tightened up, I had been expecting the three hours to feel noticeably slack, whereas the plot never seemed to me to drag at all. In retrospect, maybe I should have been less surprised by that, given that it was directed by Russos, who were also responsible for CA:TWS, which remains the most perfectly paced action movie I’ve ever seen.

Given the length of the film, however, I am fucking furious that the only (and MCU first-ever) LGBT “representation” we got was one of the Russos as a nameless extra in Steve’s support group who was framed as a mlm through the pronouns of who he was on a date with. 181 fucking minutes, and you couldn’t find room for less than 60 seconds to show us Valkyrie with a girlfriend? Carole Danvers got that amazing (as my girlfriend often describes my current look) ‘90s dyke aesthetic after the time skip, but she couldn’t have a wife? And, of course, anybody and everybody else was given a Big Case of the Not Gays, including and especially the male characters people have enthusiastically been shipping with each other due to the historical nigh-complete dearth of women in the MCU films (Tony, Steve, Sam, Bucky... and I will have more to say about Steve).

I did cry a few times, especially towards the end, which I honestly hadn’t expected to. But it all felt very... emotionally manipulative? For example, I didn’t cry at Tony dying, per se. I did cry at Pepper reacting to his death, his daughter, Happy, etc. It felt like they sort of realized that by this point Tony had become extremely unsympathetic and that they’d probably overly telegraphed that he was going to die, so they needed to make us sad about it by ensuring we were thinking about how other characters would feel about his death, versus how we ourselves felt about it.

And we sure did get a whoooooooooole lotta time to show the audience how sad everyone felt about Tony to ensure we did, too. But there was (a) very little for Natasha, who died in this film saving the universe even more tragically than Tony did, given that she didn’t even know her sacrifice would work to get the Soul Stone, let alone whether the rest of the plan would work even if she did; and (b) almost none for the characters who died in Infinity War and didn’t get a Comic Book Death resurrection through Bruce snapping or past!Nebula breaking literally the entire premise of the film (more on that in a bit). The Vision got a two-second reference, not even by name. Loki got just a flash of a cameo, with Thor not bringing him up once that I can recall, being completely focused on their mother even in a time when they were both still alive. Heimdall didn’t even get that much, nor was he even referenced; nor were any of the Wakandans who died so that Scarlet Witch didn’t have to lose her creepy robo-boyfriend (which, whoops, she did anyway). Regardless of how obnoxious some of these character and/or their fans may have been, they still very much should have mattered to the other characters, who should have been mourning them just as much as they were mourning Tony. And yeah, sure, anybody who didn’t get Thanos’d had had five years to mourn the ones who died in Infinity War, but (a) to anybody who’d just been brought back, they were still freshly dead, and (b) even the people who were around for those five years are probably dealing with that grief all over again, not least of which because they had the others who died then returned to them, and because not everybody (especially not Thor) had even properly gone through the whole grief process in the first place.

On the topic of Thor, boyyyyyyy howdy was it frustrating how thoroughly Endgame finished off the way that Infinity War had started cutting the entire legs of his Ragnarok character development out from under him. If it weren’t for the momentary appearance of a handful of characters from Ragnarok, the movie literally might as well not have happened: Thor no longer cares about being a leader for his people, he’s back to leaning on weapons instead of relying on himself, and he seems to have completely forgotten Loki after having finally reconciled with him. And making Thor fat as a joke was not only fatphobic and unfunny but really undercut the narrative’s ability to make the viewer take his trauma seriously, because of a continuously competing tension between “you’re supposed to laugh at how he looks” and “how he looks is supposed to make you sad” that was never really resolved. There was no “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it actually means, and you feel like an ass for having laughed.” It was clearly set up to be, “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it means, and you feel a little sad, but don’t worry, there will be plenty of more times when ‘Thor is fat now’ is a punchline.”

As for the film’s humor as a whole, while there were some genuinely funny moments that were well positioned in the narrative, the movie overall felt like it frequently ran into the same problem as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where the writers were so desperate to have characters constantly quipping that they constantly undercut their own poignant moments.

Probably the biggest actual plot hole is, unsurprisingly, the time travel. They initially did an... okay job of justifying why the characters couldn’t just change the past (though it wasn’t until Bruce got to have his chat with Mx. Yellowface that it actually got in any way coherently explained). But after they did all that work of establishing that they couldn’t just change the past, for capital-R Reasons...

They did uhhhhhhh a whole fucking lot of changing the past. A few of these things could be at least fanwanked away. Maybe past!Steve forgets future!Steve telling him Bucky’s alive because he got knocked unconscious immediately afterwards. Maybe Tony’s chat with his dad had always happened. Maybe Steve had always spent decades with Peggy. But there is no way Sitwell et al. wouldn’t remember Steve pretending to be a member of Hydra, which would significantly alter the events of The Winter Soldier if they weren’t smart enough or lucky enough to verify that Steve wasn’t also a mole and therefore realize he was an “imposter” before one of those Hydra sleeper said something to past!Steve to make him suspicious. And Loki grabbing the loose Tesseract and poofing is a massive change in the timeline.

Their enemies did a whooooooole lot of changing the past when past!Nebula brought past!Thanos and The Gang through to the future, including effectively permanently restoring Gamora, i.e., someone who’d been “irreversibly” sacrificed to obtain the Soul Stone.

Once these things happened, there was literally nothing to explain why (a) the future!Avengers couldn’t at least bring back Heimdall, Loki, all those Wakandans, the Vision, Natasha, and Tony by pulling them from earlier points in the timestream, and (b) why the future!Avengers couldn’t just take their set of Infinity Stones to a point before all of this shit happened and prevent it from ever having happened. Which isn’t to say the writers couldn’t have cooked up some sort of internally consistent explanation, e.g., “this Gamora is basically stolen from the other timeline, which still exists on its own independent axis, and the Avengers wouldn’t kidnap their friends out of another timeline and leave that version of themselves without the person they want to restore just to have that person here.” But they didn’t bother, which presumably means no one involved in making the film even noticed the utter inconsistency.

Speaking of utter inconsistency... Steve. Steven fucking Rogers. Hooooooooboy. That ending was the biggest, stupidest, cheapest piece of schlock I’ve seen in a movie for a long fucking time. Let’s leave aside the fact that he chose to leave behind two perfectly good boyfriends and the fact that he barely said boo to Bucky, despite the film having reminded us how important Bucky was to him by having his name literally be the thing that so shocked past!Steve that future!Steve was able to beat him. You’re seriously telling me that Steve was still pining soooooooo badly for Peggy that he would literally risk the entire timeline so they could have their Hetero Happily Ever After? (Bucky, Sam, Tony, Angie: I’m so sorry, bbys.)

Yeah, sure, Peggy and Steve being parted was sad when it happened. But they’d been colleagues for a handful of years, then maybe sorta friends, and then kissed once, in a speeding car, just after they finally admitted they’d both been crushing on each other pretty hard the whole time because they were on the way to possibly both die. That is not “the love of your life” who you spend the rest of time sighing over. That’s, like, the guy I casually dated for a bit over a month in 2011 because, while we hit it off amazingly well, I didn’t want to get serious when he’d be moving in about a year once his postdoc was done, who sure enough moved to the east coast a year later and then abruptly died of a heart attack a few years after that. Is it tragic that he’s dead? Absolutely. Have I sometimes thought, “Gosh, I wonder what could have been”? Sure. Did I decide that I would never ever again date or even look at anyone else, because he was the only person for me in all of space and time? Lmaoooooo no. I am, in fact, deliriously happy with my current girlfriend, who I also happen to think is way better for me than he ever could have been.

