#the trailer only shows about 30% of how weird it gets

[13eyond13]

my god. I'm tellin ya, ya gotta see The Substance (2024) in theaters with at least a half a full crowd

[sapphiresaphics]

Alright, let’s do this.

Part 1 because this video is 2 hours long and I can barely get through 20 mins without breaking down all the ways this video is not only wrong but grossly misrepresenting the source material.

LET’S GO!

Starts off on shaky grounds by complaining that Vi being in the enforcer uniform in the trailers for season 2 bugged her. Uses the term “copaganda” to describe it, despite that’s NOT what Arcane is about or supports. So we’re off to a good start huh?

Then they start by defining the terms for liberal and conservatism. Okay, that’s fine. If you’re gonna talk about these things you need to make sure everyone is on the same page.

During the description of how Season 1 begins they make the claim that Arcane is about these two sisters and that season 2 fails in this regard. This is a frustrating remark because Arcane IS about these two sisters. It follows their journey all the way through the show and both begins and ends with Vi and the song sung here.

BUT… they are not the ONLY main characters. And if they were the main characters they must be doing something wrong cuz Vi disappears entirely for 2 whole episodes across BOTH seasons. So rather than see Season 1 and 2 as two halves of a whole, you’re starting off with a bias that there’s a split and that season 1 is better than 2 inherently. I despise this leading commentary in an analysis video, but let’s see where we go from here. We’re only 8:40 into the video so it can’t be that bad, right?

10:11 wait… what’s wrong with brothels? You gonna come back to that weird throwaway line?

12:00 alright, yes… this is basically just explaining what the conflict is between the two cities. Many of the writers have stated that the central theme of the show is the cycle of violence, so having a conflict between these two cities makes senses. Where I think you screw up though is you seem to think this is a story about the left overcoming the right, instead of a background setting for the characters to be thrust against.

12:30 uh… Caitlyn DOES react to it though? That’s her whole questioning of Vi is about. She’s trying to figure out why Vi is there if there’s nothing recorded. It’s her first taste of the corruption she’s been oblivious to. And it’s odd enough that she feels sympathy for Vi and her situation. Don’t gloss over that.

12:50 okay but that’s not a fair comparison? If Vi HAD been processed normally and gotten a fair trial she likely would’ve been in a cell with a bed and all that stuff too. Markus DELIBERATELY BURIED her to cover his own skin. As commented on later “Markus felt it was more of a mercy to lock her up than to kill her.” The corruption surrounding Vi is UNIQUE to Vi. That’s WHY Caitlyn comments on it.

Noticing a lot of casual negativity being tossed around in here too. Suggesting Shimmer is the only form of medicine Zaun has is WILD and WRONG, but fine, let’s let it slide for now…

“Why Season 1 seemed Leftist”

Oh boy, that’s a title… alright whatcha got?

13:34 “ive given a detailed recap of what Season 1 says about Piltover and Zaun.” Actually… no you didn’t. You laid out the conflict and the story… but you said NOTHING about what this actually means. Describing police brutality isn’t a detailed recap of what the show is saying, you’re just describing plot points. And badly at that as I’ve already pointed out… you’ve said nothing yet.

14:21 “Vi was a burgeoning little revolutionary in Act 1” woah woah woah… slow down there, no she wasn’t. Vi has NEVER cared about revolution. What she WANTS and what she VOICES is that she wants Powder to have a better life than hers. She wants her family to be safe, and she’s foolhardy enough to risk her life getting there. And importantly: Vander talks her down from this. Because he’s been where she was. He knows how easily this talk of violence can spiral out of control and take away the people you love. And he asks Vi who she is willing to risk sacrificing for this violence… and when push comes to shove Vi CHOOSES NOT TO START A REVOLUTION because Powder being alive is more important to her. And at NO POINT PAST EPISODE 2 does Vi champion for Zaun’s independence or revolution. FAMILY is all that matters to Vi, so you’ve fundamentally misunderstood her character from the jump.

