#thank you vera!!

[whoslaurapalmer]

top 5 movies & top 5 soups!

okay i finally got tumblr to accept and post my response to this. we live in a functioning website for sure

oh top 5 movies...............what a tough call........trying to figure out if i should do top 5 as in, BEST MOVIES, or top 5 as in, favorite movies, wait i'm sure everyone here probably knows my favorite movies at this point so i will do, TOP 5 BEST

wait. i'm gonna do top 5 soups first bc i will talk less about soups bc we know i always have to Talk

-chicken and gnocchi soup. it is so creamy, which i think is ideal in a soup, not too thin, just like, the right amount of thickness, and has things to chew in it, which i think is ALSO ideal in soup. nice chicken, nice chewy potato pasta, altogether very warming (which should be Peak in soup ranking) and SUPER tasty.

-tomato soup WITH GRILLED CHEESE now the grilled cheese addition is important. also a nice thick tomato soup so probably some kind with cream in it. i think i've yet to find a good good tomato soup. anyway bc it doesn't have anything chewy in it, it needs something to be Dipped In It, which is where the grilled cheese is necessary.

-minestrone. now minestrone is kinda thin, in terms of the broth, but i love the STUFF in it. the beans! the veggies! sometimes, if you get lucky, you get like, a whole chunk of parmesan in it, too. i should make some minestrone when fall comes around again. i think i'd like to. and splurge on a big block of parmesan............oh you know pasta fagioli/pasta fazool is pretty similar to minestrone, also good but has more Things in it, that is also a worthwhile soup contender...........

-i should not be ranking vegetable ramen as #4 on this list bc, vegetable ramen my absolute beloved, but god there's just so many good soups, and i just can't forget to talk, once again, about how much i love vegetable ramen. the place i get it from makes it with a shio broth, and the veggies are so crisp and fresh (the chewing!!!!), and the noodles!!!!!!! it is my go-to Oh I'm Experiencing Sinus Horrors meal. oh god i love it so much

-wonton soup. can't go wrong with it. absolutely perfect soup. enough to chew, tasty broth to sip. mmmm.

okay. top 5 best movies. maybe not THE top 5 but certainly a top 5 because wow, movies.

-the godfather, part 1+2. now this is also a pair of favorite movies, but they are also, to me, really truly incredible movies, and michael's character arc throughout the two movies but ESPECIALLY contrasted with his father in part 2, is such a well-crafted tragic downfall. is it possible, really, to ever pinpoint the moment when michael could've turned back, or was this always his fate? i'm still not sure. the idea of 'the family' vs 'The Family' also gets me. also, so just part 1 alone is a great movie but part 2 is REALLY what makes the whole story spectacular. don't talk to me about part 3 i've never seen part 3 and i intend to keep it that way for as long as possible

-eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. i first watched it in high school in the film class i took and i have been obsessed with it ever since. relationships and people are complicated and hard but you keep growing, and you can keep growing, like you have to make the conscious choice to do it for yourself first. there is nothing you can truly, truly forget. and i mean it's more complicated than that sentence, but it's also true. also the characters feel very real and dimensional, and the scenery is so nice. like, the movie really, successfully lives in its world, in this just left of true reality science fiction-y story. and there are some really gorgeous shots of this world.

-sweet smell of success. you know!!!!!! the sleaziest movie. it's, like, god the kind of movie you can't wash off your hands sometimes. everyone in this movie is drowning and some of them are finding real thrill in the experience. i love the characters and their interactions, i love the motivations, the inevitability of susie having to manipulate her way out of her life bc it's the only thing she's ever watched the people around her do (it's even MORE horrifying in the short story). the soundtrack is INCREDIBLE. the shots are CRISP. it is real and reprehensible. and at the same time it's so unbelievable. he is just one (1) CRITIC. the world should not be in his hands but it IS. the world should not be in the hands of many specific people and yet it is

-citizen kane. look!!!!! the godfather and citizen kane are really, genuinely great movies!!!!!! i always feel like i gotta defend some movies. but it's bc they're like, The Downfall Of One Specific Man, and like, the movie IS ABOUT the downfall. these movies are not, by any means, glorifying these men?? these movies are hard tragedies, and i can also say 'where could he have turned back? or was it inevitable?' about citizen kane, too, which is why i love it. i really do love stories about the question of fate and destiny and inevitability and, building that narrative and story, the character himself also participating in it...........anyway. citizen kane knows what it wants to do and it does it. i love the reporters as the framing device. i love the loneliness of the staging, the emptiness against the collecting of Things. it really is a perfectly crafted movie. rosebud is, at this point in the world, obvious, but i don't think knowing about rosebud makes the movie any less impactful. i think if you go in willing to interact with this story, instead of thinking you've been robbed of the ending or you become dismissive of it for knowing the piece it's turning on, if you go in to experience its story then it keeps its power.