It was already established that Peggy got married in the original timeline (in CA:TWS, Steve watches some footage in which she mentions that during the war he’d saved the man she eventually married). This means that either (a) Steve supplanted her original husband, which is pretty gross, especially if he didn’t tell Peggy “oh hey btw you originally married this other guy, wanna go check him out first,” or (b) Steve was Peggy’s husband all along, and she just obfuscated that. Either way, in the timeline we end up with, somehow for 50+ years this incredibly well-known woman and sometime Director of SHIELD was married to a man she kept absolutely secret and hidden, which somehow no one ever discovered the secret of or even ever commented on, apparently. It also means that, when Steve showed up on her doorstep, both of them agreed that (a) it was more important for them to play house than for Steve to ever openly use his abilities again and (b) Steve would sit on his ass and twiddle his thumbs through every major crisis he knows is coming over the next half-century. If the MCU serum slowed Steve’s aging the way the comic serum did, this might be slightly understandable, because they could justify it as, “Well, Steve will go back to adventuring after he closes the loop with his original timeline, and this will basically be an extended vacation.” But Steve did age (and they presumably had no expectation that he would not), meaning that he wasted decades of active time at most acting secretly and anonymously from the shadows. You really think that these two incredibly dedicated and driven heroes would both agree to that? Sure, I could absolutely believe they’d take the opportunity to finally get that dance. But there’s no way that Peggy wouldn’t have booted Steve’s ass out of bed and back to the 21st century, and it’s highly unlikely Steve himself would have so much as seriously considered staying for more than a more leisurely farewell and proper closure.

Steve’s Hetero Happily Ever After also further complicates the issue of that time travel plot hole I mentioned. If the stones were plucked from one or more divergent timelines (or changes made while grabbing the stones then caused the creation of divergent timelines at those points)... how did aging!Steve end up staying in the same timeline as the rest of the future!Avengers? It seems like it should be impossible for all these things to be simultaneously true, which means either I’m missing something huge or at least one of them is a huge fuck-up in terms of the plot’s internal consistency. EITHER the changes to the past happened in (or spawned) one or more divergent timelines, which is why, e.g., Gamora could be brought forward from her past and now be alive in the future without altering the past that led to her being brought forward in the first place, in which case aging!Steve would have spent his life in an alternate timeline and old!Steve wouldn’t have been able to come visit all his buds on the day young!future!Steve left to return the stones; OR everything took place in a single, unified, undivergent timeline, which would mean Steve could drop into the past and take the long way back to the exact point in spacetime he left, but the changes to the past would have altered the past events, meaning that because Thanos and The Gang skipped forward and Loki is at large with the Tesseract, the events of Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, Infinity War, etc. never happened, and we’re also back to having no reason why other dead people couldn’t be pulled forward from their past timeline, why Thanos couldn’t be stopped by time-traveling the stones to before he retrieved them and using them to stop him, etc.

Various other issues:

The “monstrous” single woman who can’t get pregnant sacrificing herself so that the virile man will have his wife and children restored to him is... not a good look. Also, it’s weird how “we don’t trade lives” when it’s about a robot coded as a white man sacrificing himself to save half the universe (though apparently even at the time a whole bunch of Wakandans was fine, whoops, remember all the Black people who died trying to stop Thanos from getting to the Vision, weird how those lives were okay to trade), but when it’s about Natasha or Clint throwing themself off a cliff, immediately they’re both all, “Yeah, it’s gotta be done for the greater good.”

Thor getting to be the one to axe Thanos’s head off instead of, you know, like, oh, I don’t know, Nebula? The woman he abused and tortured pretty much her entire life? Bad. Inappropriate. Disappointing.

Everybody kept talking about how the characters who got Thanos’d in Infinity War were their “family.” For Rocket, I believe it; one thing the GotG films actually did well was to establish that level of relationship for those characters. But the Avengers? Lmaoooooo. The MCU Avengers were not a fucking family. The MCU Avengers spent every single movie at each other’s throats. If you wanted us to believe they were even friends, you should have given us at least one film of them seriously working as a team instead of against each other.

Holy shit, do I not care about Clint Barton’s Manpain(tm). Also, if you want us to see how far he’s “fallen,” maybe do something other than giving him the worst mohawk I’ve ever seen (including one done backstage after a show and one a friend gave me in my bathroom in college) and a boring tattoo and having him badly pick up an ugly katana-esque sword to kill objectively bad guys.

Bringing Scott back was easy enough that a rat walking across a panel after five years of that shit sitting in a storage facility could do it, and yet no one else tried even once? Somebody saw all that shit set up, and went, “Welp, guess they’re all just dead,” instead of, “Hey maybe this running equipment indicates an experiment in progress that we should maybe investigate”?

The “let’s line up all the named women” shot in the final battle was the most patronizing display of pandering I’ve seen in the entire franchise. Not only did it make no sense for them all to be in the same place at the same time with no men even in the shot, but... they were utterly ineffectual? It was like, “Gosh, how will Carole ever make it through that??? Oh, she’s got US, GIRL-FRIENDS, DID WE MENTION WE’RE ALL LADIES, BUT NOT QUEER OR ANYTHING.” And then... Carole immediately blew straight past them, because her power level is so off the charts compared to almost every other named woman in the MCU, many of whom are simply very, very skilled peak human heroes versus being superhuman.

Speaking of superhuman abilities: Why wasn’t every time-travel suit an Iron Man-style suit like Rhodey’s? Obviously he needed an exoskeleton bit to walk, but since Tony took the time to build him a beefed-up full suit, why didn’t he do the same for everyone else?

Along that same line of stupid decisions made around the Vitally Important, We Only Get One Shot At Fixing This time-travel mission, why didn’t they wait until everyone was in better shape? Thor was clearly still an emotional wreck, and if Rocket hadn’t been on the ball, it would have cost them one of the stones. As soon as you’re traveling back in time to fix something, unless there’s a hard limit on how far you can go back (which there wasn’t), you literally have the rest of your lives to get ready for it, so can and should take as much time as you need to prep (and even over-prep) for that mission. A little more lead time also would have given someone the opportunity to go, “Hey, wait, why don’t we first make a quick stop to just grab more Pym Particles, so we have more flexibility with destinations and do-overs?” Or even, “Why don’t we make these suits modular? That way, they can join into a single unit for each team on the way there, thereby saving a bunch of charges, but also split off into individual suits with everyone having enough juice to get home individually just in case someone gets split off. That will leave us with a bunch of extra Pym Particles in case something goes wrong.”

Other than meta reasons like “we want there to be a big epic fight,” why was it such a struggle to fight Thanos? The Avengers very nearly beat him in Infinity War, when he had five of the six Infinity Stones. Here, he had none, and they still barely squeaked out the victory by the skin of their teeth.

