#the movie is literally called the whale

[anotherpapercut]

I actually really like Brendan Fraser but I just cannot see his face any longer without getting pissed off

[dycefic]

Tom Saves The World

Everyone knows that it’s super-heroes who save the world. They fight the aliens, or the monsters, or the bad guys. And mostly, that’s true.

But not always.

I’m a psychic. The thing is, my range isn’t that great. I don’t have much detail more than about 36 hours out, 48 for something really big. I’d had a nebulous sort of bad feeling for about a week before this one finally hit, and it was big. Something very tough and very supernatural was going to come up out of the harbor of Nova Roma, and the death-toll was going to be high. Crazy high.

I did all I could. I told the Unaligned Supers Job Placement Agency, and they put the word out to everyone on both sides of the Line. The Henchman’s Union don’t like natural disasters any more than anyone else, and they’re often quite helpful against eldritch horrors and stuff like that. Things that don’t hire henchmen and ruin the property values.

The trouble was, nobody big was around. The only really big team of heavy hitters on the West Coast were away dealing with some sort of doomsday cult - I never was clear on what that was about - and Guarde and Dog Fox were out of touch and even Mx Frantique was out of town at someone’s wedding. It was going to happen in less than two days and we couldn’t find anyone to help and I was seriously considering calling in some kind of bomb threat or something to get people away from the docks, at least.

And then, about eighteen hours out, it just… went away.

Which never, ever happens.

My powers might be short range, but they’re reliable. I don’t get stuff wrong, and I hadn’t been able to find any way to prevent what was going to happen, or even been able to identify anyone who could. But someone did. Someone had done something to stop the threat, something that happened literally while I was opening my car door. When I reached for the handle, thousands of people were going to die. By the time the door was open, there was no threat at all.

At first I thought it must have been a ranged thing. Like, whatever I’d been seeing (all those teeth, I saw them in nightmares for months after) had been distracted by something tasty on its way here and gotten off track, that it’d come up somewhere up or down the coast. My range isn’t that big, either. Anything outside about thirty miles might as well be on Mars for all I know about it. So we kept a watch out, and warned the chapters of the Union and the Agency in other cities.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all. I couldn’t explain it, and I was really unpopular for a while. Supers do NOT like people who cry wolf. There’s enough freaky shit we have to deal with without someone panicking everyone with a dire prophecy that fizzles out.

Thank all the gods that Tunny showed up. Nobody’s really sure what Tunny actually is - sentient fish creature, some kind of really mutated human, an alien, or what. She changes her story a lot. But she’s pretty friendly, especially for a twenty-foot-long horror-movie-mermaid-thing with four arms, so when she came into harbor to pick up some supplies a guy from the Agency went out to tell her what I’d seen. I’d gotten a wharf and dock number, so she went down to check.

I don’t think anyone had ever seen Tunny scared before. Her English wasn’t good enough to really explain what she’d found hibernating down there, but it was something very old and very powerful and very dangerous, and if it’d been woken up my vision would just have been the start of the crisis.

She rounded up a bunch of whales to help her move it, once she was sure it hadn’t been agitated and wasn’t likely to rouse if moved carefully. They towed it out before dawn, not wanting to scare the civilians, and when I saw the footage from the helicopter the Union sent up, when I saw how big the swell was, how many whales were pulling, I swear I nearly crapped myself. No wonder I’d been getting hints a week in advance. Somehow we dumbass humans had built a whole fucking city almost on top of some kind of Ancient Old… THING, and eroded the sea-bottom until it was exposed, and if someone hadn’t done whatever it was we’d all have been dead long before Tunny arrived. And not just all as in ‘all of Nova Roma’, it could have taken out half of the continent... or all of it.

It took me years to find out what happened. YEARS. It turned into a kind of hobby, tracking everything that might possibly have come into contact with Wharf 38 on that particular day.  

And what I found, eventually, was a city employee named Thomas Briggs.

I’d found out early on that 38 wasn’t in good repair. Not that bad, but not great. It was old, things were getting a bit saggy in a few places, but there’d been no sign that anything was likely to fall off on the day. It had sat there for a couple of years after the crisis that never happened,, doing its job without problems then been rebuilt without any drama at all.

Entirely, completely, and totally because of Thomas Briggs.

The story, when I finally pieced it together, went like this.

There’d been some project or other to build some sort of high-budget science project over on the other side of the harbor, hanging it off’ve Pier 8, the furthest out on that side. Something about tracking sea-life or ships or something. My conversational English is near perfect, I’ve been here for years, but I don’t speak science nerd in ANY language. It’d all been approved, some university was covering most of the cost, it was all gonna be fine. And it was gonna be over on 8 because that side of the harbor is the shallow end. It’s where the sailboats go. All the big stuff that would block visual sensors and deafen the thing with engine noise was over in the thirties, in the real deep water.

They were almost ready to install the thing when a bunch of rich dudes suddenly got their panties in a bunch over having a big sciency tower thing ruining the view from their yachts, and tried to get it moved.

To, and I’m sure you guessed this, Wharf 38.

Which was completely insane. It wouldn’t be able to do its job over there, it’d be way more in the way, and (although they couldn’t have known it) the installation would definitely have woken up the Thing sleeping by the wharf and we all would have died. But rich dudes with yachts don’t care about that stuff. They’d bitched out and bribed up their friends on the city council, and those friends had done their thing, and the scientists had been left in the dark, and it’d almost gone through. They’d figured to install it right away, so that when the science guys found out it’d be too late and they’d either have to pay a lot to move it or just use it where it was.

Enter Thomas Briggs.

Mr Briggs, Tom to his friends, didn’t give a crap about the yachts or the science. He was a senior money guy for the commercial wharfs, the one who figured out things like how much money they’d take in in a quarter, and what the repair budget should be, stuff like that. He found out about this thing two days before the disaster would have happened, and sat down and did the math.

Then he sent out an email to the guys trying to push this through, and he ripped into them like they’d threatened to knife his mother. I got my hands on that email, and I didn’t understand a lot of it any more than the council guys would have. It was ALL numbers. But at the top he wrote it out in plain English. Pier 8 was new, and rated to handle the weight of the thingy. Wharf 38 was going to be scrapped in a few years, and it was NOT rated for that kind of structure. Pier 8 had plenty of room around it. Wharf 38 was already a tight fit for the big commercial ships, and adding a structure sticking out on one side would block off at least half of the wharf to those ships completely.

Bottom line, putting the thing on Wharf 38 would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year than putting it on 8, AND the city would have to eat the cost if 38 collapsed under it which it could easily do, AND the city would have to pay to move it in a couple of years anyway when 38 was due to be rebuilt.

And he cc-ed every important person he had an email address for, including the mayor, the anti-corruption people, and several reporters.

He must have sent that email right when I was opening my car door.

The whole plan collapsed right there, and some people got fired. There was no news story because the whole plan got killed before the reporters even got to the right office. The installation was started on Wharf 8 a few weeks later and I never connected it to a commercial wharf on the other side of the harbor.

One email, and a man who I never could have located in time, a man who had no powers at all, a man who was just conscientiously doing his job looking after the city’s money saved the city, and the continent, and maybe even the world.

Who could have predicted that? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

I can’t deny that I went home and got drunk off my ass that night. Just thinking about how close that had been made my hands shake. One man. One honest man who’d done the math.

I put the word out, once the hangover wore off. What had happened. That Thomas Briggs was the reason we were all alive and everyone better make his life real nice from now on, because he’d done what none of us could do and nobody but the supers would ever even know it.

He’s got a lot of luck coming to him, I can tell you. We don’t forget debts like that.

And I knew that’d freak him out, because honest men don’t like it when people start doing them a lot of favors for no apparent reason, so I tracked him down at the little bar where he likes to have a quiet beer on Friday nights before he goes home. Hell, I was the one who’d gone through it all, back then. I should get to tell him.

I sat down beside him at the bar and looked at him. I saw a thin, small, balding man who looked like he worried too much and didn’t get enough sleep, with lines around his eyes. Yeah, he looked like a man who’d do the math. “Thomas Briggs?”

He blinked at me through his glasses. “Yes? Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t. My name’s Barkhado Omar, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I offered him my hand and he shook it, still looking confused. Which was fair, ‘cause I doubt a lot of seven foot tall Somali women came up to him in bars even when he was young. He’s got to be close to retirement now.

He frowned. “Looking for me? Why?”

I smiled at him. “Tom, let me buy you a drink and tell you about the day you saved the world.”

It’s usually us who save the city, or the world. We have all the intel, all the advantages, all the powers.

But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s someone like Tom Briggs, doing the right thing at the right time and never knowing that he changed the course of history.

Wild, huh?

--

This story is a direct result of me and my ex chatting about how different the entire Marvel Universe would have been if Jean’s first ‘resurrection’ - being found in a life pod under a wharf, IIRC - had happened at like... any other time. Earlier. Later. It would have changed SO MUCH.

And we speculated about how it could happen, how someone just puttering around in middle management might have unknowingly saved countless lives, prevented Madelyne’s corruption, the legacy virus, all of it, just by postponing that particular set of repairs a bit longer.... and I couldn’t resist writing a version of the story in which Tom does, in fact, save the world.

[seaslugfanclub]

I need Hans carnally and to keep myself from being condemned by the church, I decided to sketch out him and my self insert!

Meet Neptune

࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐

Neptune is a mariner by trade. They’ve mostly spent their career whaling/fishing, but once in a while they’ll work on trade ships. Unlike most whalers, Neptune is literate, due to their father being a school master. Though due to their father’s cruelty and call of the sea, Neptune left their home the moment they were old enough to join a Whalers ship.

Neptune takes on a pragmatic approach to life, and is incredibly low energy. (Mostly due to the trauma of working on a whaling ship and killing/innocent whales for a living) Because of their neurodivergence and work environment, they can come off as a little crude and tasteless, but it’s never from a place of malice.

Some of their talents include; being able to fish and cook anything that swims, scrimshaw, proficiency in harpoons and guns, and vast knowledge of marine biology and ships.

Hans and Neptune

࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐ ࿐

Since I can’t decide when exactly they both met, I’ve come up with two different scenarios

Before/during Frozen: Hans and Neptune met on the ship that was taking him to Arendelle for Elsa’s coronation. Neptune took on a position to work on the ship, and while waiting to arrive at the kingdom, Hans and Neptune got to know each other.