14:31 calling out the actions of Piltover’s isn’t fermenting a revolution though. She’s holding them accountable for their actions and begging them to change. And when they don’t follow through she falls back on her only method of getting stuff done that she knows… vigilante Justice. Vi has no interest in starting a revolution, she just wants Powder to be safe and taking out Silco is the way she thinks she can do that.

Also, Ekko is an isolationist. He keeps people AWAY from Piltover and Zaun while still benefiting from what they have to offer. He has good intentions, but pretending the conflict isn’t happening isn’t beneficial in the long run (as we will see in season 2).

16:00 “Caitlyn seemed to be going down the path of a character who would play a critical role in Zaun getting equal treatment and independence.” Yeah… that’s called setup. It SEEMS like that’s where she’s going. And If Jinx hadn’t blown up the council building maybe yeah that IS where she would’ve gone…. But the cycle of violence rears its ugly head and everything falls apart. That’s how story progression works. This isn’t a negative, this is just you projecting what you wanted to see happen.

17:10 “Vander believed it was better to submit to Piltover instead of fighting against it.” Uh… no… no he didn’t? Vander didn’t submit to Piltover at all. He made a deal with them. They don’t bother him, he doesn’t bother them. And when push came to shove he refused to give up his people and was steadfast in keeping the peace. That’s not “submitting to Piltover.” Submitting would’ve been giving his people up to maintain peace. And Vander didn’t do that. That’s a BAD READING of what Vander’s politics were.

Is now a bad time to remind everyone this user is a SPONGEBOB RECAP CHANNEL?

“Season 1 vs Season 2”

I have a feeling this is where a lot of my disagreements are gonna come into play…

18:16 you just SKIPPED OVER the fact that Caitlyn was TRYING to maintain the peace and objected to the invasion of Zaun and are intercutting scenes of Caitlyn AFTER the SECOND attack on the memorial with the scenes of BEFORE the attack to lump her in with the council. This is deceptive editing and you are misleading your audience here.

19:24 important key information left out here, the Riktus arrests weren’t sanctioned by Caitlyn or the city of Piltover. That was Ambessa’s men doing it against her wishes, something she SPECIFICALLY CHASTISES Ambessa for doing earlier.

Hey, what are these politics again? You haven’t really said anything is left or right, you’re just assuming that if you recap the story WE WILL KNOW what is or isn’t left and right wing. We are 20 minutes in and you haven’t really detailed the politics at all or explained WHY someone might think something is left or right wing. You had a WHOLE SECTION on it and yet you said nothing? That’s a little odd…

19:43 Caitlyn not using those low level cells is kinda important information, don’t gloss over that.

19:48 “Jinx uses MCU humor.” Oh for fuck’s sake. “MCU humor” is not a real thing. I’ve gone into this in other posts, but the idea that there’s this specific TYPE of humor that ONLY MCU films use is absurd. It also has its origins in right-wing talking points, which is why I called you right-wing when I first saw your initial post. As a leftist you shouldn’t be using the terms the right create to hate on things they despise. If you want more information, the term came about roughly around 2016 when the DC team up movie Justice League bombed at the box office. Right wing fans were angry that Joss Whedon was brought in to fix Zack Snieder’s version of the film and started demanding the “Snieder cut.” Because Snieder is known to be “serious” with his filmmaking and Whedon was from Marvel and is more lighthearted, this idea that any joke or form of lighthearted fun that was added to Justice League was “MCU humor.”

So fuck you as a leftist. You’re using RIGHT WING ideological talking points to back up an argument that the show isn’t “leftist enough?” This is one step away from using right-wing version of the term “woke” unironically.