-i should like, put in a comedy here, and this isn't to say comedies cannot be top movies but sometimes god i just love movies i get to chew on (.............same with soups........................). so it's anatomy of a murder. danhan's right, the soundtrack is also incredible, and i think the story is too. it's an excellent courtroom drama, it's very long but by no means FEELS long or overstays its welcome, every movie should have eve arden and her gorgeous beautiful snarky voice and self, james stewart's character pushing so hard to get the court to acknowledge that the whole reason they're there is because a woman was raped, laura manion standing in a tradition of fictional film lauras.........i am still not entirely sure what i think happened, actually. i have a bunch of different theories, sometimes, of, did x really happen, did y happen instead, and i think the movie leans into that, too, in parts.

[hedwig221b]

The desire to write is crawling towards me with menace and ferity

ABO au, rare omega Stiles starving for freedom, alpha Derek who has to pick him a mate but loses his mind from how much he wants to keep him instead

Oracle!Stiles, Bodyguard!Derek with secret identity, touch-starved prickly Stiles who doesn't trust anyone and Derek who realises he has to fight hard to earn that trust bc that's his mate, not to mention he has to kidnap him

JANE FUCKING EYRE AU WITH WEREWOLVES AND PLOT TWISTS

mail order bride au, historical (i think, perhaps even deeply historical... like tribes and stuff, think Daenerys and Khal Drogo vibes (I haven't watched GoT so it's just vibes)); also a lot of people asked me to write sterek wedding and I think I can fit it here cause, you know, bride and stuff, but it's gonna be written my way so...

I genuinely do not know what is coming next, cause I wanna write everything all at once and I have a vacation in July, and I have to read an English version of Jane Eyre and that bitch is thicc... But be assured, whatever comes next is gonna be so good...

[oreomcflurrie]

doodles or something

I FINALLY GOT A NEW STYLUS THAT DOESNT BREAK EVERY 10 MINUTES HOORAYYYYYY

[impressions-of-downton]

Old WIP from that AU where Vera haunts Bates but somehow only Bates and Thomas can see her

[graedari]

what if i went to the aquarium with @radjerda a lot and then made an entire Dishonored AU around an aquarium that then became an entire modern AU? :)

[restructuralcommittee]

Hello, Sorry to be a bother but this seemed like the best place to ask. Do you know where the information that Atsuko Asano was inspired by Banana Fish comes from? I'm working on a chart connecting boy love heavy/yaoi related things together and would need a source before I could add that to my chart.

Hi! Sorry for the delay, it took us a minute to do a bit of digging. As far as we can tell, this is the source, or one of the sources, for this claim: https://www.news-postseven.com/archives/20180601_687793.html?DETAIL

It's an interview in Japanese. Run through google translate it says something like, "I love Banana Fish, but I couldn't help but regret that it didn't have a happy ending. That's why I wanted to create a film that depicts the action, the love between boys, and the relationship between countries and individuals, just like in the same work. I wrote a novel called No. 6'' because I wanted to create a work that ended in a different way while still depicting the story.'' (Asano)"

Doubtless there is some nuance lost between the original article and the machine translation, but if we take the source as reputable then it does seem to be true that Asano was inspired by Banana Fish!

[rockwgooglyeyes]

Although this is extremely late, what would you say happens during and after Nyx’s and the other’s escape?

HI (I am assuming) PARA!! I'm so sorry that I never wrote something for the aftermath of Nyx's round, I had a draft but I just moved into my flat at uni and my flatmates moved in last Sunday and it's been kind of super chaotic since. I haven't had much time to write. But the finished product will be in this ask-response, for simplicity's sake. If that's okay with you

LOG (SUBJECT: Round 18 - ONYX LOSS)

SPECIMEN: 001247 (ONYX)

When the lights go out, fear is the furthest thing from Nyx's mind.