Thanos’s rapid switch from “I’m gonna kill half of all living creatures to uhhh save the universe somehow” to “I guess I’ll just wipe out everything and make an entirely new universe” once again highlighted how deeply stupid his original plan was. If he has the capacity to re-create the entire universe, why doesn’t he just... make more resources, if that’s such a fucking problem? I mean, also, spoiler alert for the real world: It’s not. It’s always been an issue of distribution, not amount. People aren’t starving to death because there’s no food; people are starving to death because of capitalism. So unless you target your population elimination at capitalists exclusively, killing off a bunch of people is going to maintain exactly the same problems of unequal resource exploitation and distribution.

Speaking of which: Why is post-Thanos Earth presented as a mellow semi-paradise (except for everybody being sad about all the dead people)? The loss of half the world’s population would have been catastrophic, cascading into many more deaths. Nor would it have solved inequality... or even resource “over”-utilization. Earth hit a population of 3.85 billion (i.e., half the current ~7.7 billion) around 1972, which many people currently alive have personal memories of not actually being particularly idyllic. This also highlights once again how deeply stupid and nonsensical Thanos’s original plan was, given that his “solution” could easily become obsolete in another 50 years... or even sooner, given that Thanos also cut all non-human creature populations in half, which would have not only reduced related resources available for human consumption but devastated ecosystems worldwide.

There has been a huge official campaign to persuade audiences to not spoil the movie for others. As a general principle, I’m a fan of encouraging anti-spoiler culture, but I think it says a lot about this movie in specific that the studio has put in so much effort to try to stamp out spoilers: i.e., they’re worried that the only real draw it has is people finding out assorted plot points. If your film can be easily replaced by a bulleted list of who’s alive or dead at the end of it, it’s... not actually a good film.

ADDENDUM MAY 5, 2019:

Okay, so, per the Russos, the reason Steve's Hetero Happily Ever After DOESN'T break the entire rest of the film is that it happened in an alternate timeline, and he just jumped back to the MCU prime timeline later... somehow. I still think that's shitty, lazy filmmaking, because in three hours they absolutely should have, you know, made that more clear (or... at all indicated that's how it played out). But at least it keeps their time travel mechanics from completely breaking their own plot.

But that means that in THAT timeline there were two Steves. Which means the BEST-CASE SCENARIO is prime!Steve hooked up with that timeline's Peggy after being 100% honest about who he was, alt!Peggy... chose a different version of Steve over her own Steve, for... reasons?, and then together they found and revived alt!Steve, at which point prime!Steve was like, "lol sorry bro, she's my wife 'cause I missed my chance with prime!Peggy, but at least now you're not frozen for any longer than you already have been."

Other options include:

Prime!Steve pretended to be alt!Steve while leaving him in the ice, counting on him not getting rescued until alt!Peggy would be nearly dead.

Prime!Steve helped rescue alt!Steve, then left alt!Peggy and alt!Steve to have their personal Hetero Happily Ever After while he... married some other random person?

Prime!Steve straight-up murdered alt!Steve to take his place.

Prime!Steve and alt!Peggy rescued alt!Steve, and she married both of them. (Somehow I don't see Disney going for that option.)

ADDENDUM MAY 12, 2019

I just read another interview, this one with the writers. Buckle up, because there’s even more embarrassing shit.

McFeely: I mean, we did all of this before Ragnarok.

Markus: Yeah, initially we were writing drafts prior to Taika coming onboard. And it was once they got underway and they were off in Australia making the movie and it was clear that they were discovering new facets to Thor, Chris Hemsworth wanted to make sure that this new loosened-up Thor didn't vanish immediately upon returning to the Avengers world. And so he and Taika flew to Atlanta and we had long meetings with them and watched some footage and got a sense of the new Thor tone, and it worked perfectly with where we wanted to go.

... ... ... ... Literally WHAT FUCKING PART of Infinity War and Endgame matches AT ALL with Thor's character development from Ragnarok? I was all ready to go, "Oh, okay, that makes sense" at the reveal that this was written before Ragnarok. But then, nope, they admit that they just have no fucking idea what they're doing and think they actually integrated its changes WELL. JFC.

McFeely: So where we hit upon it was in order to become their best selves, Steve had to find a life, and Tony had to lose his.

Boring idea and poorly executed to boot. (Not to mention the extreme cringiness of “finding a life” necessarily requires “marrying a woman and having babies in the suburbs.”) How are they getting paid money for writing this trite?

Fandango: So people are asking... Does this mean an old Captain America was hanging out this whole time while another Captain America was saving the day?

Markus: That is our theory. We are not experts on time travel, but the Ancient One specifically states that when you take an Infinity Stone out of a timeline it creates a new timeline. So Steve going back and just being there would not create a new timeline. So I reject the "Steve is in an alternate reality" theory. I do believe that there is simply a period in world history from about '48 to now where there are two Steve Rogers. And anyway, for a large chunk of that one of them is frozen in ice. So it's not like they'd be running into each other.

HAHAHAHA HOLY FUCKING SHIT okay so NOT ONLY do the director and writers have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IDEAS about what the fuck happened at the end (did they... not discuss this with each other? at all?), but the WRITERS' version is the one that is THE MOST OUT OF CHARACTER. HOLY SHIT.

McFeely: So we've always thought that the most perfect conclusion to [Natasha's] arc would be to die for her new family, or to sacrifice greatly for her new family.

GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG

McFeely: We toyed with not doing that, and we had another version, and several women on the crew said, "Don't you dare take that choice away from her. The heroic thing is for Natasha to do it, not for Hawkeye to do it."

these are definitely real women who actually exist

Fandango: Do you think there's a world where we see the adventures of Captain and Peggy either on the big or small screen?

Christopher Markus: Possibly. I think maybe all I did was Steve was a stay-at-home dad and Peggy went to work at S.H.I.E.L.D. I don't know that there were any adventures.

lmaoooooooooo

Imagine being this bad at knowing your own characters. Imagine thinking either Peggy OR Steve would just give up their life to play house when there's important work they could be doing.

#Analyzing film #Avengers #Avengers: Endgame #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers #Thor #Natasha Romanoff

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mst3kproject · 6 years ago

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1109: Yongary: Monster from the Deep

The first time I saw Yongary was when I was on a Kaiju Eiga binge over Christmas break one year. It was on YouTube, with the sound removed for copyright infringement, and no subtitles. At the time, this didn’t bother me much. I thought I’d seen enough weird monster movies that I could guess what was going on from the visuals. It turned out I really couldn’t. Even now that I’ve seen it with sound, I’m still not sure what happened in this movie.

Korea’s top astronaut has just gotten married when he’s called off to a space emergency – somebody is testing bombs in the middle east and they need a guy in space to watch it. The bombing causes earthquakes that cross the globe until they reach Korea, where the ground cracks open to reveal, what else? An oddly rubbery and humanoid monster! Yongary proceeds to devastate the land, as oddly rubbery and humanoid monsters do, feeding on oil and taking an occasional nap, until the astronaut’s very much younger brother (I think) Icho and future brother-in-law (again, I think) Ilo discover its one weakness: itching powder.

So yeah, there’s a lot to unpack here.

If Yongary has a visual aesthetic, it’s empty pockets and boundless enthusiasm. The production appears to have had very little money and they spread it very thin, resulting in effects that are shoddy and unconvincing across the board… and yet, the people who created them went all-out, absolutely determined to wring every last jeon out of their budget. The monster suit never looks like anything but a monster suit, but they never shy away from showing it. The model cities are large and elaborate, even as they lack detail or realistic lighting. Shots showing earth from space look like a seventh grade science fair project. The matte shots are bad. The itch ray is just light reflected onto things with a mirror. It all looks terrible, but their hearts were in it.