I headcannon that it takes a few weeks to get to Arendelle from the southern isles, so there’s plenty of time for them to build a connection. Especially after the movie when Hans is captive and being sailed back to the isles awaiting punishment, I feel like Neptune doesn’t much care that Hans tried to usurp the throne, more that he did it incorrectly. But it does give the opportunity for some delicious angst and exploration of Hans borderline sociopathy.

After Frozen: Neptune and Hans meet while Hans is working as a stable-hand, carrying out his punishment/indentured servitude. They’d first meet when Neptune is sent to the stables to deliver an order of fish/whale oil.

In this version Hans is the slightest bit more humbled, and at the end of his rope. Unlike the rest of his kingdom who wants him swinging in the gallows, Neptune doesn’t care about his crimes since they’re not from his country and doesn’t care about monarchy’s in general.

————-————-————-————-————-

Hope you all enjoy! I’m having so much fun with this ship! More art is sure to come and I’d love to answer any questions about the pair ⚓️

[jolenes-doppelganger]

Hi, I really enjoyed the way you write about Rose, so I was wondering if you could write a one shot about Rose The Hat/fem!reader where the reader is a member of the True Knot and can predict the future. As per the story of the book, part of the True Knot left Rose because they were afraid of Abra and the reader went away with them, however she saw a vision of Rose's death and came back just in time to save her :) sorry if my request is not clear, because I write with the help of a translator :)

[Hello lovelies! Super cute ideas! :) I definitely had fun with this one. I hope you don’t mind that I combined both of your asks to write this, I figured they were similar enough to do so.]

Doomsday

Rose the Hat x Fem! True Knot Reader

Summary: The tension between Rose the Hat and Reader leading up to the accident of the Overlook is both productive, and almost damning. Between the love triangle provoked by Rose’s dual pursuit of both Crow Daddy and R, Reader’s visions that produce a future Rose is too stubborn to acknowledge, and the fracturing of the True Knot following the failed capture of Abra, the world comes crashing down both metaphorically and literally as Rose is pulled back from the brink of death by Reader.

Warnings: Alludes to violence, description of gunshot wounds, dying via car crash, implied murder, more death. A metaphysical slap?Hurt/Comfort, hella angsty. Allusions to sex, but you don't get any. (Womp womp).

A/N: This is a re-imagining of the events of Doctor Sleep, what I would consider a healthy split between the book and the movie. It may be tempting to romanticize Rose as the victim here, (she’s evil and really, really, really deserves it), just don’t. The adapted 'Lodsam Hanti, Sabbatha Hanti' chant was translated with the help of this Reddit thread.

Word Count: 5.6k

Waking up in Snakebite Andi’s and Silent Sarey’s trailer felt… Wrong. Mostly because you’d been sleeping in Rose’s trailer for six months. Rose had been on the hunt for ‘the whale’ ever since she felt Abra looking in on her at the supermarket. She’d enlisted you to help. Sure, you could predict when it would rain, accidents, hell you’d predicted the 2017 Eagle Creek fire. The steam from that accident had been weak. Very few deaths. Not a proper ‘Big One’, as Rose called it, but there was something odd Rose had noticed. After taking a particularly good meal, as you’d had once or twice given how new you were to the Knot, you’d get these visions. Real proper visions. Rose had hunches, mostly. They were pretty accurate for hunches, but you, you got images. One trip into a casino, and the True Knot had walked out four hundred thousand richer, not like they needed the money. No, the Knot never needed anything, except steam.

“You gonna go back to the watchtower with Rose?” Andi yawned, in a bra and underwear.

As welcoming as Andi and Sarey were, they weren’t quiet hosts. Noise canceling headphones made little difference. You’d spent your night in interrupted sleep cycles, covering your head with a pillow as Sarey and Andi fucked like rabbits. 

“I don’t think Rose wants me there today.” you answered.

“How come?” Andi asked.

Silent Sarey came up behind Andi, pressing her face into her lover’s neck. The two of them were adorable, the token queer couple in the troop of mostly straight men and women that made up the Knot. The twins were the next closest thing to queer. They didn’t really have gender identities, and they weren’t their own people. They kind of existed as facets of each other. Neither one had a gender or identity separate from the other, you supposed that might’ve made them nonbinary. The twins didn’t do labels aside from being ‘the twins’.  That was their thing. 

“Well…” you stammered, shaking your head to rid yourself of the extensive internal monologue, “She just doesn’t need me. You guys are going up to Frasier to get Abra today, and there’s nothing for me to do except stay with Rose. 

Sarey gave a nod. She struggled to communicate with most people in the Knot, except Andi. She’d whisper away in the lisped speech pattern she had, snuggling closer to her younger lover. But the nod was nice. It was her way of saying, ‘I’m listening’.

“Alright, well, I should be getting ready, we’re heading out early.” Andi smiled.

You nodded, pulling on your shoes and exiting your trailer. You didn’t need to be a witness to the farewell sex the couple would inevitably have. Besides, the morning was too fresh to spend in a stuffy trailer.

“Hiya Dreamie.” Barry the Chunk hooted.

Dreamie. That was your name. It’s what everyone called you, and you didn’t mind it. Better than ‘loonie’ or ‘make-believer’. There were worse words, but it was early. No sense in ruminating on the bad.

“Hi Barry.” you smiled back.

The camp was waking up. And you needed some time away from the masses. There was a tingling in the back of your head, an incessant itch. It was the telltale sign of a vision, and a big one. You debated going up to the watchtower. Rose would get the cue, but you and Rose weren’t exactly on good terms right now. Crow wasn’t on good terms with you.

“Dreamie. Rose wants you.” Crow said, scruffy voice jarring you from your thoughts.

“Speak of the devil.” you mumbled to yourself. “Got it, thanks Crow.”

“It’s Crow Daddy to you, Dreamie.” he gave a smile, too white teeth throwing off the otherwise cleverly hidden sneer.

“Got it.” you gave a curt nod.

Then it was back into the lion’s den. You gave a knock on her trailer door before you came in. A noncommittal hum was the permission granted. One step into the trailer and it was clear Rose and Crow had been fucking. The trailer reeked. 

“It’s nice outside, you should open a window.” 

Rose stretched her arms, in a set of mens pajama pants and a sheer bra. Always with the bras, was she allergic to shirts or something?

“Got any dreams, Dreamie?” Rose smirked, not unkindly.

Like it or not, Rose was always in a good mood after a night of fucking. Always. 

“I have an aura, actually.” you sighed.

“Of course you do.” Rose smirked. “I can feel it, the second you walked in. You get this smell to you.”

She stretched again, rotating and twisting her back until her entire spine cracked. It was a bit eerie, watching how far she could bend.

“Someone’s thoughts are loud this morning.” Rose teased.

You shrugged. She was unusually receptive this morning. Or just allergic to minding her own business. You said that one in your head a bit louder.

“Childish, really.” Rose rolled her eyes, stepping out of her bed and coming forward.

You shrugged, giving her an innocent look. Rose raised an eyebrow, and then she pounced. All six feet of her moved with the agility of a cat, snatching you for a deep hug.

“Hmm… You really do have that aura coming on… You always smell like sandalwood. It’s really strong.” Rose hummed.

“And you stink of sex.”

Rose gave a sharp laugh, pressing you tighter against her.

“You don’t like it? It’s my signature perfume.” Rose joked.

The thought was gag worthy. Mostly because the stench of sex was ninety percent Crow’s BO. God that man stunk sometimes.

“I’ll take a shower if you make me some coffee, hmm?” Rose smirked. 

“Deal.”

Rose smiled, turning and walking towards the shower cubicle in her trailer. She was connected to a water pump currently, she could enjoy a long, extensive shower at the cost of virtually nothing. This campsite was Knot property, after all. With her behind the closed door, you had an opportunity to fumigate the room with fresh air. Every single window in the trailer was open. You stripped her bed, mostly because a night with Crow out meant a night with you in. And sleeping in sheets someone had fucked in? Not ideal, to say the least.

“Honeybunch, I forgot a towel, do you mind?” Rose called.

You paused what you were doing, going to grab her a towel. You made it about halfway to the door before the aura in your head got deafeningly loud. It was always awful, getting a particularly intense vision. First your ears would ring, really fucking loud. And then you’d get nauseous. All the saliva would dry up on your tongue, your hands would shake, and the world would go fuzzy. If you could compare it to something, you’d compare it to how a diabetic felt when their blood sugar dropped. This wasn’t a crisis of the body, though the body exhibited symptoms, it was a crisis of the psyche.

“Honeybunch? Hey, Dreamie, hello?”

You couldn’t focus on Rose. You were hunched in her kitchen, head in between your knees, breathing in and out really slow.

“Dreamie? Helloooo?”

The water turned off. Rose opened the bathroom door sticking her head out. She looked up, at where your eye level would be, and then right back down. Rose swore softly, grabbing a robe hanging outside of the bathroom door, pulling it on.

“It’s a bad one, huh?”

You nodded, it was all the response you could give.

“Well let me know when the symptoms…”

Her voice dulled. High pitched ringing, deafening. Your vision swam and all you could do was focus on your breath before images slammed into your skull.

Gunshots. That was what you heard. A forest clearing with railroad tracks. Teeny town? Yes. Teeny Town. Your hands were shaking, a gun in them. A gunshot through your head took you out. Immediately your perspective shifted, slamming into another person only to be killed milliseconds later. In between the pain of shifting perspectives and violently intense sensations of being shot over and over, there were shapes. People contorting, half-translucent, bodies disappearing into clouds of smoke. All of this was awful, but what was worse was the scene change.

Darkness, a calm drive on a quiet road, music playing over the quiet buzz of radio static.

 The switch was so quick it gave you metaphysical whiplash, almost like your brain was rattling in its skull. A child’s voice with a man’s tamber. That’s what you would describe it as. Looking into the rearview, you made out the shape of a small girl with dark curls and deeply old-looking eyes. Too old for a child, like they were borrowed from a man’s broken stare. Your eyes were dark. A bearded face. Crow. It shook you to see through his eyes. The perspective of the world matched, almost like you were Crow. You couldn’t make out what the girl was saying, but you could make out the threat in them. That was before the car swerved, steering wheel slipping in your hands. This death, was drawn out. You could feel every bone in your neck and upper spine shatter as your head went right through the windshield. The realization that you were going to die, the horrible sense of anguish. And then you cycled. Once, twice, dust. 

“.... okay….. How long… Seizures.. Gone…”

So many voices spoke. Your head ached, so did your body. It felt like someone had shoved you into a dryer on the highest tumble setting, you were so sore.

“...There she is! Dreamie, wake up.”

Colors blurred together, someone shoved something into your lips. A straw. You sipped, juice hitting your tongue, bleeding into the metallic taste there. It stung; somewhere on your tongue there was a cut.