Why would he be afraid? Lang won, she won, he's so happy he could cry. She deserves it, she deserves the world, he wants to hug her and kiss her forehead and tell her that he loves her before he goes. He clutches onto her, their dance stuttering to a stop in the muddy black. He can hear the alarms going off, the panicked screams of the crowd, the footsteps clattering through the arena and the gunshots ringing out, but it all feels far away. Lang starts to push him away, her hands shaking, but he holds fast.

"It's just me, please," he rasps, voice breaking on the last syllable. She goes still in his arms, wariness clear in the steely potential energy of her limbs. He finds her forehead with his hand and brushes away her bangs from it, bending down to press a kiss to the revealed skin. "Thank you, Lang, for being my friend. I love you." She hesitates, hands twitching where they rest on his chest, before hugging him. She squeezes him tightly and lets go all too soon, distancing herself from him. She takes one step and then another, getting farther and farther each time.

Letting out a shaky breath, Nyx lets her go. Lang doesn't turn, she doesn't run away, she watches him unflinchingly in the murky darkness. If there really is an afterlife, he thinks, I will miss her when I get there. Maybe I'll get to see Kyo, or Cas. Tov might even name a constellation after me. He doesn't follow her, simply standing there and waiting for death to come. He doesn't care how it's done, whether it be a bullet through the chest or someone slams him to the ground and bashes his head in, it doesn't matter. If his last memory is one of pain, then so be it. He deserves it, after all this time of living past his expiration date.

See, it was as soon as he realized that Kyo would never love him back, it was when he first set his eyes on Asahi, it was when he stood on stage at graduation- those were the moments that told Nyx that he wouldn't make it past twenty. Here he is, though, twenty and something months, however many days over his allowance. He doesn't regret it, the moments he had in that stolen time. He was able to tell Tov he loved her, he got to tell Vera goodbye, he saw Aurien one last time and Solei, well, Solei is still alive. He just hopes that they're happy.

Nyx can't help but laugh- Tov will be absolutely furious with him for dying. For losing. At least, he hopes she hates him for it, that it makes it easier to accept that he's gone. Part of him still wishes he had done something other than laugh. He wishes that the last thing he said to her was something gentle, sweet, but he supposes it wouldn't have been true to form. He's not a sweet, gentle person. He's brittle and sharp around the edges and cruel when it counts, bitter when it hurts. Still, he wishes that he had done something better than laugh when she told him to win. He laughed because he had nothing to say, because he was surprised, because he was astounded that Tov thought he even stood a chance. After all, she knows the truth, that Cas threw the round, that he'd done it as some kind of sacrifice, some sick act of love.

(Really, Nyx should have known from the beginning, that something was off, that Cas wasn't trying as hard as he should have been, that he wasn't pouring his heart out into it like he would've been had the circumstances been different. He should've known that the calm, the acceptance in Cas' eyes was a harbinger of doom, an omen for what was to come. He didn't. He was too foolish, too naïve, too stupid to see the truth.)

When a hand clamps down over his mouth from behind him, he doesn't scream. He doesn't fight. He waits for the end, no resistance, no questions, no fear. Maybe that's why it takes him a moment to make out Aurien's voice, pleading with him.

"Nyx? Nyx, can you hear me?" He blinks, turning to see his little sister, standing stark in the darkness. Inky strands of hair is dripping into her wild eyes, she pulls down a mask covering her mouth, breathing heavily as she watches him.

"Aurien," he murmurs, breathing her name in a hushed whisper, reverent as a prayer. He takes a step forward and tucks her hair behind her ear, cupping her face with a hand, stroking his thumb down the delicate curve of her cheekbone, the gentle flutter of her eyelashes. She leans into his touch, smiling slightly and releasing a sigh of relief. "You're not supposed to be here." What happens next doesn't make sense, her eyes flashing open, fury flashing in their obsidian depths.

"Nyx," she intones, warning obvious in her tone. She places her hand on top of his, her jaw twitching with barely constrained rage.

"I've already stayed too long," he tells her, running his fingers through her hair, just as he used to when they were children and he was comforting her while she cried. "Please, save Lang instead. She doesn't deserve to die." She jerks backwards, ripping his hand away and stumbling, looking shaken to her core.