20:31 “we aren’t told why the Zaunites come back other than seeing enforcers being nice influences them” no.. no that’s not what’s going on there. I’ll cite this as an example because it’s easy for leftists to understand, but segregation, civil war, and the genocide of native Americans were still fresh in peoples minds during WWI and WWII, and yet some of the bravest and best soldiers we had during then were black peoples and native Americans. Native Americans specifically used their native tongue to encode messages that the Nazis couldn’t understand. Why would minorities and people abused by the system of America come to the aid of America when fighting against such a huge foe? It’s not because some of them saw police officers being kind to them. It’s because deep down this is their HOME. For better or worse. And they believe that fighting for their home is more honorable than leaving it to rot and die. I dunno, maybe before passing judgement on these people who came back to defend their homes you consider the historical implications and see what minorities and Native Americans had to say about it their fighting in the wars?

I dunno, maybe it’s cuz you’re young and inexperienced with life it really pisses me off when kids like you imply these people shouldn’t have come back and that they’re some sort of traitors…

20:39 Jesus I can’t even go 8 seconds without you putting your foot in your mouth. Zaun comes to fight IN EARNEST because JINX showed up. Jinx was the symbol of the revolution to Zaunites. So when SHE chooses to fight, they rally behind her. Just like they WANTED to do back in episode 4.

20:51 what you call “being snarky” about Zaunites coming back to save their home from obliteration, I call being grossly disrespectful to the many men and women who gave their lives defending a country that does not have their best interest in mind all the time. Again, segregation was legal and women couldn’t vote during WWII, yet women got jobs and fought for their rights while black and minorities defended a country that only a few decades back had a literal civil war over their rights as property. I do not understand why I need to explain this to you, but I’m guessing school just hasn’t taught you to be respectful to people who sacrifice their lives for the prospect of the greater good.

Like Jesus Christ, how does someone who’s left leaning shit on this? It boggles my mind.

21:10 yeah… that’s the TRAGEDY of Piltover and Zaun. Sevika being added to the council is a COMMENTARY on the theme of the show. Because yes, you ARE supposed to be critical of this decision. You ARE supposed to be mad she’s the only Zaunite there. You ARE supposed to question if this is a bandaid solution that doesn’t really solve anything. Because Piltover and Zaun are ALWAYS going to be in conflict with one another. Piltover and Zaun represent the cycle of violence. What happened before will happen again. The solution to the systemic issues WASN’T solved.

And if you think that’s the show saying that’s a GOOD thing, you really missed the message of the show. Because the message is that we need to break out of the cycle of violence. That we need to NOT follow in these easily trodden footsteps. So Sevika being put on the council as a bandaid solution is a WARNING. It’s telling the audience that this ISN’T how you break out of the cycle. That this is yet another way in which the cycle is going to be allowed to continue.

THIS IS THE SHOW TELLING YOU THIS IS NOT GOOD, and you’re looking at it going “I guess the show thinks this is good?!!!???” Seriously, how do you misinterpret this as “centrist” or not a left leaning message????? The show is DIRECTLY CRITICIZING IT!!! OMG

[thankskenpenders]

I know Ken is notorious for his, um, odd creation habits, but even I’m shocked that it’s been over 10 years of work and THIS is all he has to show for it. I would maybe be a bit more lenient if each new page was hyper detailed or something like that, but as you pointed out in your review, he reused the same images across plenty of panels and so many of his backgrounds are just stock photos. The only way I can reconcile this to myself is wondering if maybe a bunch of that time was eaten up by extensive rewrites to his plans for the whole series, but even then, I’ll be even more shocked if the next volume ever comes out.

So I didn't get into this in the review because I really just wanted to focus on the book and the weird copyright situation that led to its creation, not Ken's personal life or his other endeavors, but he did make something else in the time since The Lara-Su Chronicles' announcement 13 years ago. That being his independent film: The Republic. Because after he left Archie Ken figured he'd move on to a career in Hollywood.