Unfortunately, not half so much effort appears to have gone into the script, which wanders from character to character in a series of events that are connected only by the monster, and sometimes only barely. A number of things are set up as if they’re going to be very important and then are simply dropped, leaving the impression that they were only there to fill time.

What, for example, is the point of the space sequence? They drag the astronaut (whose name I never caught in the movie, and IMDB is no help) away from his honeymoon to observe this nuclear test. Some kind of failure on the spaceship, perhaps related to said test, puts him in danger but after much worry he reaches the ground safely. Wow! Our hero is a great pilot with nerves of steel! Surely this will be very important later. Maybe he will be called to do something dangerous to defeat the monster! Maybe something he saw from space, while he was out of touch with the ground, will be key to saving the day!

Uh, no. He’s not even in the rest of the movie, really, and we certainly never hear tell of the space program again. As far as I can tell, the only purpose to any of this was establishing the nuclear test (because everybody knows those create monsters) and then trying to have some tension before Yongary actually emerges. The whole sequence was filler.

Then there’s the itching ray, which first appears in the hands of little Icho as he plays a prank on the newlyweds. Exactly why Ilo has invented an itching ray, I don’t know. Was it intended to do something else and just ended up being itchy? When Icho swipes it again to use on Yongary, I figured maybe a souped-up itch ray would turn out to be what kills the monster but again, no. The itching ray doesn’t even set up anything important. I think it’s foreshadowing that itching is Yongary’s weakness, but the ray has nothing to do with the chemical allergy that brings the monster down, besides manifesting a similar symptom.

The fact that itching appears in the movie in more than one context probably makes it a motif. Why, out of all the possible themes and symbolism you could put in a movie, the makers of Yongary chose itching, I have no idea. Perhaps it represents something below the surface trying to break free, like the monster itself? If that’s the case, then it’s fitting that the source of the itching is always externally imposed: the ray and Yongary’s allergy induce itching, and the nuclear test makes the earth ‘itch’ so that Yongary breaks out. Whether this means anything deeper than that, I honestly cannot say.

Itching brings us to Icho. I’m pretty sure Icho is the actual main character of this story. He’s there at the beginning, he’s there at the end, and he’s the one who realizes what the monster’s weakness is. He even has a bit of an arc, I guess… he’s nothing but an insufferable brat at the beginning of the film, and while he continues to be bratty throughout he does develop a more mature outlook, coming to understand the need for Yongary’s destruction while still feeling sorry for the monster.

Icho is clearly supposed to have some kind of emotional bond with Yongary, but this is completely one-sided and even less justified than Kenny’s supposed friendship with Gamera. Whereas Gamera saved Kenny from falling to his death, I don’t think Yongary ever even notices Icho – which is probably all for the best, since Icho is doing things like turning off his food supply and zapping him with itching rays. Icho’s defense of Yongary is also a little more realistic than Kenny’s of Gamera. He never insists that Yongary is good and gentle, only that the monster didn’t mean to hurt anybody. This is probably true. Yongary is not presented as a creature with a personality or intentions, he is merely a force of nature, doing what giant rubber monsters do. He does not seem capable even of understanding that he is causing suffering.

What’s kind of interesting about this is that it makes it clear that Gamera, rather than Godzilla, was the primary inspiration for Yongary. The monster emerges as a result of a nuclear bombing that is never mentioned again. It eats oil and is strengthened by fire. Annoying little kids like it for no readily apparent reason. As an attempt to create a Kaiju franchise in 1967, when the genre was already well-established, it was probably inevitable that Yongary would look like a ripoff of something, but the choice of Gamera for a model seems particularly weird when we consider the ending. At the end of Gamera, the monster was sent to Mars where he would presumably continue to live without bothering humanity. This is pretty cool and appeals to children.

In Yongary, the monster dies of internal bleeding while Icho watches. This doesn’t seem to have bothered Icho but it sure disturbed Jonah and the bots, and once I saw it in a context where I understood what was happening, it made my jaw drop, too. When I think back on the deaths of monsters in Kaiju Eiga, they tend to be fairly quick affairs: in Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the oxygen-destroyer pretty much instantly skeletonizes things. Even bad-guy monsters tend to die or be driven off in one final blow or finishing move, as when Gamera throws Gaos into the volcano. When the monsters visibly suffer, like Gamera with the baby Jiger inside him, or Anguirus when Godzilla rips his tongue out, it’s shocking and unpleasant. Maybe this is because we think of these movies as being for children, or perhaps it’s the unavoidable anthropomorphic shape of the creature suits. Whatever the reason, Yongary’s death is a major tonal departure and the ‘happy ending’ that follows it makes it even weirder.

I know basically nothing about the geography of Korea, but people who do have apparently written a great deal about how important the landscape is to Yongary. According to critic Steve Ryfle, Yongary emerges in the northern part of Korea, near where the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953 – this makes him perhaps symbolic of aggression from the north, marching inexorably down the peninsula towards Seoul. Korean critic Kim Songho noted that Yongary destroys the old Seoul Capital building, a symbol of the Japanese occupation of Korea before and during World War II (the building was knocked down in the 90s for this reason).

Using your giant monster to make a political statement, particularly an anti-war or anti-colonial one, is nothing new, but I don’t think the makers of Yongary intended a unified one by this. The two political messages in the landscape seem opposed to each other: one paints Yongary as a semi-foreign force of aggression, the other as a native being destroying a symbol of foreign aggression. This isn’t a problem for me, the non-Korean viewer, and the two ideas work fine when they’re each considered in isolation, but they do speak to the overall lack of unity in the script.

That lack of unity is probably the biggest single obstacle to enjoying Yongary for what it is, rather than the ironic amusement people like me get out of bad movies. The jarring ending, the space program that is set up and then not used, and the inconsistent symbolism all make Yongary: Monster from the Deep feel like something assembled from parts rather than being a coherent whole. All movies are made by committees, but a good movie shouldn’t feel like it was.

#MST3K #reviews #yongary: monster from the deep #antiimperialist kaiju

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ahouseoflies · 6 years ago

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The Best Films of 2018, Part II

Part I is here. Let’s keep it moving. ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