"What are you talking about?" She demands, throwing her hands up in the air. "You don't deserve to die, either." Nyx barks out a laugh, shaking his head.

"Of course, you would say that," he sighs, looking down at the ground. "But Cas died. He died so that I could live. Kyo is gone, Vera too, that's not even mentioning Tallis. You and Solei are happy, now. I'll just drag you down, with my cynicism, my baggage. You're better off forgetting about me."

"You-"

"I don't deserve to be saved."

"Well, good thing that I don't fucking care whether or not you deserve it," Aurien snaps, eyes flashing dangerously. "You're coming. We're saving you. No buts."

Of course, right after she says that, a whistle pierces the air and punctures her in the side. Right where she was shot the first time. Right where Cas was shot. Nyx catches her when she falls, grasping at her arms with shaking, sweaty hands. She coughs out blood onto his shoulder, trying to push herself back up and failing. Nyx should be helping her, he knows he should be helping her. After all, she's real.

But his vision is flickering in and out, Aurien's hair turning curly, the color of dried blood, hemoglobin on silk. She looks up at him, says something, but he can only see Castor's face, smiling at him with bloodied lips. Nyx can only hear the laugh that bubbled out of Castor in his last moments. Nyx's heart is beating the drums of war in his ears, chest heaving and tears budding in his eyes. He presses his hand to the wound in her side to stem the bleeding (like he did with Cas) and she hisses in pain just like Cas did.

Nyx chokes on his own breath, stuttering backwards, unable to do this any longer. Aurien makes a noise in surprise, crumpling to the floor, just like Cas did. Just like Cas did.

"It's not, real, he's gone," Nyx hiccups out, shaking his head, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "He's gone, he's gone. Please, please," He repeats it, a broken record catching again on the needle, attempting to self-soothe in the face of a fracturing psyche.

"Onyx," a voice cuts through his delusions. He barely hears it and when a hand suddenly grabs his forearm, he flinches away on instinct, eyes wide, panic taking over every other faculty of his mind. The owner of the hand is he doesn't recognize, with white curly hair and a face mask just like the one Aurien was wearing, and they're looking at him sternly. "We need to get out of here."

"Wh- I- alright," Nyx acquiesces, too tired to fight anymore. "Where're we going?" His voice is hollowed out and rough, broken by his crying.

"Surveillance room," the white-haired person grunts out while picking up Aurien gingerly and holding her over their shoulder. "You know a way there?" Nyx nods, scanning his mind for the shortest route from the stage. He beckons them to follow him and darts off, lowering himself down off of the stage and going to the undercroft beneath the stage through a hidden panel. The person ducks in behind him, seeming surprised at where they end up, the racks of costumes, the tools and other supplies, microphones and cords strewn about. Nyx weaves through the mess quickly, leaving his companions to catch up as he rewires the lift to bypass the security lockdown.

"I wouldn't risk the lift if we didn't have someone injured," Nyx says quietly, fingers tangles and disentangling the cords he pulled from the outlet. Finally, the lift dings, the light turning on as the doors open with a hiss. The person holding Aurien nods to him and enters the lift. Nyx presses the button inside and opens up the admin panel to program a no-stop straight shot to the surveillance room. "See, the thing is, the undercroft and the surveillance room are directly connected because they're both backstage work areas." Nyx doesn't know why he's talking, not really, but the words are spilling out of him and it feels good to fill the silence up with something other than the hum of the electricity and the whispers in his head insisting that this isn't real either, he's already dead and this is some grandiose delusion of heaven.

They actually reach the surveillance room before the person holding Aurien even responds to his rambling which feels a bit like a blessing in disguise. There are two people already in the surveillance room, one of which whips around to face them while the other stays hunched over the admin panel, presumably doing damage control. Funnily enough, they look like Ryu and Ji-Woo but that's ridiculous. Those two went missing.

"Nyx?" The person that looks and sounds like Ryu exclaims, amber eyes widening. "Shit, what happened to Aurien, Bunny?!" The person carrying Aurien, Bunny apparently, lets out a sigh and walks out of the lift, dragging Nyx with them.

"She got shot, Ryu, obviously," Bunny answers. "Now, where's our muster point? We can't just hole up in here."