“Jesus, Dreamie, you scared the living shit out of us.” Barry said.

Your body lurched. An image flashed, what you thought would be another lurch from a shotgun was entirely different. Barry burning up with fever. Red welts all over him, like that childhood illness your Mom had vaccinated you for. Pox?

“Hey, hey, easy.” someone whispered.

Rose looked down at you, her face contorted into an expression that would surely accelerate the aging of her smile lines.

“She’s never had one this bad… She was seizing for five minutes before she stopped. Then the last one you saw for yourself.” Rose told Walnut, the doctor of the Knot.

He nodded, taking off the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope he’d been using.

“Well, she’s stable now, it should be okay for the group to leave, we’re already delayed by-”

“NO!”

Rose jolted, gaze snapping downwards. She gave you a confused, angry look.

“What do you mean no? Jesus, send them off already. I can handle little Ms. Visions here.”

Your mouth was so dry, tongue bleeding and swollen. Grabbing for her wrist, you tried to get Rose to understand, to listen, at the very least.

“Shh, tell me in a minute.” Rose replied.

You squeezed more insistently. Rose pursed her lips, looking down at you with a warning look. You stayed silent. Even if the Knot left without you being able to warn Rose, she could always call them back. You stayed with Apron Annie while Rose dressed, slapping her topper on her head before slipping out of her trailer door.

“You sure gave her a scare, you know?” Annie smiled sweetly. 

“I… I saw something bad.”

“I figured. You tell Rose first though. I wouldn’t know what to do with your visions.” Annie shook her head.

You curled into the older woman’s grasp. She’d been a runaway slave before the Knot. Crafty, quick, an avid reader. Nobody read more than Annie, simply because no one refused to be fooled like Annie. 

“And your hair is a rat’s nest, lord have mercy.” Annie sighed.

She got up, getting some of your hair tools before setting down to the task of combing out and braiding your hair. It was comforting, the massaging of rosemary oil into your scalp relieved some of the ache in your head.

“Walnut said to keep drinking that juice. Your blood sugar dropped during the seizure. You’d best listen.”

You nodded weakly, sipping the juice without complaint. Annie’s accent was creeping back in, it always did when she was being stern with somebody. 

“You jus’ rest here awhile.”

←→

It was safe to say Rose didn’t believe you. You’d sat down with her and explained the vision front to back, the men who’d done the shooting and Crow’s death via car crash.

“Rose, I know what I saw-”

“I. Don’t. Care.” Rose snapped. “We need this Abra girl, and the bitch child isn’t going to kill the team.”

Denial. Always with the fucking denial.

“Rose, please.” you tried to coax her.

“No, don’t ‘Rose’ me. Your blood sugar dropped, you had a seizure, and…”

Even Rose was having a hard time believing her own lie. She didn’t want to be wrong. Abra could fix all of the True Knot’s problems. Steam on demand? God, what a novelty. After Grandpa Flick had died, Rose had gone frantic. They’d lost three True in twenty years. Three. That was like losing three family members in two weeks and Crow was getting old. Last night had been an anomaly for them. A whole night of love making three weeks after they’d taken steam? God, that never happened. Rose was still aching from it, still sore from the intensity of it. How often could that be if they were taking steam every three months? Could Abra withstand every two? Every two months for ten, twenty years? They’d consistently age backwards. A secluded ranch, a house? Somewhere permanent? Rose needed that more than she cared to admit.

“Please call them back.” you pleaded.

Rose shook her head immediately. 

“No. No, no, NO!” Rose snarled. ‘They’ll snatch the girl in Frazier, kill the family if necessary. It’ll take three hours tops. I can’t lose this chance just because you had a bad dream.” she snapped.

She watched your mouth bob. There was real fear in your eyes, real anger. It reminded her of a child fighting a tantrum. God, you really were young. Seven years in the Knot, snatched at seventeen, eighteen? A baby. You were a total baby to her, and so fragile. You were young enough and new enough to your gifts that Rose could take a chance on your dreams being wrong. It was plausible that your gifts had far more variability than just visions of the future. She wasn’t going to waste the best catch of her life because someone had anxiety.

“When they all die, it’s your fault.” you mumbled, getting off the floor of her trailer and practically running out of the door.

“Come off your soap box, Dreamie!” Rose growled.

You were gone. But someone else was waiting at her doorstep.

“Rose, Walnut called. The sickness that took Flick? Barry has it.” Annie anxiously whispered.

Rose’s breath caught in her chest. The sickness? Flick had died of old age, exasperated by heart conditions, not a sickness. But that was a lie too. For a week now, members of the Knot had been waking up with red spots on their bodies. Walnut had brushed it off as a skin condition from the bad showers, but privately he had told Rose a different story. The Knot was sick, they needed steam. Steam from a young, healthy, vaccinated child like Abra. Chicken pox was his diagnosis. And the True Knot weren’t healthy enough to withstand it.

←→

A night later, Walnut called. Barry was getting worse. He was starting to cycle. The group was scared and facing the possible passing of one of their own. There’d be no time to delay, they needed to work fast, leading Crow to split up and take a more direct approach to the girl’s residence. For the first time since the invention of the interstate, Rose told her people to speed.

“Rose, Dreamie is asking for you.” Annie interrupted her thoughts.

Rose turned, smiling up at her longtime friend. The smile fell off of her face, landing on the floor like a glass dish. Her stomach lurched. Annie had a spot on her neck, a big one too. Giving a tighter, less genuine smile, Rose slipped out of her trailer. Dreamie was curled up in a camp chair. She looked cozy, in blankets. Rose’s mind was elsewhere, she had every reason to prepare for a fight.

“If you’re here to tell me-”

“I’m not.” you cut her off, looking up at her gently.

Rose let out a breath and then nodded. She motioned you up, sat in the chair and opened her arms. You were a comforting weight in her grasp, and you smelled faintly of sandalwood. You’d have another vision soon, not that Rose cared. What was more pressing was the weight of your body on hers leaving her feeling soft, a bit vulnerable.

“Spend the night with me.” Rose whispered. “No strings attached.”

Rose needed it. She needed the intimacy of a night with someone young, inexperienced.

“What about Crow?” you whispered back, face twisted into an anxious look.

Rose sniffed, letting out an annoyed breath. She’d had enough of your anxiety for three decades. But they were so close to getting it all, and Rose wanted it all. 

“Crow isn’t going to find out. One night, one.” she whispered, eyes glimmering with an unfamiliar softness.

God, what you wouldn’t give for one night. The teasing, the pet names, the sleep overs… And it wouldn’t be rough, judging from the look in her eyes.

“Okay.” you breathed out.

Rose smiled, kissing your temple. You both stood, her hand in yours, bare feet padding across the dirt of the campground. Her trailer smelled of incense which meant she’d been meditating extensively, probably astral projecting to ensure the troop headed to Abra was okay. There were a few candles lit, adding to the ambience.

“Come here.” Rose whispered, shutting her camper door. 

Her arms found your waist, her mouth on your neck. She was so damn tall, and soft. Soft everywhere now that she was aging. You liked her soft, it was comforting.

“Lay down on the bed for me.” Rose whispered.

You complied, walking backwards, meeting her blue eyes. Your thighs hit the bed, and you scooted, backward, laying flat over her comforter. Her mouth was on yours, lips soft, tempting, and tongue flicking out to taste you throughout the kiss. After every kiss she’d give a soft hum, her fingers lazily slipping under your shirt to caress the skin underneath. Her fingers were soft, and she gave a sly grin, shifting her hips to straddle you further. Your arms tangled in her hair, enough to tempt her into removing the topper. She did, leaning further into the kiss. You would’ve thought someone like Rose wouldn’t like soft, wouldn’t find the moments of drawn out foreplay and intimacy worthwhile. You were wrong, so so wrong. Her mouth on your neck, her hands grasping you tight, bodies tangled like pretzels. This was right, this was the moment.

←→

An early morning call awoke Rose. It was from Walnut. She was on the phone for thirty seconds, and then her hands were wrapped around your waist. “Wake up, wake up!” Rose said, distressed. “Wha..”

Her hands were everywhere, lifting you up, throwing open the curtains to illuminate your body. She ran her hands over every inch, skimming every mark, every mole, every soft stretch mark. Rose didn’t relax until she was sure you didn’t have a single mark. 

“Oh, thank god.” Rose almost wept with relief, clutching you tight.

“Rose, what’s happened?” you asked, now wide awake and worried.

“The Knot has chickenpox. It killed Barry.”

Your body tensed. You’d never told Rose about the vision you’d had of Barry. “Chickenpox? Chickenpox can’t kill-”

“It doesn’t kill rubes. We aren’t rubes, Dreamie.” Rose growled out. “And if we don’t find a cure it’ll kill all of us.”

All of us? 

“Rose, I was vaccinated as a kid.”

Her expression tensed, and then relaxed. But then she frowned, a furious expression on her face.

“That’s because you’re young. Spoiled by modern medicine.” she spit.

You reached up, cupping her face. Rose was lashing out because she was scared, and upset. One of the Knot had died. Her family had died. You leaned forward, kissing her forehead. Rose didn’t cry, but she reached forward, cradling you tight.

“Thank god you’re vaccinated.” she whimpered.

←→

The Knot didn’t take Barry’s death well. There was a bit of hysteria, hysteria Rose struggled to calm. She leaned on you more and more, spending her nights tangled up with you in her sheets, an escape from her stress, from the hunger that was starting to claw at everyone’s throats. She had gray hairs again. Her crow’s feet were pronounced, skin starting to go scaly from sun damage. You didn’t love her any less, taking time to appreciate every bit of her changing body in between the bursts of passion. You aged too, turning from 17 to 21, almost 22. It wasn’t much of a difference, you were already quite young for a Knot member. But the hunger was awful.

“My joints ache, I’m going to take a shower.” Rose sighed, rolling out of bed.

She leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to your sleepy face. You smiled, watching her pull on sweats and a shirt before grabbing some things. She meant the camp showers. They had a bit more space than her RV stall, you couldn’t blame her. The heat was more consistent too. You went back into a blissful sleep. It was broken fifteen minutes later when you heard a scream.

Half dressed in a pair of panties and an oversized shirt, you were running out of Rose’s trailer, bolting through the campsite in the direction of the scream. It was Rose, crumpled in Annie’s arms in front of the shower, sobbing in confusion and anger. Her towel was sagging.

“Rose, Rose.” you whispered, kneeling down and helping to cover her.