103. Zama (Lucretia Martel)- In this movie there's a motif of Zama, an officer of the 18th century Spanish Empire, starting a scene by talking to someone or staring at someone off camera. After a minute or two, the camera cuts to some servant and disorients us. There's a person there, always there, to serve him, and it doesn't really matter who it is. It's a brilliant way to get at the colonialism that the character depends on but is still trapped by. So I get a little bit of what the film is trying to do, but it's boring. I'm an ignorant person who doesn't know how to watch Lucretia Martel's films or have any context for South American history, but I know what boring is. 102. I Feel Pretty (Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein)- I like that Schumer tried something different instead of falling back on her persona, but there isn't enough new or interesting here for me to recommend--besides National Treasure Michelle Williams, of course. The film nearly displays "Do you see that she's turning her back on her real friends now?" on the screen. 101. A Simple Favor (Paul Feig)- At times cheeky and sexy and juicy, but it still wears out its welcome by twists ninety-one and ninety-two. 100. Double Lover (Francois Ozon)- Diverting until it gets silly, then so silly that it gets diverting again. There are about five too many twists, and I'm still unclear on how seriously the film takes any of those twists. More importantly, I don't think there's much of a takeaway from any of it. Ozon seems to have found a real muse in Marine Vacth though. 99. Borg Vs. McEnroe (Janus Metz Pedersen)- As a Shia Pet, I felt obligated to see his portrayal of Johnny Mac. I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know from this mediocre biopic though. Watch the documentary McEnroe/Borg: Fire & Ice instead. 98. Ralph Breaks the Internet (Rich Moore and Phil Johnston)- There's some clever visualization of the the Internet, such as the way that a link shuttles an avatar off in a transparent car or the way that shady newsboy types whisper about pop-up ads. And I liked a lot of the Disney tie-in stuff that critics are wincing at. As far as textbook screenwriting goes, it's great at that idea of making you think that the protagonists will accomplish their goal very easily, only to have them be re-directed to square one. The voice acting is top-notch. Why do these movies get so plotty though? I felt as if the internal logic started getting inconsistent about halfway through--at the same time that the first one got bogged down with candy stuff instead of 8-bit video game stuff. And if there are so many lovable characters from the first entry, why do we get such tiny servings of them here? The movie's too long already, but what I wouldn't give for an occasional cut back to Fix-It Felix raising some kids.

97. We the Animals (Jeremiah Zagar)- The Tree of Life is one of my favorite movies, and on its face, We the Animals is a really similar impressionistic memory. So why do I like it half as much? Are lighting and music that important? Is Jessica Chastain? Is latent racism? All I know is that this felt like a story I had seen before pitched at the same intensity for a running time I was happy to see expire. 96. Kodachrome (Mark Raso)- The three leads are all pretty good. (Ed Harris does this bashful, pulling-on-his-eyelid thing that killed me.) But with mathematical precision, the film matched each element I liked with another thing that infuriated me. Specifically, the whole plot hinges on one scene, and that scene is preposterous and alien to human behavior. 95. Deadpool 2 (David Leitch)- The pacing of these movies is bizarre to me; they're half-over before they really get started. No one else is bothered by the fact that Cable has no motivation or backstory for the first hour? Some of the connections to X-Men felt more forced this time around, but I thought this entry was much funnier than the first, even mixing in some more subtle visual gags. (The exotic locales montage ending in Biloxi really got me.) I have to give credit to the X-Force parachute sequence, which is audacious and unexpected. And clear out for Zazie Beetz, who is a huge star in the making. 94. At Eternity’s Gate (Julian Schnabel)- Something about Van Gogh was essentially unknowable, which is a great reason to make a movie about him and a terrible reason to make a movie about him. I'm not sure that Julian Schnabel got to the bottom of the man any better than anyone else has, though maybe that's an unfair expectation. To his credit, Schnabel yada-yadas the ear business and Van Gogh's death in favor of his more poetic understanding of the artistic life. The movie doesn't coalesce for me, but there's a banger of a scene between Dafoe and Mads Mikkelsen about the responsibility an artist has toward God. That short nested inside makes the whole thing worth seeing. The conversation I had afterwards with one of the two other people in the theater, an art historian, was a solid three stars. 93. Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer)- Some biographical movies do a good job of compressing time, and their supporting characters don't feel sacrificed or glossed over. For many other mediocre ones though, including this one, I submit the Three Scene Rule. Three scenes is kind of the minimum for a character to register an arc and for an actor to present any kind of dynamic performance, so in a lot of these true story movies, that's all that a supporting character gets. If you're looking for it, it's glaring. (Watch Hidden Figures again with the husband and boyfriend characters in mind. I'll wait.) This movie has a few characters that matter: Freddie Mercury, obvs; the other Queen members; Paul Prenter, the unfairly composited villain; and Mary Austin, the platonic love of Mercury's life. The movie spends way too much time on her, as if to tease the audience with the idea that Freddie might be straight. As for everyone else? Three scenes. Ray Foster, the record executive played by Mike Myers (!): A. "Look, guys, I like formulas. This opera stuff you're talking about? That sounds crazy." B. "The opera stuff is crazy. I ain't making that the single. You can walk out of here for all I care." C. [hangs head in shame after being proven wrong] Jim Hutton, Freddie's partner for the seven years this movie doesn't care about: A. "Look, pal, I may be a waiter, but you can't just grab me like that. On second thought, let's talk. You should learn how to love yourself." B. "Oh, hey. Glad you tracked me down, slugger. You love yourself now? Sure, let's go meet your parents." C. "Guess I'm your boyfriend now. Looking forward to the show." Freddie's Parents: A. "You go out every night! What are you doing out there? Why can't you be a good boy? What's up with your new name?" B. "Why can't you be a good boy? What's up with your new name?" C. "You're a good boy, I guess, even if you're gay. Guess that's your name for real." I like the idea of reproducing the Live Aid performance in full, and the movie comes alive during its musical sequences. But I wish that the same attention given to, like, the number of Pepsi cups on the piano was also given to the nuts and bolts of the storytelling.

92. The Predator (Shane Black)- I get why other people don't like this. The final fourth feels obligatory, and it seems cut to the verge of incoherence. But if you don't get a little tingle out of a game cast saying Shane Black things like, "Predators don't just sit around making hats out of rib cages," then we are very different moviegoers.

91. Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley)- I admire Boots Riley's ambition, the way he's taking many of the ideas that drove his music and channeling them into film. But there are too many ideas and, strangely, too much plot to cohere. I liked some of the jokes, especially the Robocop-py TV clips laced throughout. I think my main problem, however, is Lakeith Stanfield as Cassius. He's a fascinating actor, but his energy is completely wrong for an everyman lead like this. I don't think he was the right choice to carry it. 90. Thoroughbreds (Cory Finley)- The repartee at the beginning is sharp, and there are some engaging elements of style. God knows I've never complained about rich, sad, nubile brunettes with strange eyes. But there are pieces missing in that forest-for-the-trees way that happens sometimes with debuts. Like, how do these privileged girls not have access to a gun when our national nightmare is based on all young people having access to guns? Or what is the exact motivation behind the crime at the center? Lots of great characters have been spurred by a violent curiosity, but a zinger here and there doesn't make these girls Raskolnikov. 89. White Boy Rick (Yann DeMange)- Even if this isn't it, I think Yann Demange has a great film in him. There's some urgency to White Boy Rick's politics, and it looks interesting. If nothing else, it succeeds in making the surroundings seem as gloomy as the characters all acknowledge them to be. But this isn't a great film in either of its halves. It's motivated by plot until a crucial event that I don't want to reveal, then it veers much more into character. I would normally sign off on that, but this movie grinds to a halt in the change and never recovers. McConaughey pulls his weight, but Richie Merritt is pretty bad in the lead. 88. The Strangers: Prey at Night (Johannes Roberts)- Despite some striking images and a welcome lack of explanation for the menace, Prey at Night doesn't reach the heights of its predecessor, mostly because the characters are too paint-by-numbers. 87. Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed)- Probably the first Marvel movie that would benefit from more action. Some of the material is genuinely funny thanks to Michael Pena and Randall Park, but I got a little drowsy during the middle hour of talk about phase-shifting and the quantum realm. Get back to making things big or making things little, Dr. Molecule! 86. Creed II (Steven Caple Jr.)- The pieces are there, but it's a problem when Jim Lampley, who has one hundred times as many lines as the fifth lead, explains to the audience what they literally saw an hour earlier. If nothing else, this movie proves, through his absence, how good of a director Ryan Coogler is. I would be lying if I said I didn't get the chills at some key moments. Stallone’s performance and Jordan's muscles are good. But there was a dark, honest way for this movie to end, and it went directly against that ending into something more Hollywood. 85. Let the Sunshine In (Claire Denis)- Like Taxi Driver if Travis Bickle just wanted the guy to get him a glass of water afterwards. The film does have that kind of myopic focus--the sexy, ever-candid Binoche is in every scene--but it's far more elliptical, progressing only through character, never through plot. Let the Sunshine In is unique in a way that is different from Denis's other unique works: No one talks like an actual person, and she acts as if you should know all of the characters instead of properly introducing them. It's not supposed to be funny ha-ha, so excuse me if that's what I wanted.