"I'm working on it," Ji-Woo barks out. Nyx has decided that they must be the real Ryu and Ji-Woo, no matter how ridiculous that is, because they both sound like them and look like them and Ryu got called Ryu by Bunny and Aurien is the real Aurien and- fuck, he should really just shut up. Ryu glances at Nyx out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey, are you okay?" Nyx blinks, frowning at Ryu in confusion. "You seem shaken up." Nyx stares at him for a moment longer before trying to smile.

"Never been better," he lies through his teeth. He's definitely been worse but suffice to say, this not one of his better days.

"I've got a muster point from Solei, c'mon, we need to go," Ji-Woo says as soon as he sends out a command for a system wide 24hr shut down. "We meet at docking bay 4D in the Φ wing. You know where that is?" Ji-Woo glances to Nyx who blinks in surprise before nodding. He finds his way to the front of their pack before darting ahead, scanning the hallways for any guards as he slowly orients himself and takes them through the weird back alleys of the arena.

"How do you even know these are here?" Ryu asks at some point while they're in an abandoned fuel cellar in Φ wing.

"Uh, trial and error mostly," Nyx replies as he tries to remember whether they go right or left from here. "Oryon took me to the last two seasons of ALNST but it didn't really supervise me well so I wandered around."

"And you never got caught?" Bunny inquires, skeptical and for good reason.

"Oh, it's left," Nyx realizes, beckoning them to follow him through the gap between two walls where there used to be insulation, before the wing was decommissioned and set for demolition. "I mean, I haven't gotten caught doing this yet." Finally, they emerge in the bay after going through the vault in the ceiling, where all the old electrical is still hanging from the rafters.

"You would have been useful to have when we did this before, Ji-Woo and I kept getting lost," Ryu remarks. Ji-Woo blushes and elbows his partner before breaking off to find Solei. He waves them over to a bulky object covered by a dusty tarp after a moment. He and Ryu drag the tarp off and Solei pops up from the bed of the truck, eyes huge and wary in the dim. Bunny settles into the bed of the truck as well, putting Aurien down gently in the pile of bedding there so that she won't get jostled too much. Solei chirps, panic obvious in their tone and Nyx feels guilt pool in his stomach. He gets into the passenger seat after Ji-Woo settles behind the wheel, unable to face his sister who he was unable to help when she needed and the friend who loves his sister as much as he does.

Nyx thinks the best thing that happened tonight was Lang surviving.

Perhaps, Nyx is not good at accepting good things.

I will tag @starry-skiez because Ryu & Ji-Woo belong to him, @bluemoonscape because Castor & Kyo belong to him, @apriciticreveries because she's Aurien's mama, @solei-eclipse is Solei's creator, @rosedeleca for Bunny & Rose. um. @zerostyrant because he asked to be tagged <3 oh and @ivanttakethis because i mention Tov <3

[creativegenius22]

Family portrait commission for @jokerislandgirl32 of Violet, Zach, and their lovely children!

This piece was definitely a challenge because I’ve never drawn Wild Kratts kids before! I hope I did your little ones justice! The Violet Varm family is so sweet and gorgeous! I had a blast bringing them to life! I hope you love the piece as much as I loved making it for you!

[hellafluff]

if i had a nickel for every time there was a fashion doll from the 2010s that was a pink and black colored cross between a skeleton and a moth id have 2 nickels. which isn't a lot

BUT ITS REALLY WEIRD THAT IT HAPPENED TWICE

I NEED VERA SHE BELONGS NEXT TO BONITA THEY ARE SISTERS TO ME

[theplottdump]

Kate: Seriously? Come back tomorrow? How hard can it be to slip into one greasy cult leader's bedroom. ( 🎵 )

Poppy: I totally had him! I just got interrupted. Vera: // 𝙠𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙮 𝙣𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙨 // Poppy: Not Funny V.

Vera: Well you should have seen what Kate was doing- Kate: I think that's enough. Poppy: Wait what did I miss?

Vera: Kate went riding. 𝙒𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘿𝙞𝙚𝙜𝙤. Poppy: That's hot. Like in a hot way right?

Kate: Like in a horse way. Poppy: Ew. Nevermind.

M: Is this going to take long? Poppy: Got somewhere to be lab rat?