Her hands landed on your shoulders. An image burning forward. Gunshots, cycling, a smoke filled campsite.

“They’re dead. Everyone is fucking dead.” she sobbed.

You’d made it to the steps of her trailer before she collapsed against the steps, wailing like the dying.

“Crow!”

An image flashed through your mind, fear and pain as the vertebrae of your neck compressed, body flying through the windshield. Everyone had died, just as you’d predicted. Rose hadn’t listened.

←→

“That the last of it?” Annie asked, out of breath.

“Yeah, just two boxes.”

You were busy packing your things into Annie’s and Diesel Doug’s truck. In the days following the death of eight of the most prominent True Knot members, chaos had erupted. People packing their bags, convinced death was on their doorstep. The chickenpox was taking someone every other day now. Everyone was running, everyone was fleeing. You were leaving for a different reason, more personal. Rose had lashed out at you, blaming the entire loss of the crew on you. Rose insisted that if she had known that the visions were serious she would’ve called back the team. Your visions were serious, she just hadn’t listened. More fighting, more name calling, more discord. 

“I’m sorry Rose treated you that way.” Doug sighed, shifting the car in gear. “We’re all grieving, but treating you that way was a shitty thing to do.”

You nodded once, sneaking a glance in the rearview. Rose stood in front of her trailer, arms crossed, top hat balanced on her head. You could feel her thousand yard stare from here.

“You’re gonna die out there, Dreamie.” you heard a voice crawl through your ear, invasive and almost wet feeling.

“Well at least I won’t die alone.”

A phantom sensation cracked through the bones of your face, like you’d been slapped. You let out a choked cough, catching Annie’s attention. 

“I’m fine, choked on my own spit.” you mumbled.

“Bitch.”

You didn’t get a response. You figured she was saving the last laugh for later.

The drive into the Montana mountains was rough. Snow was starting to fall.

“You had to take the Denver route?” Annie groaned. 

“Who the fuck goes through the rockies at this time of year? It would take days!” Doug growled.

They were both irritable, both covered in red spots. You were in denial this time. If they died you really would be alone. Maybe that was Rose’s last laugh. The three of you settled into the hotel, Doug and Annie in a king bed, you in a twin pullout. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. You couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen, and you sure as hell couldn’t sleep. An overcoat on, boots crunching through the gravel, you set out to explore the area around the hotel. 

You felt a bit dizzy, probably from the altitude. Sitting on a boulder for a bit didn’t help, deep breaths of cool mountain air just made you feel sicker. Your ears began to ring, and that’s when it all added up. You were ready to brace yourself when-

“My, my. What a temper you have.”

You were speaking through Rose, a man’s flushed, pained face underneath her as Rose batted away his arms like he was nothing but an overgrown toddler.

“So much fire. Such a waste.”

You could feel Rose’s anger, her hatred for this man. You recognized him, he’d shot a few of the True Knot at the Teeny Town campsite. And his stare was so familiar.

“Or maybe not.”

It was horrific, this vision. You could feel everything Rose was doing, her sighs of delight as she ate the man’s steam, her thumb in his thigh. Rose was cruel, but this cruelty made your stomach churn in knots. 

“Oh, you’re not alone in there.” Rose breathlessly gasped. “What are you hiding? What’s in those?! Something special, huh?!”

That disgusting, inescapable feeling of dread clawed through you. It was impossible to speak in visions, but you wanted to. You wanted to scream. You could see the boxes as she saw them, alive and vibrating. They were full of darkness, and in Rose’s haste she wasn’t inspecting the aura, she was ravenous for food, for blood.

“They’re not special. They’re starving.”

The vision was a blur from there. Horror, fear, pain as Rose was eaten alive. You awoke on the ground of the hotel reception room, gasping for air and shaking.

“She has these seizures, poor dear.” Annie was tiredly explaining to the frightened hotel receptionist.

You didn’t let them give you juice. You didn’t let them feed you. There wasn’t time.

“I need the car.” you gasped to Diesel Doug. “Stay here.”

←→

The drive up into the mountains of Colorado was awful. You’d been taught to drive in the snow three years earlier by Jimmy Numbers, but this was something else. You’d loaded up Diesel’s trusty all wheel drive truck up with gas at the final station, filling up both tanks with diesel. You were driving up the mountains at night, hands glued to the wheel. Rose would be proud of you, pinpointing the location of the vision through memory alone. But this wasn’t about being proud.

The lights of the Overlook were on. You didn’t have time. Rose’s trailer was parked outside, you didn’t have time! You turned off the car, leaving the keys in the ignition, doors unlocked. It was so cold up here, one of the doors was frozen shut. You didn’t have time to break through the door, so you made the next best decision, breaking through a window with an axe. It was boarded up but the wood had rotted, giving you enough bend to punch through the wood with the butt of the axe. There were voices, not from people. The same darkness of the man’s boxes lingered here, and the whispers added more adrenaline to your movements. The hallways were mazes. It felt like this stupid hotel was trying to confuse you, to trap you here. It wanted blood, it knew you were hindering its meal.

“... I seem to have nicked your femoral artery. Gonna bleed to death, huh?”

You knew that voice. Well. A kid darted by you. Jet black hair, dark skin. Abra.

“You’re…” she stammered, backing away.

“I’m not here for you. Go.” you snapped at the little girl.

You turned, following the direction she’d come from. A large hall came into view, stairs descending downwards. Rose was crouched over the man, voice echoing. You attempted to step down the stairs, but there was some kind of force keeping you there, confusing you. Why did you even want to go down there in the first place? No, you were here for the little girl, weren’t you? Because you’re hungry. The woman at the bottom of the stairs is hungry too. You can’t let her catch the girl before you do, you’ll go hungry.

There was something you were forgetting. You looked down at the woman below you, confused. She was gasping in pleasure, feasting. You were so hungry too. You saw where the little girl had gone too. You knew where she was. No. No, the woman was important. You could feel it, an unmistakable, annoying little scratch in your brain. You were close to remembering something, almost like you were trying to remember a dream.

Dream! No. No. Dreaming? Day dreaming? Dream… Dreammmmmm……. 

Dreamie. Rose, the vision, the hotel. The tricks of the hallways, the bad aura. It all connected in your brain.

“.... Not special. They’re starvi-”

“NO!”

In your haste to get to Rose, you have walked, half slid down the stairs. There were about ten figures between you and Rose. All reaching all starving, all grabbing, all-

“The girl is in the maze.” you gasped. “She has more steam than all of us combined.”

The figures jerked, each turning to look at you with a peculiar, inhuman hunger. If the Knot were vampires, these were phantoms. Demons of the night, more deadly, more encompassing. The kind of dead that don’t stay dead.

“The maze. A girl named Abra.” I gasped.

They pushed forward at once, nearly stampeding you in their haste to eat. The man was heaving, reaching for the ax. You kicked him in the ribs, hard. Rose lay on the ground, crumpling in on herself, red dots crawling up her arms in accelerated fashion. The dead had taken much of her steam.

“Rose, Rosie.” you gasped, reaching for her.

She looked skeletal. It was the kind of skeletal that a True Knot took on before they started cycling.

“Steam.” she  weakly pointed to the man.

And you both were starving.

←→

Rose sat in a camp chair outside, feet propped up. She was soft looking, back to the usual look she got in between feedings.

“Mmm…” she hummed, twitching slightly.

“Crook in your neck?” you asked.

“More like an itch.”

She looked up, holding her arms out. 

“Let me see my beautiful girl, hmm?”

You smiled, curling in her lap. Tilting her head back, she exposed her jaw. You took the bait, nibbling softly as she sighed in contentment.

“I’m itching to open a canister.” Rose smirked. “Get nice and full, spend the night in the sand…”

She was getting old again. And the spots were coming back.

“Rose, can we try the siphoning method?”

She rolled her eyes.

“The pox spots only show up when I haven’t eaten. They go away once I’m full.”

You leaned in, nuzzling your nose against hers.

“It can’t hurt to try.”

Rose sighed, and then nodded. You both arose, walking into her trailer. She took out one of the canisters. You’d filled it with the spirit of the Overlook twins after they’d fed from Abra. It was easy enough, coaxing out the spirits. They’d gorged themselves on the little girl, ripped her to shreds, practically. Open up a canister that had a tiny bit of steam, and they’d pounce, only to be sucked inside with the vapors of steam. That’s all these spirits were, after all. Steam with a bit of bite. They tasted good, too.

“Alright, do you want to do the ritual?” Rose asked.

“You’re Irish is better than mine.” you smiled softly.

She nodded, holding your hands in hers.

“Meabhair, suaite, gortú” We are the chosen ones.

“Wounder rúnda, gortú” We are the fortunate ones

“I ngach slí gortaithe” We are the True Knot and we endure. What is tied can never be untied.

You took deep breaths of the steam in, filling your lungs with the haunted essence of the twin girls. Once the entire can was bubbling in your body, you reached forward, breathing the steam that had now become your essence into Rose’s awaiting mouth. In theory, you were breathing your own essence down her throat. Your vaccinated essence.

Her lips found yours once you were done, her hands tangled in your hair as she kissed you hard. She tasted like the blackberry mojitos you’d made an hour ago, tongue rolling over yours.

“I love being alive with you.” Rose moaned, half pulling, half dragging you out of the trailer. She was young again, twenty seven, shimmering and panting with desire.

“Rose!” you giggled.

Her hands ran under your skirt, grabbing your thighs mischievously.

“It is broad daylight.” you snickered.

“And I don’t see anyone around, do you?”

She took an inhale of your hair, catching a whiff of an aura hanging over your head.

“Dreamie, no seizures.” Rose playfully warned.

“Shh. It could be a Big One.” you winked.

It was a new year’s celebration, anyway. A new year, a new decade. Twenty-twenty. Something about those numbers screamed food, or more so, misery. But for the True Knot, misery was food, death and destruction was food.

Tag List: @bjoerkumlaut, @lovelyy-moonlight, @coffee-is-my-oxygen, @appparadox407, @ilovehotactresses, @marvelwomenrule

[gaykarstaagforever]

FREE ON YOUTUBE

...YouTube, I feel like your free animated movie recommendations have declined in quality a bit since the halcyon days of Osmosis Jones.

Yes, it is a blatant Kung Fu Panda knockoff, with an American voice cast that is clearly whoever was home at 11 am the week they called.

This is bad. Like, unfinished, I think I'm missing like half the movie, they forgot to resolve the main plot and it just stops, bad. There is a scene where the only character on screen suffers an animation error, and no one fixed it. The framerate of the movie drops every time the action picks up or the camera swings around too fast. Like...you made a computer-animated movie, and you don't have the hardware or time to do...you know...computer animation? The stones on the Chinese producers of this mess.