I think this was originally supposed to be a TV show, the pilot episode for which was released in 2010, but then in 2016 he decided to retool it as a commentary on Trump's immigration policies. I think the movie is still somehow not out despite being shot a few years ago, but he put out a trailer here:

Yes, the trailer really opens with 30 seconds of footage of Trump from CNN. I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards etc. etc.

At least the cast is clearly trying their best in spite of the material. It's not Birdemic bad. And yes, that's Sean Young. THE Sean Young! Rachael from Blade Runner! I guess Ken's really eager to flex the fact that he's friends with a couple lower-level Hollywood producers.

Anyway, I think he's still looking for a distributor for this. It's truly a mystery why no one was eager to pick this up.

Ken's also said some stuff about how he waited years to put out TLSC: Beginnings as part of the 4D chess game he's playing with the copyright stuff. He has a general idea of what he can do based on the terms of the settlement, but he's eager to push it as far as he can. He tested the waters with things like a few small pieces of TLSC merch and an NFT announcement, to see if Sega would take legal action. In particular, the announcement that he was going to sell an NFT of Shade from Sonic Chronicles was a stunt designed to see if Sega would challenge his claim that Shade is legally the same character as Julie-Su. Since they haven't gone after him, and now it's been a few years, he's taking that as evidence that Sega isn't actively exercising those copyrights and isn't going to fight for this stuff.

There's some logic here. Part of the reason Dan DeCarlo lost his battle with Archie over the rights to Josie and the Pussycats is that he didn't take action against them sooner for making merch and whatnot. It's "use it or lose it" with copyrights. But it mostly just comes off as an excuse. If it was purely a waiting game and he had all this extra time, why did he need to recycle art so much in Beginnings? Why is he only releasing 30 new pages of material instead of a whole graphic novel? Where's the app? Why didn't he spellcheck the damn book?

[foundfam2754]

S17e6 live reactions!

Spoilers...obviously

i'm kinda nervous to watch this because i saw someone's post on e6 before this on garvez and they weren't happy... let's see because we're def getting pen and luke interaction this ep bc of the whole tyler ex gf thing

i'm like 95% confident that this is a dream...

okay def a dream because luke is hurt

reminds me of that dream spence had close to the end of s15

what a strange song to have emily sing

okay even dream dead emily is sad :( bring her back from the dead pls (again)

yep... dream

poor papa pasta :(

emily singing will haunt me forever

i like how CM can be scary when it wants to be

aw even after 20 years, emily, jj and pen will be my favorite trio

OH MY GOD rossi's really feeling the trauma

wait this is so sad :(

you're not fine, dave. none of you are fine. PG had the right idea leaving the BAUwh

jj what are you getting at????? luke? i kinda wish it was about luke, but i knew it was about emily

beige, wasting time, and bad kissing?? why is that so penelope garcia coded?

god jj just takes care of everyone but herself, mamabear!jj is my fav

Penelope, pls don't be jealous, he's not worth it

how are garvez so normal after last week? at least their friendship is never in question

why is it awkward luke? because you're in love with pen?

okay i don't mind me some greencia banter, but they did NOT date

jfc dave needs a therapist

aww tara's the best man

kinda love the team knows each other so well, they can talk and listen without words. it's kinda beautiful

OH MY GOD i kinda predicted what tara said about "sitting quietly"

you're safe dave, we promise. we all love u

jj don't make it darker i can barely see the show as it is

i love high!emily, man

i will be using emily's chopsticks trick going forward

"delicious but insufferable" is my new catchphrase

"emily elizabeth prentiss"

super hot latino/a is penelope's type too ;)

damn pen's is roasting him and i kinda love it

i like the parallel of garvez interrogating teresa and tyler about the relationship - i know they have different purposes for doing so, but in my opinion still keeps them connected in a way - so i'll take what i can get

tara's right

luke looks so impressed and kinda turned on by pen's hacking primer - i love it; i know it's just adam, not scripted, but i appreciate that kirsten and adam keep us happy and delulu