M: No, I mean- I just don't go shopping, like ever. Poppy: Well congratulations, now you do. Kate: If you want to hang out with us, you'll have to suffer through our shopping trips just like V does.

Vera: I never said I hated them. Poppy: You kinda just did. Kate: Red Handed.

Vera: Shit.

[smashorpass50plus]

Vera Farmiga

[corruptinmyself]

I HAVE DONE IT!

Vera Libertas

A Nightmare x Reader (more so self insert) based on owl-bones’ bird MC drabble for the ValRayne Faeu

This has been in the works for a few months and will continue to be updated, thank you all who read it and owl bones for allowing me to write their idea into a story!

ValRayne Faeu made by @antlered-prince and @owl-bones

Thank you @pasterypaws for helping me with writing!

Links for the drabble andmore information on it under the cut.

(spoilers?):

1

2

3

4

[onbearfeet]

Queerwolf By Night: Queercoding, Media Literacy, and Werewolf By Night (part 3)

Lovely to have you back for this, the final part of our examination of WBN being queer as fuck. If you missed the earlier presentations in Media Studies and Writing Hacks With Kat, Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

We've gone through the Hays Code AND the AIDS crisis so far, and that's a lot, so could I interest you in a cup of coffee brewed over a campfire?

Thanks, Ted. You're a peach.

So let's look at the final scene of WBN through a queer lens. There's a needle drop, color is restored to the world, and we see Jack waking up in the woods to drink coffee, grunt at Ted, and eventually decide that sushi should happen.

(Side note: I have a whole rant about queercoding and sushi, but I cut it, so here's a gif of Aziraphale gayly eating sushi in Good Omens, which you should watch.)

Okay, enough queer angels. Time for more queer monsters.

First things first: this scene is SO DOMESTIC, y'all. They're literally playing house in the woods, in that Ted has built Jack an adorable little house and brewed his morning coffee. The camp is littered with little domestic touches like the French press and the guitar. It's a homey, if slightly eclectic, vibe. (Where did Ted find a payphone?)

There is no explanation for these objects being there, afaik; Ted and Jack both have presumably come from some distance away, involuntarily in Ted's case, so there's no reason Ted would know the location of a well-stocked camp to put an unconscious Jack down in if Jack even set one up. Presumably the camp is Ted's work, but there's never an explanation for where he got any items other than the robe and the phonograph. (I'm particularly curious about the flower mug, personally.) Yet the objects are not remarked upon, and the entire scene is played as if this is a relatively normal morning for the two of them.

In fact, most of the mechanics of the scene are effectively those of a morning-after scene, perhaps a morning after characters fall into bed for the first time. Jack wakes up groaning, crawls out of bed to see where he is, and finds his partner has laid out something like breakfast for him and is prepared to discuss the events of the night before whenever Jack is ready.

And speaking of that discussion, we once again have displays of queercoded masculinity: Jack and Ted being physically affectionate, playful banter, and emotional vulnerability when Jack asks about Elsa. You know the drill by now. The camera pans up as "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" swells and fades out.

Wait.

Rainbow?

Let's talk about music in this film.

Michael Giacchino is primarily known as a composer of film music. WBN is his directorial debut. I guarantee you've heard his music before, because it's basically in every summer blockbuster franchise. If you can't get John Williams, Danny Elfman, or Hans Zimmer (all of whom are getting long in the tooth), you get Giacchino and he turns in a fucking SCORE.

Now, I am not a music person. Not at all. But even my musically illiterate ass knows that traditional film scoring derives a lot from classical music, especially Romantic composers like Beethoven. And that means LEITMOTIFS, baby!

(I learned about leitmotifs from Bugs Bunny and Star Wars. Do not be impressed.)

A leitmotif is a short musical phrase that can be used to signify a character, object, or theme in a larger work of music. For a very basic example of this, look up the Force theme from Star Wars and watch a supercut of all the times it was used to indicate that someone was using the Force. Or just watch this Sideways video about why the music in Rise of Skywalker was ass:

Anyhoo. The point of leitmotifs is to give an audience a feeling without necessarily tipping them off to exactly WHY they're having that feeling. And Giacchino LOVES his leitmotifs.

So when he uses someone else's music, he's extremely aware of the emotions that can come attached to that music. It's literally what he does.