Not everything has to be Pixar or DreamWorks. CG is hard. I get it. But you gotta work to your strengths. In this case, the computers you are using can't even render the movie properly. Like...I don't know how you get around that. That's kind of a major issue.

Technical incompetence aside, this suffers from the usual bad CG animation problems of every character looking like they come from a different artistic universe, and most of the action is generic mocaping that doesn't take into account how any real bodies shaped like these bodies would move. And there are just things they didn't bother capturing. Like none of these dough monsters ever stands up on screen.

Shot composition is a disaster. Most scenes are a mob of creatures standing in a pack in an empty space, doing exaggerated facial reactions to someone else talking. It's like bad machinima made in the Skylanders games engine, except all of the character designs are way worse.

The plot, such as they attempted it, is supposed to be about a small, incompetent warrior who looks like Jackie Chan who gets transported to the mystical realm of Merryland by a magical jade necklace his grandfather gave him. There, he transforms into an anthropomorphic panda, for reasons that are never explained. There is a prophecy that a Panda Warrior is destined to save the realm, and our guy is apparently it, except there is a flashback to like a couple of years ago when the ultimate evil took over, and...there is ANOTHER Panda Warrior who was just there and sort of stopped it? But then didn't? Who the hell was that guy?!

Also the ultimate evil is one of the two sky-whales who guard the Dragon Ball (yes, literally) just turning evil because it absorbed too much power. Why did this happen? How are you going to stop it from happening again? Then that whale turns into a nine-headed snake after an evil mouse from the real world just...is there, and merges with the Whale. After the snake is defeated the mouse just crawls out of it and runs away, and no one says a damn thing.

Our panda warrior and his 7 legendary warrior friends kung fu fight the snake at least 3 different times, and never get close to stopping it. And the panda doesn't do anything special or lead them, he is just there, and then at the very end his necklace glows and that...helps? Somehow? The true hero here is, and I'm not joking, Jimmy Ginseng, a tiny ginseng man with an erhu who shows up whenever the warriors are losing, plays the erhu, the enemy gets soothed by the song, and then Jimmy gets tired and leaves. EVERY BATTLE ends like this, including the final one.

So...?

The panda has that cool green sword in the picture. And he does have it. It is just...a sword, thst someone randomly gives him. I think he ends up dropping it and it never comes up again.

Also all the warriors are animals, except for the one who is a talking tree stump...filled with lava. And he dies at the end by setting himself and the snake on fire. Because his master, a purple fox, told him to do that to save everyone. ...Except the SNAKE SURVIVED IT, and they had to fight it again, lose, and wait for Jimmy to show up.

The bull character also sacrifices himself, TWICE, to save everyone else, and both times that doesn't work, either.

The movie ends with Merryland being restored from the devastation of the snake...BEFORE the snake is defeated. It just...gets better, after they resuce an elf girl princess who does...something...? And then the regrown flowers shoot the snake with missiles of some kind. Which ALSO fails to defeat it.

The panda doesn't go home and become human again and nothing is explained. But during the credits there is a fight scene between the little human warrior and his general, in which they get drunk and wrestle and tons of fight animations repeat in a loop for 3 minutes. Is this part of the movie? Are these outtakes? What does this have to do with anything? If this is what happens after he got home, I don't know why or what it means.

...My guess is that the first panda warrior we see was supposed to be his grandfather, as a panda? That was probably the idea? But no one ever says that. The movie doesn't remember to explain that.

This was translated from Chinese. Perhaps the translation is terrible. Or they did a massive reedit of this for the US release. That could explain some of this. ...But then why didn't they cut out the glitch scene, or some of the shots with the bad framerate? There are literal 10 second sequences in this movie where there is no dialogue or music, just a camera sleeping over a scenery to ambient nature sounds. Who reedits a movie for the foreign market and cuts out vital plot scenes, but leaves in shit like that?

...Unless all those vital plot scenes had even worse technical problems. Jesus. That's a terrifying thought.

One positive here. While nearly all of the voice work is as boring and bored as you'd expect, the immortal Tom Kenny is good, with what very little he is given to do, here. The man is a professional.

And here is the weirdest thing: Rob Schneider is really good here as the panda man and Jimmy Ginseng. Like, shockingly good. Like, this is without exaggeration the best performances of this man's miserable life. He is funny, charming, nuanced, he feels like he is reacting properly during what were probably one-sided conversations recorded on different days in different places. It is shocking how good he is in this awful, stupid movie. My only guess is that he was somehow involved in bringing this over and it was going to serve as an audition piece to get him more voice work. In which case, like, fair enough, dude. You nailed it. He is genuinely very good in this very bad movie.

What an odd artifact from 2012. What a waste of time. Why did YouTube recommend this? What do any of us gain from being shown this? I am just flabbergasted.

You're on time out with these movie suggestions, Google.

Also there is a pig who flies who looks like this:

Those aren't ears, they are just gross misshapen tendrils that bob around as she moves. It's like someone was playing with a stretch tool and then...stopped.

I was gonna end with "Now let's have Jimmy Ginseng play us out," but I can only find this one bad picture of him, and it doesn't show his erhu:

Here is some nice erhu music from someone else. Something redeeming in this godforsaken post:

[silviakundera]

Love's Rebellion dropped express and now we know it's a happy ending, so it's safe to taste. I feel determined to give it a fair chance to engage me, because after watching many years of classic Doctor Who and Babylon 5, terrible CGI and low budget effects & sets can't deter me.

Love's Rebellion ep 1 watch comments

Strong character opening for the FL

We learn several key things about her within a few minutes, without an awkward info dump:

She's part of a martial sect but is the reclusive poisioner who doesn't fit in

Powerful enough that she's not intimidated by sword wielding martial siblings

Talks to magical creatures

Patient enough to spend multiple years cultivating her potion ingredients

Chaotic neutral - rescued a junior who came to fuck with her shit, instead of letting him die from poison, but in a very wacky way that terrorized him

ok so when I watch a xanxia I often try to place the tone, so I know what to expect 🤔

This is sorta wacky. The question for me is if this is more "Eternal Love of the Dream" & "Ashes to Love"... or "Back to the Brink". There's a level of unserious chaos that feels whimsical and fantastical to me, and I can vibe with that. But "Back to the Brink" crossed a line for me that felt like Disney channel movie, pre-teen level of pratfalls and goofy. That's very subjective and personal taste... It will likely take 3 or 4 episodes to determine if it's "for me"

ML's intro also pleased me. We get rumors on the street and then a mysterious sword carrying man who was reportedly "chased" by sects to a xanxia market area, spilling wine as a tribute to the dead and then calmy strolling off.

He narrates about himself that he was convicted to murdering fellow disciples and expelled from his sect, on the run

Gotta say, these intros are way better than a few I've seen in cdramas where characters explicitly tell each other paragraphs about a character's backstory in a way that feels artificial. People aren't standing and talking woodenly at each other, things are constantly happening on screen.

ML wants to prove his innocence. I bet the sect master did it. It's always the secretly corrupted shifu.

LMAO there's literally a group called the Evil Path Sect?? Reminds me of that viral tumblr post about joining the brotherhood of evil mutants 😂😭

FL surrounded by demons and gets a little anonymous assist from passersby ML. She's not meek and defenseless, nor is she high powered. Perhaps your average capable sect member

The whaling guitar during fight scenes is taking me out

FL found ML passed out on the road after anonymously saving her and has now kidnapped ML into forced treatment as a medicine tester

(I feel like I watched a drama where a ML wanted to keep FL around because they were obsessed w curing them of the same disease their mom died from. But in that one, it was super annoying that ML hid all this info from the FL. Maybe it was an OTT mini drama. I don't recall.)

This is all very straightforward and the FL doesn't hide her intentions at all. Since she's basically a strange hedge witch with an actual cauldron in a forest hut, the eccentric behavior fits

wtf FL is possessed by a bad cgi gremlin

It's a genie or something and ML wants to steal it because it is gonna help him get this magic manual.

ML really wants the Seven Sins Manual because somehow that's gonna solve his problems.

Why he believes that idk but I feel like the key to watching xanxia is not to think about the plot and mcguffin very much. Just go with it.

[tiredlilguy]

BSD|The Flags Poly HC's

come get your girl dinner, you know who you are cw: not proofread, suggestive//, a little fucked up (what do you expect though... they're mafia) notes: not adding chuuya because he was 16 at the same time they were around their 20's, reader suggested to be around their age. im just trying to cope with the recent chapter ;-;

I feel like Pianoman, Lippman, and Albatross would probably be the most provocative and louder lovers, while Iceman and Doc are kind of like “they’ll come around to me when they want to” attitude

Pianoman LOVES having you on his lap, he’s always using his “leader privilege” to be able to hold you the longest

Pianoman is handsy, but Alb is clingy… like Pianoman would be the one to try and sneak a hand to your ass, but Alb just likes hugs and holding you

Speaking of Alb, he definitely likes to steal you away all the time

Can and will just take you out of a cafe date with Lippman so then he can drive you to some random empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere just to make out with you

You have them all of a leash, and they will be there at your beck and call

Bet if you’re in trouble with something (they know very well you’re capable), doesn’t matter if it’s personal or not, they’re there

Iceman is a simp, I can definitely see him trying to be chill about your attention being on everyone else, but he’s a little jealous… he won’t say anything though

One time, Lippmann was watching Pianoman’s hand that was on your thigh as you were sitting on his lap. Pianoman eventually noticed and looked up at Lippman with a smirk and said: “ You wanna join?”

You ended up in between them that night (god, I desperately want that to be me)

You hear all the hospital drama from doc:

“ You remember […]?”

“ Yeah?”

“ Well they lost their other leg. When I tell you that I’m probably going to run out of prosthetics to put on this guy… Though, I may consider trying to Frankenstein them with a new leg. What do you think?”