84. Revenge (Coralie Fargeat)- like the style of this film, the color palette, the synth score, how far it's willing to go with the gore. But if it's called Revenge, and it's clear who the hero is (hint: not the rapist), then the whole thing feels like a fait accompli. We know exactly who's going to be the last woman standing, and we even know the order of the people she's going to kill.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES 83. The Rider (Chloe Zhao)- This movie is trying to be a poem, but the parts I like the most are prose. It's a promising piece of filmmaking with heartbreaking moments, but I found it most effective when the storytelling spelled things out. It's an all-hands-on-deck independent film, so the amateurism of the piece shines through in the performances from non-professional actors. The relationship between Brady and his autistic sister is interesting because she speaks with that sarcastic cadence that can be learned from only children's programming. It's unlike what we usually see because, you know, she's a non-professional actor and real autistic person. So what do I know? 82. Unfriended: Dark Web (Stephen Susco)- Pretty tight from a storytelling standpoint and definitely grisly enough to get under the skin. But these laptop flicks move with such alacrity that it's hard to believe them whenever they ask you to buy something like love, since they paint it with the broadest strokes imaginable. Not that I would want a two-hour version of this anyway. 81. Juliet, Naked (Jesse Peretz)- Charming enough, arriving at a more realistic place than I expected, Juliet, Naked does nothing to make me revoke my charter membership in the Rose Byrne fan club. What an odd shape this film has though. The inciting incident happens at the hour mark, and it races obligatorily to an ending at an hour, thirty-seven. 80. Ocean’s Eight (Gary Ross)- It sets its marks and hits them adequately, with most of the charm that made the other Ocean movies fun. But there's something lifeless about Ocean's 8, both in the direction and the score. Take, for example, Richard Armitage's bland, sort of lost performance as an old flame/mark. It's such a nothing part that I began to think that it was a thesis: The men are just chess pieces, and they shouldn't take attention away from the women this time. But then James Corden emerges in the last half-hour and shines. So maybe Armitage was just bad and directed poorly? This movie exists for the Movie Star interplay though, and it delivers on that level. Cate Blanchett was good for so long that she's popular, and Sandra Bullock was popular for so long that she's good. Rihanna has to dress like a janitor at one point as a disguise, and she proves how absurd it would be for her to ever blend in. Anne Hathaway is the funniest of the bunch, balancing on a highwire of how big she's supposed to seem. Helena Bonham Carter gets the "and" hammer for all my credit fetishists. 79. Mary Poppins Returns (Rob Marshall)- I saw this on Christmas night with my family. The original Mary Poppins was the first movie my mom ever saw in theaters, and it's probably my wife's favorite. To the extent that insulting it is kind of insulting an important part of who she is. So I couldn't be the guy coming out of the theater like, "The Bankses definitely deserved to lose their house." Between you and me though, it's just fine. Entire sequences could be cut without damaging anything--do we ever come back to the bowl that Meryl Steep is supposed to be mending?--and most of the conflict feels manufactured. These legasequels always end up feeling like boxes being checked. We all know that the guys with the cannon had to come back, right? But some of the numbers are so joyful or stirring that even this grinch snuck a few smiles at his daughter as she pointed to the screen and said, "That's so silly." It's a good movie to see on Christmas night with your whole family. 78. RBG (Betsy West, Julie Cohen)- This movie is designed to make the viewer who would seek it out go, "What an American hero." It does that, I suppose, and there isn't a whole lot wrong with it. Yes, she is a very impressive person. But the film has too much untapped potential and too few teeth to recommend beyond that rubric of achieving its goals. For example, what about half of the population that would sneer at the notion that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an American hero? Besides the inclusion of some radio clips over the credits, the filmmakers aren't concerned. "Look, she was friends with a conservative!"

77. Searching (Aneesh Shaganty)- Since I've seen thousands of movies that don't take place inside of a computer, there's still some novelty to the handful that do. On one hand, there are four or five twists too many, and the film isn't consistent with its own rules. On the other hand, it gets intriguingly dark for PG-13, and it never stops moving. 76. Uncle Drew (Charles Stone III)- The attitude toward women is retrograde, and to call the plot cookie-cutter would be an understatement. But this works, mostly because of the sunny, natural performances. Kyrie Irving, whose handles are even more of a marvel on a forty-foot screen, has to act through pounds of makeup, but he pulls it off. With only commercials to his name, he has to carry scenes of, like, standing at someone's grave and apologizing, and he has the presence and confidence to do it. I also should mention that Nick Kroll has a nothing-to-lose, galaxy brain performance for which probably zero of the lines were written ahead of time. "Shout-out to Oberto, shout-out to Aleve, the number one pain reliever in the game right now." I have to extend some of the credit here to Charles Stone III, who has made a calling card out of coaxing performances from newcomers. 75. Christopher Robin (Marc Forster)- Cute. 74. Unsane (Steven Soderbergh)- What seems to be a B-movie hitting its marks gets elevated by one fantastic scene that makes it seem timely and vital. I can't help but think Steven Soderbergh is punching below his weigh class though. I'm glad that an experiment like shooting a movie with an iPhone gets him up in the morning, and I know he doesn't want to make another Traffic or Out of Sight. But maybe, here's an idea, audiences might? 73. 22 July (Paul Greengrass)- The first thirty minutes are harrowing, in part because of their disciplined cross-cutting and Anders Danielsen Lie's chilling stoicism. The mistake that Greengrass makes is thinking that, later on, the three strands of story are equal in importance. He cuts away from the court case at its apex to see a kid trying to walk again or a prime minister demanding that his administration get tougher. Some moments are powerful, and Greengrass's composition and editing have mercifully softened, but this becomes a grind at a certain point. 72. Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard)- I hate to state the obvious, but this feels like multiple movies stitched together because that's exactly what it is. On one hand, we have the foggy opening, featuring an airtight inciting incident and setting up Emilia Clarke as that rarest of things in a Star Wars movie: a character with unclear motivations. But as the film goes on, it reveals why Han doesn't work as a protagonist. (Ehrenreich is bad, but the storytelling sinks the movie more than his performance does.) Everyone else in the movie drips with charisma and comments on the action while Han is left to connect the dots. In other words, the other characters get to be Han Solo, and Han Solo doesn't. By the time we get to the marauders, past the two hour mark of a movie that shouldn't have been more than two hours, the narrative crumbles under its own weight. These movies are way too competent to fail--I can list five or six moments that transcend the flaws--but each of these origin stories has a way of erasing the myth of Star Wars with a pen. 71. Bird Box (Susanne Bier)- This is a genre film that you've seen before in one way or another, so your expectations (and filmgoing experience even?) will dictate what you think of it. There's a metaphorical reading available, but that doesn't make the picture more artful automatically. Trevante Rhodes is a Movie Star. Here's what I can tell you: We need to appreciate John Gavin Malkovich while we can. Delivering the apotheosis of the selfish dickhead survivor character, he a) asks why the group can't stay in the grocery store forever, b) points shotguns at people when they try to let in strangers, c) drinks as he's telling people matter-of-factly that this is the end of the world, and d) (sort of) explains why he is the way he is. And-he-does-it-all-with-the-deliberate-cadence-that-you-are-doing-in-your-HEAD-right-NOW. I'm not saying the guy should win Best Supporting Actor or anything, but I admire his career more than any that would get a Best Supporting Actor.