There are two pieces of music used in WBN that Giacchino didn't write: a late 1930s recording of Vera Lynn singing "Wishing Will Make It So" and Judy Garland singing "Over The Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz. Let's start with Vera Lynn.

Vera Lynn was an English singer most associated with big band music before and during WWII. During the war, she was known as "the Forces' sweetheart", both for her efforts to entertain the troops and for the fact that she was kind of every British fighting man's waifu. What Betty Grable's legs were to American GIs, Vera Lynn's voice was to British servicemen. She's best known for the song "We'll Meet Again", which is about exactly what it sounds like. She was a nice lady, by all accounts, and there is a ferry boat named after her now.

A Vera Lynn song about childhood and wishing is what Verussa plays in the labyrinth, apparently to annoy Elsa, who switches it off (even though that's going to inform everyone of where she is). For the purposes of queercoding, Vera Lynn is mom and apple pie, or possibly mum and fish and chips, and above all she is safe, compulsory heterosexuality. The Forces' sweetheart.

Judy Garland, on the other hand, is a queer icon.

I can't overstate what a Big Deal Judy Garland and Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz are in queer culture. The themes of the story, including acceptance of the unusual and embrace of a found family (along with the sapphic elements of some of the books), resonated so deeply with queer people that for several decades, "are you a friend of Dorothy?" was code for "are you gay?" The US Navy actually launched an investigation to find the mysterious "Dorothy" who was supposedly the ringleader of all the gay sailors.

And then there's the song itself, with its theme of longing for a faraway, more colorful place where those who don't fit in at home are loved for who they are. It's, uh, pretty resonant with the queer experience.

So I now draw your attention to the phonograph. Gramophone. Record player. Whatever it's called.

In WBN, we first see the player set up in the labyrinth, presumably by Verussa or at her orders. It's playing a Vera Lynn song about childhood and wishing, which apparently annoys Elsa so much that she switches it off, thus alerting Jack to her location.

The next appearance of the player is in the camp, where it's now playing "Over the Rainbow" beside Jack as he wakes up. Ted has presumably stolen it; there's no other candidate for that, and we already saw him swipe a murder robe for Jack, so why not a record player too?

In other words, Verussa Enthusiastic Heterosexuality Bloodstone sets up the Compulsory Heterosexuality Machine, after which Elsa Ally-Coded Bloodstone turns it off in disgust, and Ted swipes it and turns it gay for Jack's benefit.

That's the coding. That's BARELY subtext. I really don't know what else to tell you. This essay started with my making an offhand joke to bluemoonperegrine about Ted and Jack being "literally friends of Dorothy" and then realizing nobody else in the conversation had noticed this stuff.

So what do we do about all this? Is WBN queer? Does all the Wolfstone stuff pale in comparison to the glory of Russallis? Am I trying to start a ship war in a fandom so small it probably wouldn't fill up Vera Lynn's namesake ferry boat?

Jack, you can answer this for me.

Nope. Not trying to start anything. I happily read Wolfstone, and technically have written some. I love all three WBN leads and am happy to enjoy them in any configuration (although my personal preference is group napping in a puppy pile, because these characters deserve naps).

I just figured it was worth documenting all this so people who haven't had the benefit of my very strange education would be better equipped to recognize (and ideally enjoy) old-style queercoding when they see it.

Wait a minute. You promised writing hacks. It's in the series title and everything.

Shit, you caught me.

Obviously, queercoding isn't a universal tool. There are plenty of storytelling contexts in which it's much better to make characters explicitly queer. Representation matters, and all that.

But sometimes you won't have time for explicit confirmation (like when your story takes place overnight and nobody really has time to play tonsil hockey). Sometimes you won't be able to include it due to outside constraints (like Disney being Disney).

And sometimes, you'll remember that there are plenty of people who can't or won't pick up explicitly queer media. Homophobic parents who won't let their kids watch Love, Simon ... but who WILL let them read your YA novel about unicorns or whatever where there are two female unicorns who are, uh, life partners. Grumpy uncles who refuse to acknowledge their nephew's boyfriend until they notice that, hey, they kinda act like Finn and Poe from that Star War. And so on. Sometimes, coded rep is the best rep you can get ... and so it's useful to have. A good toolbox has ALL the tools.