Doc gifts you flowers, but he always gets the ones that are small (he thinks that they are like him, so that’s why he gets them for you), OR he’d gift you jars of severed limbs/eyes/etc

If he does surgery on you, he’s going to find some way to give you an extra organ and just not tell you about it. I guess enjoy your new third kidney babes (this is a crack hc, but I did see it from a meme)

Albatross seems like the typa guy to gift you a taxidermied animal, idk why… he gives me those vibes, like how a crow will gift you a dead mouse as thanks for saving it (Albatross is the name of a bird after all)

NO ACTUALLY, ALB DEFINITELY GIFTS ILLEGAL FISH/WHALE BONES

He’s definitely a genius at getting stuff on the black market (I mean, he can operate and fix every/any vehicle), probably had the highest bid on like an extinct whale tooth and smuggled it in to gift to you somehow

Doc and alb are fucked in the head, they just wanna show you that they love you

Anyways

Iceman seems like the type to gift you either old records, things that remind you of him, or things the reminds him of you

Lippman gifts really expensive things like designer bags or clothing

Pianoman doesn’t seem like much of a gift person, but he’d probably get you something more sentimental: like a simple (but expensive) necklace, or very romantic letters

Lippmann LOVES to spoil you: literally will take you to everything, always has you at any of his interviews (though you’re probably in disguise), or at movie/tv show shoots

Iceman definitely likes to have you to himself, he doesn’t mind the poly relationship, but if you’re with him, he doesn’t like to share

That said, if he does have you for a night, bet it’s going to be a good night (in both ways)

If you are getting shared it’s most likely pianoman + Lippmann or alb + doc

Though of course the six of you are always together, I mean hey, u got the cream of the crop of the Port Mafia all to yourself 

If you get signed a solo mission, at least one of them is either going with you or watching you on the sidelines

One time it ended up being where all of them showed up and they comedically fell out from behind a corner (the sillies)

I can imagine a scenario where you all end up going on a vacation to somewhere where there’s a beach

It was Lippmann’s idea

The end goal was to see you in swimwear- like that was the original idea… they’re horndogs

Pianoman puts his coat on you if you’re feeling cold, likes to see you put the sleeves on and see the coat sort of pool over you

Trust, if someone hurts you, that person is getting their ass demolished, beaten tf up, burned, sunk into the ground, dead as hell

They’d probably make a mess of the person who hurt you, so much so that the person is beyond recognition

Probably the one time that they let Albatross go loose (he’s probably beating the shit out of the dead body)

They do love you, they’re just a little fucked in the head

The skrunklies

[t0ast-ghost]

Here’s my thoughts on Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

There’s swear words, star trek, and spoilers oh my!

Start it up:

- “The planet of galactic peace.” Somehow. I don’t believe that.

- This guy on his horse looks like death

- “Let us explore it together.” Come take my hand. Let us take ibuprofen together.

- It’s hard to dislike Sybok when he smiles like that so they have to add in a somewhat evil laugh

- Epic music is a go (Music by Jerry Goldsmith)

- “‘You’ll be able to relax’ you call this relaxing? I’m a nervous wreck. If I’m not careful I’ll end up talking to myself.” Kirk convinced him to come here and now he has to watch his idiot husband climb a rock

- Kirk knows Spock and McCoy are there to catch him when he falls but goddamnit if they aren’t both really tired of his shit

- No but seriously what is with science fiction and thinking ‘yeah there’s a race of cat people’ looking at you too doctor who

- Caithlin Dar is awesome already.. I don’t trust Talbot (edit: haha too bad they’re characters don’t really do anything anyway)

- Scotty narrating is my favourite actually

- UHURA IS AWESOME

- are Uhura and Scotty dating?

- “Admit it. We’re lost!” “All right, we’re lost. But we’re making good time.” Didn’t know I needed Sulu and Chekov to go hiking together but I do

- “Yes uh- yes, we’ve been caught in a blizzard.” *Chekov starts blowing into the microphone* god I love them. He just went with it!

- Bones ringing the triangle out of spite and love

- The husbands sitting down and eating beans. Why would they make star trek about literally anything else

- Coming back strong with the extra wh sound (it was in the last movie when McCoy said whales)

- The trivia panel is telling me that one of the goofs is Kirk calling Tennessee whiskey bourbon and it looks like something Spock would write

- McCoy laughing and talking about Spock’s Vulcan metabolism and Spock indulging by saying he’s also half human and McCoy responding with “well it certainly doesn’t show” to which he knows Spock’ll take as a compliment. Yes I do need old married mcspirk.

- “You know, you two could drive a man to drink.” Then Kirk with all the innocence and nonchalance in the world says, “me? What did I do?” “What did you do? You really piss me off, Jim.”

- McCoy is lecturing Kirk cause he can’t take anymore of his almost dying bullshit

- “I knew I wouldn’t die because the two of you were with me.” “I do not understand.” “I’ve always known I’ll die alone.” I’m about to cry because this is true. He dies in a distant future without either of them. Thinking about it they all somewhat die alone. Maybe Spock was there for McCoy but we never see his death. And Spock dies in an alternate past :(((

- “It’s a mystery to me what draws us together…Other people have families.” “Other people, Bones, not us.” They are each other’s family.

- SPOCK ROASTING A MARSHMALLOW (not sure why they call it a ‘marsh melon’)

- This is the silliest thing they could have possibly put in a movie (this is like a comfort fic but a movie and I am so here for it)

- “God, I liked him better before he died.” McCoy is getting nasty and Kirk is now like ‘well time to sleep’

- “Life is not a dream.” “Go to sleep, Spock.”

- Why is the head Klingons outfit so cunty. Why’re the Klingons so silly?

- They caught Spock in his jammies

- “Well gentlemen, it seems shore leave has been cancelled.” They can’t go on ONE DATE

- Why’re they huddled together on the ship like that?

- “‘All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’” “Melville.” “John Masefield.” “Are you sure about that?” “I am well versed in the classics, Doctor.” “Then how come you don’t know Row, Row, Row Your Boat?” Spock makes the most frowny and tired face imaginable. I think McCoy was justified in biting back there cause imagine you wake up, get in a shuttle, and then get corrected. All I’m saying is Spock was being a bit of a know it all (wouldn’t have him any other way)

- “*laughs* I don’t think I’ve ever seen him happier.” McCoy is so jolly in this one

- The yeoman with Kirk’s jacket is played by Shatner’s daughter

- HE ACTUALLY HAS A SHIRT THAT SAYS ‘go climb a rock.’ omg

- That fucking outfit oh my goodness

- “What’s the matter, Jim?” “I miss my old chair.” And then it switches to Spock who’s going :[

- Love how the Klingons all know who Kirk is. Like he’s THAT important

- Aww Kirk can’t write his diary :((

- Their silhouettes are so cute (34:06) (also they look like how aliens coming out of a spaceship look, I just think that’s neat)

- McCoy has to turn on the lights like, ‘stop sulking in the damn dark.’

- “Imagine that, a passionate Vulcan.” What McCoy? You want Spock to be more passionate?

- “This is Captain Pavel Chekov speaking.” He’s so silly for that. But also it’s probably best he doesn’t say ‘acting captain’ as that would arouse suspicion cause as everyone knows the captain is always the first to go on dangerous away missions

- What’s going on? Why is Uhura dancing ? What.

- What. Was. That. Scene. Why.

- “Spock.” “Yes, captain?” “Be one with the horse.” “Yes, captain.” Oookay

- “Hold your horse, captain.” Good one.

- Spock just. He just nerve pinched that horse.

- Spock does not know how to deal with seeing his estranged brother again (yeah I was spoiled) so, “you are under arrest for seventeen violations of the neutral zone treaty.” Is what he went with

- Sybok complimented and then winked at Kirk HE IS TAKEN

- “We’re going to forego the tractor beam and fly her in manually.” “Manually?” “How often have you done this?” “Actually it’s my first attempt.” Personally wouldn’t trust anyone else to attempt that other than Sulu. He is THAT bitch (/pos)

- EXPLOSION!!!!! CRASHHHH

- whooo space stuff! Sorry the photon torpedo just missing as the enterprise went into warp was cool

- Spock’s got a gun!

- McCoy comes out of the ship and is so confused and looks to Spock and Kirk

- Ohhh no. Sybok is gonna do his thingy magic thing to Sulu and Uhura with Scotty watching ‘em from above

- “What you have done is betray every man on this ship.” “Worse. I have betrayed you. I do not expect you to forgive me.” “Forgive you? I ought to knock you on your goddamn ass.” “If you think it would help.” “You want me to hold him, Jim?” “You stay out of this. Why, Spock? Why?” Lots to think about in this dialogue. But I think McCoy offering to hold Spock is him going ‘Jim you’re overreacting can’t you see he’s already remorseful?’ I could be misreading but if you understand it as the idea of McCoy holding him down is so redundant because Spock is strong enough to get out of his grasp easily but probably wouldn’t resist in this moment then it’s just like aughhhhhh

- Also Kirk asking Spock to shoot someone is bad enough. But the fact that it was his brother…

- Kirk is in disbelief. He didn’t know his own husband has a brother (half brother technically. Same Spock same.)

- “Stop it, Jim! Spock could no more kill his own brother than he could kill you. If you want to punish him for what he’s done, why don’t you throw him in the brig? Besides, we’ve got bigger problems to deal with.” Bones not only defending Spock, but also getting them back on track

- Apparently both Gene Roddenberry and William Shatner didn’t like that Sybok was Spock’s brother. Roddenberry didn’t think that Sarek would have a child with another woman (I kinda agree but also Pon Farr would’ve made him become engaged to a Vulcan before he met Amanda, so it’s not completely unthinkable). And Shatner didn’t like it cause it was too much like ‘a soap opera plot line’ but they went with it so that Spock’s actions made sense with the way he acted towards Sybok. I personally like that Spock has siblings he never told anyone about. It’s funny.

- lmao this time Kirk gets to stand on top of Spock to reach something (See patterns of force)

- Spock talking about himself in the third person because he doesn’t want to admit that he couldn’t get out of the brig

- “The bond between these three is strong, difficult to penetrate. This will be quite a challenge.” IT’S CAUSE THEY’RE MARRIED

- It’s funny that- canonically - Sybok can sense a really strong bond between them

- Kirk and McCoy’s ass I mean- oh look it’s Spock. With rocket boots!

- Spock holding onto Kirk and McCoy for their dear lives

- “I believe I overshot the mark by one level.” “Nobody’s perfect.” McCoy keeps saying this to Spock and I think it’s healing. Also flirting.

- They’re lit really nicely

- McCoy is NOT having this “Sounds like brainwashing to me.” You’re so right, back OFF Sybok

- (drawable moment 1:08:17)

- “Your pain is the deepest of all. I can feel it. Can’t you?” OH WAIT WE GET TO SEE MCCOYS PAIN WHAT

- I have no words for this scene. Holy Shit.

- Forced therapy

- Oh they all get to see each others pain cause they’re connected

- Spock gets to see his own birth… why. What.