#film #lists #movie reviews

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ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is · 6 years ago

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I did my best to put it in some kind of order but it got messy and I'm helpless about what I should write even after having read the FAQ and more than 20 pages of your posts so bear with me, please. The more I studied the functions, the less I know. So I'm really annoyed when people do things in a certain way because that's how it was done - there's nothing wrong with sticking to tried ways but everyone should think why they do it instead of mindlessly following a set path. (1/???)

A note to readers: if I may ask, please hold back your own sarcasm and such.

I don’t explicitly set a length limit anywhere for asks as most people stop at a fairly reasonable 5 or 6 - I’ve gotten extremely long asks only a few other times and those were mostly overnight for me so I didn’t get to weigh in in medias res, so while this person definitely needs to work on editing there’s some good content. Had there been anything egregiously offensive, ignorant, or annoying I’d have been much more brusque or I’d just have blocked them; this was a genuine misread of the situation. It’s really hard for me to define what’s good to send for typing; it’s very much a case of knowing it when I see it and I know that can be difficult for some people to interpret. Answer is below the jump.

Hi anon,

I may have had some mild fun at your expense; when I see someone is 10 messages deep and talking about Mamma Mia I have to say I have concerns about their ability to decide what is relevant information.

Anyway I’m going to answer this piece by piece. This will not be my, uh, least snarky answer; the cost of doing business of mbti typing with me for no money is that I like to enjoy myself. But I will attempt to also provide a good faith answer as you have some solid examples within all this.

I did my best to put it in some kind of order but it got messy and I'm helpless about what I should write even after having read the FAQ and more than 20 pages of your posts so bear with me, please.

As you can see I will not really bear with you but I do appreciate you doing some research

The more I studied the functions, the less I know. So I'm really annoyed when people do things in a certain way because that's how it was done - there's nothing wrong with sticking to tried ways but everyone should think why they do it instead of mindlessly following a set path. (1/???)

I feel like people use this sort of language to be like “please don’t type me as a high Si user” when in fact this is EXTREMELY high healthy Si user. Thought it could be a lower Si user as well. Anyway, moving on

For example, it's sad how many people believe in God just because thats how they were raised without actually reading the Bible (no hard feelings to believers, I also believe)

I’m...not going to unpack that

I like to speak out loud some ideas with no thoughts of acting on them but some people tend to believe I'm dead set on the idea and it causes some misunderstandings. Also, I have at least 6 back up plans for my future in case some of them won't fly. (2/???)

Here’s the deal when people say they’ve studied EVERYTHING and then ramble on for a long time and can’t type themselves I often suspect the issue isn’t that they don’t know MBTI but that they need to learn themselves. Contingency plans tend to be Ne-Si; speaking out loud with no plans to act is pretty normal.

I plan on going to a country abroad in 2 years from now and I've already made plans what I want to see there. I have a list of places I need to visit arranged in order so I could visit as many places in the most effective way because I don't want to waste my precious time spend there. I also enjoy telling people about my plans of going there as it makes me really excited. The unknown excites me and I enjoy wandering around a city I visit for the first time because I don't know it.

I can’t type off of this specifically yet but it’s interesting because you have extremely detailed plans (more of a sensing thing) but for a trip that I can’t imagine you’ve finalized if it’s that far off.

Wandering around cities is great though, I agree with you there.

I'm also really good at remembering routes and getting to the destination. I like figuring out how to get there.

Maybe immature Si user actually? Getting really indignant about poor use of Si, plus that bit about the bible I said I wouldn’t unpack sounds like it could be as well especially if paired with Fe and/or Christian views of religion.

I'm a bit reserved at first as I need to test the waters before I decide I like someone. It takes me sometime to warm up but I actually enjoy small talk and feel tempted to speak to a cashier at shop or a fellow passenger at bus which isn't as socially acceptable at my country so I don't really do this - I don't want to come across as a weird person but at the same time, (4/???)

I'm not really bothered to play a social game and I often seem to be rude (resting bitch face, actually I'm not judgmental and I'm quite chill about most of things). I know in mbti e vs i isn't perceived in a traditional way but I identify as ambivert as most of people, heh. My introverted friends say I'm an extravert but extraverts find me a quiet girl. I'm also 9w1 if that helps.

Yeah I’m thinking ISFJ now honestly, not wanting to violate social norms, introverted but enjoys small talk, and 9w1 goes with ISFJ a lot.

I've been also always thought to be a smart one who knows a lot of stuff about many things (5/???)

I could say I'm a walking contradiction as I mentioned in my previous post btw I'm sorry I asked you to type me with a vague info, this time I put a lot of effort ♡ Oh god please don’t say you’re a walking contradiction, I truly believe your intentions are good here and I do not hold this against you but that phrase is what guys who think they’re going to make it in a band despite having no talent say in their tinder bios.

At first I was sure I'm Ne/Si but now I see a possibility of being Ni/Se.I often forget what I'm supposed to do as I've just done because I had this super relevant thing to write but I forgot, damn it.

You seem very nice and perhaps just sort of young so I would suggest...writing this in advance instead of stream of consciousness which might help you organize your thoughts and edit yourself a little? I’m writing this response in advance. Like 90% of my answers I write in a Google Doc and then paste it into the Tumblr askbox later. It’s great.

(6/???) I'm getting lost in the numbers

Hard same.

I'm also quite stubborn and I'll study a thing as long as it's needed for me to fully understand it - it drives me crazy when I study for an exam, I ask my friend for help because I don't understand the concept and she tells me I don't need to understand it, I just need to memorize it.

Sounds very much like Ti here, which fits the earlier typing of Fe-user.

I do things for 101% or I don't do it at all.

I’m guilty of saying this too; I think many people see this quality in themselves unfortunately and I’m not sure it ultimately means much.

I also have a friend who helps me to stay grounded as she remembers some stuff for me and I'm pretty sure I'll be lost without her (7/???) I didn't think I wrotesomuch

yeah...about that.

I'm quite oblivious on daily basis, I went through school hallway and didn't notice a big ballot box. I only notice things when i want to and it's not a natural thing for me. But when I do pay attention, I'm sometimes mischievous on purpose and enjoy pushing buttons of others. I work on not doing it, I promiseI have a great talent to focusing on irrelevant things and I struggle to do well in my infp teacher classes - even though I know I need a shitload of details from readings (8/???)