So if you're building characters for your story and don't or can't have specific queer goals, throw in a little coding. Put a rainbow T-shirt on a kid. Let two boys hold hands or have literally any feelings. Let a girl say a girl is pretty. Look up some of the older symbols for queer love and have someone growing lavender in their garden, or use newer queer symbols and have a character crack an egg in a key scene. Have a character who's content without a romantic or sexual relationship, and has an arc about something else, because aces and aros exist too.

There's a whole universe of coding out there. Go add some layers to your work.

Or better yet--see if they're there already. You might surprise yourself.

Sometimes the monster has a familiar face.

[whoslaurapalmer]

RSU: asoue netflix

there are, in fact, things i do like or appreciate about the show!!

-i genuinely do love seeing babybea!! actually having a scene where she interacts with lemony is really great and it's such a precious scene too. her lil beret is fucking adorable. -the henchperson's coroner van in reptile room saying CORNER -olaf smashing the lights in the hallway in hostile hospital is truly scary and i always liked that part -"it's been eight minutes, do you want some tea?" is incredibly iconic. something i could see book!jacques saying as well -I'D GIVE ANYTHING TO SIT AND TALK WITH HIM AGAIN -honestly lemony's physical placement in the scenes was overall done really really well. lemony is an undeniable part of this world and this story and we get to see him there -also his costumes were stellar -i really do like seeing the denouements, like physically seeing them move around and in and out of scenes was really, really cool, like visually seeing the hotel and the three of them pretending to be two people honestly was incredible. in my initial notes about season 3 i said tv was made to show the three chapters that happen simultaneously and i stand by it bc it was neat to finally see!!!!!!!!!! -the green hotel has grown on me, too. i must say. same with the denouements having mustaches. -you know, show!poe was hilarious, honestly. when i think of mr. poe, i do in fact think of show!poe now, without fail. -"i speak all of them hella fluently" -oh the reveal of jacques' vfd tattoo in ersatz elevator was great -i think the song references in the dialogue were really fun!! 'i can hit a blackbird flying in the dead of night', 'oh, i'll tell you what i want', 'what's that thing james brown said?' -oh, that murakami quote, too!! -they really crafted an atmosphere on the show, with the sets and the clothes and the colors, and there were a lot of little background details to zoom in on or catch, and although maybe it wasn't an, expected atmosphere? it makes the show feel like a solid, contained world -violet's outfits were super cute!! -jacquelyn kicking the payphone off the hook and dialing with her heel -although it could've been handled differently, i liked the scenes of vfd in the background in the first season. i liked seeing more of gustav!!!!! -"look, here's a picture of us." "there's no one in that photograph." "we're locked inside the piano." -lucy punch as esme really was inspired -i love the pattern on the sugar bowl!! -not to keep bringing up reptile room but just the room itself. monty's house itself. it's always SO beautiful. like there's actually a lot of heart and love in his house and i just love the big glass windows so much -just seeing the books get the opportunity to be adapted as a whole -- even if, yeah, i don't consider it an overwhelmingly successful adaptation -- was still great and a real highlight of my life! the anticipation of it, watching the trailers (watching the mysterious completely unrelated trailer...........), getting my tattoo which was based off a season one eye design, the idea of the show brought back a lot of interest and love for the series!! and i know it brought a lot of new fans to the books afterwards, or previous fans back to the books!! and that's nice.

[not-5-rats]

Happy Rambles...again, I talk alot sorry huns

☆×.------------------------.×☆

I finally feel comfortable enough in my identity to listen to M4F content...

For a super long time I couldn't being myself to listen to any 4F content because it made me dysphoric af, but finally I feel secure enough in myself to remember that this isn't me, it's a lil character I can make and live through if only for a short while

I can finally listen to the audios I've avoided, I feel free :D I feel like I've missed sm cool/ interesting story that I can finally catch up on!!! I'm so happy bros

I finally feel like Jet, like Jet that can switch off and pretend to be somebody else for a while. I can make a part to play in these stories without that guilt or shame of 'playing' a fem character!!

Love you guys, cause honestly without you guys I'd probably not be like this rn. I'd still be a dysphoric mess who almost starts crying whenever I remember the fact nobody irl sees me for who I am. Thank you guys <333

[slorgz]

LETS FUCKING GO DUDE!!!!