- young Sarek 😧😳😳😳

- “So human.” YOU FUCKED THE HUMAN SAREK. God he’s such a bitch.

- SPOCK FOR THE WIN!! He’s not leaving

- MCCOYS STAYING WITH HIS HUSBANDS!!! YEAH LETS GOOO! (Personally I don’t think McCoy would go with Sybok at all, but I wasn’t sure what the writers were gonna do and I was scared they would make him leave)

- I know we’ve moved on from this but maybe Sarek saying that Spock was human was like saying ‘he’s got your eyes’ like comparing Spock to Amanda in appreciation. We’ll never know but it’s still a bitchass thing to say.

- Kirk has a plaque with ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before’ what a nerd

- They’re really hot in their uniforms

- hi god

- Kirk wants to ID god. Fair enough.

- There’s McCoy in the corner. Losing his religion

- “I doubt a God who inflicts pain for his own pleasure.” YEAH McCoy’s not standing for this shit

- Oh so Sybok wasn’t the enemy. Yeah that’s a good ending for his character. Saying bye to sock and asking for forgiveness

- “Beam up Spock and Dr. McCoy now.” “Now, just a damn minute-” Kirk said that so fast so that his husbands couldn’t argue with him

- “I am a foolish old man.” “Damn you, sir. You will try.” Spock ain’t fucking around. Also he picked up a couple of words from McCoy

- “I thought I was going to die.” “Not possible, you were never alone.” Throw me out an airlock I need some air

- SORRY the immediate moment after that was SO MUCH WORSE “Please, captain. Not in front of the Klingons.” THEY WERE ABOUT TO MAKE OUT SLOPPY

- “Cosmic thoughts, gentlemen?” “We were speculating. Is god really out there?” They were having a nice quiet conversation and it’s a shame they didn’t show it :(

- KIRK TALKING ABOUT SAM??? Oh no he was implying it was Spock

- this ending- I’m not okay.

Unfortunately I really enjoyed this one. William Shatner made a movie that was so shippy and was oblivious to it the entire time.

I know it took a really long time for me to post this one because I wanted to watch undiscovered country first, I haven’t watched it yet but I felt I needed to finally edit and post this one. I hope you enjoyed my silly little thoughts.

Star trekking across the universe. Get that stuck in your head.

Masterpost

[scoundrels-in-love]

Between having been really into mermaids and underwater kingdoms as a concept during my childhood and the absolutely hauntingly stunning horror movie sequence where you root for the sirens introduction to Talokan, it's not really any surprise that I became instantly and deeply fascinated with this nation and its' people.

Like, there is so much I kept thinking about during the movie and even now, a whole day later. This great post by @thebctman raised even more that I hadn't gotten to.

Until the call to arms scene, I assumed that they cannot speak under the water, so I was quite stunned at the scene. But it does make me wonder just how much of importance does body language carry in Talokanian society! And how hard it might have been to preserve their native language, especially before the establishing of the cave sanctuary(ies).

And I have to think for how long Namor was only one who could only briefly exit the water, how, before the invention of water masks, there could be no sanctuary and he would be the only one wandering the caves. Pushed into role and revered as the leader from birth, fitting in with none of them.

The fact they ended up building this sanctuary and filling it to the brim with parts of their cultures they couldn't practice under the water - like the murals. How they must have lost their national cuisine, without access to ingredients or ways to practice it - or even consume, since they cannot eat above the water. I have no idea how much jade deposits are under water, but perhaps even that became a scarce material.

It makes me think of Namor's speech the first time he meets with Queen Ramonda and Shuri - about how clean and unharmed the land is and how much Wakanda's people have not had to change and compromise who they are, their culture, just to continue to exist. Though Talokan is their new land, it is still an exile. Exile deep into the cold waters that have slowly been poisoned and polluted by people.

Somehow, they've managed to befriend sea animals and even communicate with them (which leads back to my point about non-verbal communication under the water, maybe they quite literally can emit sounds similar to dolphins or whales), there is no way that they do not know the absolute devastation done to the oceans, that it has not impacted them, that Namor or his people haven't personally known whales that have been killed by whalers.

And yes, I do wonder about the pressure - how fast can they raise and lower themselves in these depths, without reprecussions, and just how damn fast can they travel because they seem to traverse incredible distances so very swiftly. One moment they're near USA, then Namor can respond to Queen Ramonda's call very swiftly. Like, just how fast can they all swim, without exhaustion?? Fascinating.

I know most of these things will never be answered, if any at all, but a lot of them are just lot of feelings about things in the subtext and I'm gonna go drown in those kthxbye.

[theheromira]

Nimona appreciation post (Part 3 of idk even know how many)

Hi guys, I'm back with Part 3. Sorry about the delay, I tend to procrastinate even if something has to do with my newest hyperfixation lol (Pic for attention, like always lol)

at the beginning he says to Amb that he's not brooding and now he tells Nimona that "Knights don't mope, they brood."

"Murder him, murdder her, murder everyone!" aaand there is Amb standing int the door and Bals pose XD

Amb lil smile when he sees Bal. He probably thought that he killed Bal and seems glas that he's not

Also him just looking at Bals arm

Nimonas lil "Gesundheit" is way better in the english version ngl

Nemesis 😈

"Oh, look! It's Gloreth!" and the knights behind them actually look in the direction she pointed at

Amb acting like he was about to draw his sword and looking like they just caught him doing something forbidden like I don't even know

Bals almost defeated face at the beginning of the closet scene

Nimona just casually ripping that pipe out of the wall

Bals hamster cheeks when she grabs his face

that die-in-the-closet-dialogue felt very strange to me but I still don't completely understand how people can hate people who have a different orientation than them (sexual or not, I don't know how to say that exactly but I hope you kinda understand me?). There shouldn't be a problem about dying in a closet in real life and I really understand why people are so close-minded and this is still happening, I guess. Why does this "kids movie" motivate me to think about this kind of issue so much? But I guess it's a good thing, I'm probably/definitely not the only one who watched Nimona and really started to think about this (and the other themes of this movie)

also Nimona literally coming out of the closet (as a shape-shifter) is like really nice, I love little things like that in movies that you maybe not even register at first

I like to think that the axe opening the door is a little "Shining" reference

Nimona casually catching the arrow before her face

Bal being the competent idiot that he is grabbing the first thing his hand finds to use as a weapon without even looking

"Even if you see the horn?"

"I will not freak… Uhhh" with that face XD

I just looove her line "This is the part where you run.", how she looks at the knights and how they start to panic

Bals face while getting out of the closet is like: What the everloving hell did just happen/is just happening?

"Yeah" "Oh no! Stay away! Get back! No! This is not happening!" XD

Amb just being bamboozled and proving that he's at least a bit of a Nerd (who other then a Nerd or a Zoologist would call a Rhino by it's full name)

"Leave that guy alone!" "Take that" bonks him away with her horn lol, they are such a good duo

Stairs are either your best friend (Nimona seemingly) or your worst enemy (Kungfu Panda)

Bal just being completely like a fish out of water by what is happening during that chase is also kinda hilarious

Also him still having the brain to tell her she needs to go right in all of this mayhem is very competent of him, I stan him just a bit ngl

the whale

hey def needed a meeting table that round, they are a kingdom of knights

loving that Todd gets the tiny d*** joke, one of the best jokes in the movie and this movie has a lot of good ones

THE MUSIC <3

Now he wants the staircase, Bal really should make up his mind XD

I'm a bit sad that the original BlueSky-Scene where she changes into a dragon didn't make it in there but this is also fine, I guess

How did Bal survive that fall?

also loving how he just slides the last few metres face down lol

Nimona looking at Bal before she says her "Something, something, something, we win." was kinda cute

Explosions! "Metal" Also: stuff like this reminds me of a kind of old scetch from a comedian (I know the guy from some youtube vids of different poetry slams but he is a comedian now) I like pertaining bear catapults (I def will get myself some tickets if he ever does a show near me, the guy is hilarious)

Bal looking kinda chill (he prob has a concussion and isn't quite there, I guess) at the different things that fly towards them and then focusing on that little bit of debris that knocks him out (and the sound he makes when he gets hit) lol

Sooo, that was it for part 3. Short I know, but I think I will try to get these posts out and ngl my attention span is a bit short at the moment… with this kind of post thats more on the short site I believe I can stay on the topic and not procrastinate that much. Maybe there will also be some longer ones inbetween, we will see. Have a good one guys ^^

[vintagetvstars]

little bits of propaganda for claude rains!

-was good friends with bette davis! she called him her favorite male costar and they worked on four films together. also, she had a FAT crush on him and she visited a lot!

-speaking of where he lived, claude owned and worked on farms! he was proud to grow and cultivate land, often restoring and preserving whatever he could and loved the history behind things! he raised cattle, grew crops, and tilled the land himself

-is literally the wikepedia subject for the term 'character actor' - he said it himself on his versatility as an actor, saying "i can play the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker

-eleanor roosevelt saw him in 'darkness at noon' on broadway and personally praised him for his performances

-he served in ww1 and was gassed, resulting in 90% blindness in his right eye and damaged vocal chords - giving him his signature voice

-was nominated for 4! academy awards for best supporting actor and also won a tony for best leading actor in a play

-taught at the royal academy for dramatic art, teaching students like john gielgud and sir laurence olivier

-was cast in the invisible man soley on his voice, to quote director james whale, "i don't care what he looks like, i just want that voice!"

-depending on who you ask, he was the first actor to receive a million dollars for a role (as well as risking his life traveling overseas to england during ww2 for filming on 'caesar and cleopatra'

-claude probably worked with your favorite star! his list of co-stars was endless and included people such as bette davis, james stewart, humphrey bogart, paul henried, gloria stuart, basil rathbone, cedric hardwicke, errol flynn, cary grant, ingrid bergman, ronald reagan, and paul muni to name a few.

all in all, i'm pledging my vote for claude rains!!

Hi, thank you for the Claude Rains propaganda!

Friendly reminder to please try to keep things focused on actors TV careers as this is a TV focused competition. Sharing about an actors life is great but we like to steer things away from talk of their movie, theater, or music career and focus on what makes them a hot television star!

- mod vintage

[orcinus-veterinarius]

hi, i learned about Tokitae/Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut thought my engagement in Indigenous environmental justice projects and subsequently the Lummi's efforts to have her repatriated. i initially felt very strongly about this but since learning more from you about marine mammals in captivity and how awful the whole Keiko situation was, I'm no longer sure. what are feasible options for an orca as old as her assuming the priority is continued good health? is releasing a long-captive wild-caught orca something that necessarily ends badly?