So here’s the thing: I really don’t think you use Ni. First of all, the stream of consciousness thing tends to be something Ni users don’t like to do in my experience: they like to edit. They also just...don’t sound the way you do? Like this is rambly but it’s coherent in a way an INFJ ramble of this nature wouldn’t be. You could be an INTP actually with rigid low Si and Fe instead of immature higher Si though. But I’m pretty confident at this point you use the Fe-Ti and Ne-Si axes.

One thing I do find funny, even though I suppose I set people up for it, is when I get asks that are like “here is the detailed description of when I didn’t notice a detail and here is what I didn’t notice”. Like, we do all miss things and while it’s more common in intuitives, my legally-blind-without-glasses Si-dom mother does this too because she can’t see for shit, so.

to do well in exam, I always choose things that aren't relevant to her. She's an excellent teacher and I enjoy her insights. As for Ni/Se, I'm amazed how many things my peers do without thinking about consequences. For example, I wouldn't drink till I'm unconscious because I know I would upset my parents. I perceived it as ni, might be wrong though.

You are wrong in that this isn’t Ni, it’s called basic self-preservation. I’ve gotten extremely drunk from time to time in my life but I have never gotten drunk to the point of involuntary passing out because that is when you fucking die. Your instincts are correct here, your reasoning about your parents is probably Fe, but your decision itself is not Ni.

(9/???) Now, I'm geniually sorry I wrote so much even though I'm not usually but this case is special

I appreciate the apology but this is something I often observe with people who use Fe: they’ll apologize several timesfor long asks or asks that ignore the FAQ or whatever, but like, they still do it. I’ve had to have this conversation IRL with Fe users actually, of “I’m really not looking for an apology, I’m looking for the thing you’ve apologized for to stop.” That is a whole other post about communication though that I may make tomorrow.

I'm also really into helping others[(what contradicts with my mischief, here we go again (I didn't like the 2nd part of mamma Mia as much as the first - it was too sad, I cried in the cinema and the holiday-happy-vibe was missing, it's off topic, isnt it, the second part is called mamma mia: here we go again and I liked the first part so much I watched it like 20 times and know all the songs by heart)] (10/???)

This was the point where I decided to start fucking with you and to turn off anon, not going to lie, because I hadn’t read the rest but I saw 10/??? after an off-topic post about Mamma Mia and was like “okay we’re going to finish it now”

Anyway from this whole thing I cannot decide if you are an ISFJ or INTP, but I’m going to guess INTP as the 9w1 might be what was making me think high Fe before.

#mbti #long post #Anon ask #answered asks

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akaanonymouth · 6 years ago

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How do you think Fleur will factor in Wednesday’s episode? Holby have bought a lesbian back, one who had very little contact with Serena, for a specific reason. I’m timidly thinking that she will cause even more fracture for Berena. Bernie the jealous pup will see Serena + someone who works at the same hospital as the sort of relationship Serena ‘needs’. Perhaps Serena will think to herself “wow, a woman on my doorstep wanting me” is this long distance truly worth it? Your thoughts please :) x

First off, I am so sorry it’s taken me like a week to reply! But here we go, ready for tomorrow!Also, I’m not entirely sure that I can answer this with any sort of comprehension, but I’ll try (@ktlsyrtis has had some p good asks and given some awesome detailed answers, too, so I’d def check them out (I mean, you probs already have, I’m late to the party, and I’ve been trying to put together some sort of coherency to my thoughts since I first read your ask, but I don’t think it’s going well, so sorry for the ramble….Anyhoo!)Fleur is there as the catalyst for a Serious Talk, and hashing things out. I think that 95% of the tension we see in Bernie caused by Fleur’s attention on Serena is shown in the clip. Historically, Fleur has always flirted shamelessly with Serena, regardless of whether either was in a relationship or not. Fleur is just being Fleur, granted with probably a bit more relish than usual, having finally realised that Serena’s “on side” and being in the presence of the one who managed it, but Serena has never been reciprocal. And I don’t think “yeah, but now that Serena knows she’s bi, Fleur might have a chance” factors, because with Bernie, Serena didn’t know she was bi, and she spent practically every interaction with Bernie for months trying to be her friend and getting her to go for drinks etc. on a level she just never did with Fleur. (Let’s ignore the fact that this is down to writers, and pretend we’re just going with an analysis of canon characters (I’m really trying to distinguish from fanon, but it’s hard haha!)

Bernie gets covetous, or hurt, or confused, sure, because it seems as though during the amount of time they’ve spent apart (which, let’s not forget, is actually more than the time they’ve spent in an established relationship, happy, before seven shades of shit hit the fan) they haven’t actually managed a lot of deep and meaningfuls, where one isn’t wary of hurting the other. I think they’ve been treading so softly around each other, with declarations of love, sure, but no heart to hearts, on a face to face level that is so essential to establishing…well… mostly everything…. that the physical distance is now mirrored by the emotional one, because neither are sure where the other is coming from.

If anything were to ever happen between Fleur and Serena (and I wouldn’t discount it, because it is a drama and God forbid we should be content with an episode just watching our faves dance around the kitchen cooking and playing cards against humanity) I think it would be a massively drunken mistake, like maybe something along the lines of the rebound-Robbie debacle, where Serena knows at the time and immediately that it is Not Good, and that the only person she wants is Bernie it’s just that Bernie isn’t there, and Serena feels lost, and there would be regret and angst.BUT, personally I can’t see Serena doing this, no matter how drunk or angry she gets. She looks at Bernie like…. Oh, like she thawed the Ice Age, and no amount of Shiraz could quell that. And if it did, she’d be the first to break her heart. (At most, if Fleur sticks around, I think drunken snog. But I’m sceptical tbh. bc I just don’t think Fleur is, ever has been, or will be, on Serena’s Attracted To list. If, under duress, and some Shiraz, when they’re joking about it all later, Bernie says “Yeah, but… the Other List?” and Serena’s face scrunches as she thinks, then they both snort, then they’re both happy and content with that).I do agree that Serena questions the long distance thing on a regular basis. And I see both sides of their hurt/ anger/ animosity, because they’ve both made requests, promises and decisions that are massively affected by circumstance, and now circumstances have changed, but they haven’t yet been able to look each other in the eyes and talk.

I would love it if we could see that play out in the entirety that they (and we!) need tomorrow, outside of the confines of the hospital, but realistically, it’s probs not what we’re gonna get, esp seeing as most of the show’s relationships are depicted 90% of the time within some part of the hospital. Tis a shame they couldn’t have Berena’d it up a bit more, and at least taken them home for their chat, but there we are.

In conclusion, I do not think Fleur is An Issue, I think the ending may very well be an open one - as in “we’ll see how it goes” or “You be happy” or something generic, but they’ll have come to a mutual decision, and be as content with it as they can be, and still very, very much in love.

And I hope the last clip we see of them is them going home to make love in Serena’s bedroom, with a breeze coming through the open window, their bodies moving together in the soft glow of the street lamp, hands in each other’s hair, lips barely ghosting as they smile…. You get the drift!

#berena #good lord this is such a chaotic answer sorry #answers #serena campbell #bernie wolfe #fleur fanshawe #holby city

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