Hello, thank you for asking! I've let this one sit for a while because it's a very sensitive subject. I'm not Indigenous, so obviously I cannot speak for the pain and injustice suffered by the Lummi people. Taking orcas from the Puget Sound was horribly cruel not only to the animals, but also to the people who have cherished them for millennia, and I don't want to diminish that in the slightest. I can only speak on the feasibility of actually returning Tokitae/Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut/"Lolita" (who I'll refer to by her nickname "Toki") to her native waters.

Toki was estimated to be 4 years old when she captured in 1970. While calves only nurse for 1-2 years, she was very likely still socially dependent on her mom (who has never been confirmed to be Ocean Sun as is often claimed) at this time. She was sold to Miami Seaquarium in Septemer of the same year and placed in an undersized tank called the "Whale Bowl." She has not left that same pool in the 52 and a half years that have passed since. Furthermore, her mate, Hugo, died in March 1980, meaning she has not seen or communicated with another orca in 43 years. All of this is to say: she is quite literally the worst possible candidate for transfer to a sea pen.

But that doesn't seem to matter. Today, the Dolphin Company gave in to pressure from animal rights groups and the public and announced that Toki is going to be "released" to a sea pen.

It seems we learned nothing from Keiko's heartbreaking fate. At the very least, it seems that they plan to allow her to live out what little remains of her life in managed care, rather than attempting to completely release her as was done with Keiko.

I do not wish harm on Toki. More than anything, I hope this goes well, for her sake. But I, and every other animal care professional I've talked to, do not beleive it will. Toki is a geriatric animal in delicate health. She has spent half a century with extrememly minimal change in her environment, and she is going to be removed from her habitat in a sling, placed in a very large crate, driven to the airport, and flown clear across the country. Cetaceans are transported between facilities routinely, but they have to be in excellent health and are properly trained and desensitized to the process. Toki has never been transported, not once in her long life. I will be genuinely surprised if the shock of transport doesn't kill her. And if she survives the move, she is going to face a barage of pathogens she hasn't encountered in 50+ years the second she hits the water. While in an immunocompromised state due to her age and stress. Folks expect her ails to be magically cured once she's in her natural environment. Let me tell you that the opposite is true.

And if she dies, it will inevitably be blamed on her "years of captivity." No one will admit that this misguided experiment was the cause of her demise. They'll just say, "at least she died free!" Just like they say about Keiko.

And that doesn't even touch on how they plan to fund her ongoing care. Keiko was a beloved movie star, and the donations dried up shortly after he arrived in his sea pen. The general public just doesn't understand how nigh-impossible it is to "free" an animal that has spent decades upon decades in human care.

I'm terrified for Toki, and I'm terrified of the precedent this will set for other animals. I can only hope that AZA facilities with cetaceans buckle down to protect their animals from activists.

[arttsuka]

I haven't watched the star trek movies in years but let me try to summarize them. 1st: bad electricity special effects (that's all I remember from this movie), 2nd: Spock dies, 3rd: they try to get Spock back (his soul is in dr Mccoy for reasons), 4th: the one with the whales (literally what I started calling it even before I knew what the fandom was calling it), 5th: mountain camping and 6th: I haven't seen this one actually

[bubacorn]

Wdym Vessel stims with his little IKEA rug backpack??

His brain says bc it's part of his costume it doesn't count as a comfort item, so that means he is allowed it. Yes, even if he is rubbing it on his face like a cherished blankie. He is just making sure the fabric doesn't need replacing is all.

it was my tired brain's little whisper, i simply wrote it down as i edited so i didn't forget it. but now i'm thinking about writing a chapter 2 of them cuddling 👀

i just had III on my mind during Aqua Regia when he nuzzles the pelt, but in this weird little moment, it's only Vessel and II (don't ask me how they are touring as a two-man band, i have no idea), so i had the logical thought that Vessel must like the pelt (yes, somehow he's got the pelt even though it's early ST, don't try and find any logic in the timeline, it's non-existent)

it's part of his costume, so he's also very careful with it, because it has to be in good shape, so he always makes sure it's packed neatly in his bag. totally not because sometimes he can't fall asleep without either II comforting him or fiddling with the pelt until his thoughts calm down. II has had to calm a frantic Vessel several times when he couldn't find it and he always says that it's important for his worship, but II notices the way Vessel relaxes when he finds it, and how he has to retrieve it from his bunk in the morning because he sneaks it in there when he goes to sleep

also, totally not thinking about II maybe buying Vessel a small fuzzy baby blanket, because it's compact for traveling, but soft enough to be good for stimming. Vessel is so embarrassed at first, because it says 'baby blanket' on it, and he's a grown man and also he didn't do anything to deserve it, but it's got all kinds of pretty blue jellyfish on it and it's so, so soft. they are lounging on the bus later and Vessel brings it to the couch, but II doesn't say anything, just smiles to himself when Vessel leans against him and first nuzzles his arm through his hoodie, then the blanket, alternating between the two for a bit, then hiding half of his face in the blanket as they watch a movie

Vessel is very careful that it's only out when it's just the two of them, because he's mortified by the thought of anyone else discovering his blankie. also his face burns when during a panic attack he calls it that, looking at II with huge, tear-filled eyes, asking him if he could get it for him, then looking at him in panic to see if II react to him calling it that. he has a harder time calming down even after II gets him his blanket and holds him in his bunk, because he's making a fool out of himself, what is he doing, clutching a baby blanket, it's literally in the name and he's ridiculous. II catches on quick though and doesn't let Vessel spiral. it's just a piece of textile, it doesn't have an age restriction. if it brings him comfort then it's okay to have at any age. Vessel curls up the smallest he can and rubs the blanket to his lips and tries not to worry about II seeing him like that. but then he reasons that he would have left if he thought Vessel was acting weird, and his eyes are so gentle and his arms hold him so tight and he speaks so tenderly to Vessel and looks at him like he's something to be cherished with his puffy eyes and tangled hair and wrinkly clothes and tear-soaked baby blanket

II scours shops for more blankets (this isn't very Vessel, but i just googled baby blanket and it's so cute i had to include it), getting one with whales and one with moths, and after some time, Vessel has a designated TV blanket that he uses for movie nights, and eventually there is one that stays in II's bunk/room for when Vessel sheepishly asks if he can sleep there with him. he loves normal sized (if you can call ones he can wrap himself in two times over normal sized) blankets, too, but the small ones bring a more intimate type of comfort and he can't explain why he gets so attached (i have a few ideas). also, the same with fuzzy rugs. he has a few in his room and he sometimes lays down for some floor time, or when he's overwhelmed by his bed of blankets and pillows

[starfirelily]

To start off, One Piece is a sea-faring adventure, and Treasure Planet is a space-sea-faring adventure. One Piece already has some steampunk vibes--though only slight, so putting the world of One Piece into the world of Treasure Planet wouldn't be too weird since a lot of the same mechanics/weapons/ships/things would stay the same or modified a tiny bit. Like, the wavers and Ace's flame-powered boat are almost exactly like Jim's solar/wind surfer.

Sailing ships in SPACE like how cool would it be to see Merry or Sunny just gliding along galaxies and nebulae? Laboon would totally be cool as a space whale (I kind of imagine the whales in that Fantasia 2000 bit called the Pines of Rome).

It wouldn't be a stretch for each arc or island to be it's own planet due to how different a lot of them are (like Drum v Alabasta) and space has a variety of planets that range from inhabitable to possibly habitable (and within science fiction/fantasy that range is much larger and of course includes totally habitable). It would also make total sense for the One Piece, then, to be a planet sized treasure, or at least hidden on a planet.

There's that one major city/port moon looking thing where Jim goes, that actually gives Alabasta, but bigger Sabaody vibes.

Blackbeard before he's really Blackbeard (when he says what he does about dreams in the Jaya/Skypeia arc) reminds me a lot of Silver. Someone who doesn't seem like a bad guy and actually teaches the kid something. But, in the end, he's a bad guy and you hate to see it.

Just Strawhats in Space! All the same idiosyncrasies, just IN SPACE. I mean, even more places and ways for Zoro to get lost, more for Nami to map out, Luffy would be king of even more. All Blue would literally be a galaxy like Triangulum, NGC 253, or NGC 4736.

Finally, although it draws in another movie (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas- this scene especially-the very beginning of the movie), since Luffy (and sort of Zoro) is a god, could it not be said that the cosmos is their playground?

I'm sure there could be more taken from this, or thought about because I'm not sure how Devil Fruits fit into this world yet, but it's still fun to think about.

TL;DR I have always just loved the visuals in Treasure Planet and the magic of that world--and bringing the people and the magic of the One Piece world to a Treasure Planet world, would be stunning and amazing.

brain rot for @swordsmans, hope you like it <3

ps- the soundtrack for both sinbad and treasure planet would probably fit in the One Piece world so there's that too

[janeway-lover]

okay so

I'm unsurprised to see a whale in prodigy. "we're about to communicate with cetaceans which is a first step in communicating with extraterrestrials!" hits the news every time nonhuman animal communication and cetacean research teams do anything. and it's definitely an exciting idea. people in my animal communication class were all excited about the prospect. and ai has potential as being helpful here, since I know training systems on bat calls was pretty promising and cetaceans are very vocal and have culture and culturally different languages (different languages? dialects? accents? we don't know) and the different codas and the newish phonemes look pretty promising about that, at least to me, a person who is not remotely qualified to judge that because that's not my thing.

that said. is it a TARDIS tank (are those possible?), or a weird space whale that doesn't need to move much at all, or a lack of ethics? Because toothed whales in captivity are an ethical debate enough as is, baleen whales aren't a debate so much as an impossibility and you'd need a planet-sized space ship (small planet but even so) which I've been sort of assuming isn't the case but maybe it is? please tell me it's a weird space whale? or that I'm thinking too hard about this?

and also are there cetaceans in other star treks?

Okay, so I am assuming that the whale is probably smaller than the average whale today. Mostly because the whale is literally a crew member and I can't see Starfleet giving a crew member a room that's too small.

Starships are also huge, too. Not planet-sized, but very large. I've seen some of the schematics for the ship, and Cetacean Ops takes up a HUGE amount of space.

There is a very famous Star Trek movie, The One with The Whales The Voyage Home, where Kirk and Crew travel back in time to save two whales and bring them to the future (where apparently all whales have gone extinct).

We know there IS a Cetacean Ops on Picard's Enterprise, and that they have dolphins, but we never see them. On the Cerritos (Lower Decks) we DO get to see Cet Ops, and they have beluga whales.