"new friend"

i just realized this is the ultimate love square (pen, luke, teresa, tyler)

WHY are you talking about the "sticky chemistry"

penelope's a lot mature than she's acting about this, i mean they are all in their 30-40's and should be able to be honest about their FEEELINGS

god I love how much luke hates tyler

chaotic emily is kinda terrifying

"just run through the field and catch all that rye" HAHAH FUCKING LOVE YOU EMILY

emily you know she loves cheetos why would you leave them out

lmao high!jj

oh this is the elevator scene from the trailer where the walls collapse in

this show can be very scary when it wants to be (hasn't been for me in a while because i rewatch and know what's gonna happen)- and I like that they're leaning into it

lol are they hinting that they were both attracted to tyler because they have grief-related trauma and he's a good, desperate short-term solution

oh my god they were not dating

OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT LUKE AND TYLER HATE EACH OTHER

sir, agent alvez sir, need i remind you that only 7 years ago you were also the lone wolf type?

"rattle off a list of your victims you know, besides penelope and teresa" GO OFF LUKE ALVEZ OMG

this is weirdly hot

"ever take matters into your own hands, luke?" is that a thinly-veiled comment about the fact that everyone knows about his feelings but he is yet to do anything about it yet? or am i too much of a garvez shipper and i'm reading garvez into every pen or luke interaction on this show

aw ex bf and boyf bonding!

"who have you pissed off recently?" lol besides you lukey?

why is voit doing sit-ups? man, he is weird

why don't they call him "Lee?" i feel like it would affect him more

62!?

god voit's a good profiler

elias has strong daddy issues and i think he needs dave's approval

what is he repressing? krystall?

oh my god voit's such a good villain

yeah man, don't date tyler if you don't want your trust violated or safety threateneed

oh my god are jj and em gonna fight?

no don't tease a relationship between teresa and luke please i can't

OMG, we finally got a GARVEZ confession!!!

"she knows i love her" luke you're breaking my heart, he sounded so sad :(

but also --- does she know? y'all never said it... and she needs the words said to her. she's not great with subtext, luke

i love that teresa's not letting him excuse his feelings or his inaction

GOD NO DO NOT DATE EACH OTHER I CAN'T TAKE LUKE DATING SOMEONE ELSE RIGHT NOW PLS

no elias, you ARE a fan boy

"honestly" "trust me" those words don't mean anything coming from you elias

god guys you're so much smarter than him, please stop trusting him PLEASE

"this was fun, dave!" god elias just likes fucking with them

yay!! tyler character development

i simultaneously love and hate this tyler / luke bromance

"we are stronger than anyone gives us credit for" YES SO TRUE I LOVE THESE TWO WITH ALL MY HEART

"it gives me you" aw, jemily fans are gonna lose their mind aren't they, but also they're my fav bff duo

"let's fucking go" LOVE YOU EMILY SO HARD

wtf teresa; oh my god this love square is going to kill me

"north star is us, the BAU" DAMN that's powerful

[kaythefloppa]

Wild Kratts: Our Blue and Green World Trailer.

Underneath the cut for those who consider it to be spoilery, but we have a trailer for the one-hour special, Our Blue and Green World, airing April 1st, 2024.

The Kratt brothers disagree on what's better; blue oceans or green forests. Aviva takes on the role of referee to demonstrate how oceans and forests work together to make our living planet, just like Martin and Chris need to keep working together. It's up to the gang to get Martin and Chris back in sync in time to save planet Earth from Zach and Paisley's villainous plans.

This special was first mentioned back in May of 2023 during an interview with Martin Kratt heralding the show's premiere of its 7th season. The original title was Blue and Green: The Living Earth before it was chaned to our Blue and Green World. The episode will feature climates and habitats corresponding with the Kratt's "blue and green." With it, will come the introduction of new Creature Power Suits: The ones we have seen thus far in the trailer are Indri Power, Green Anaconda Power, and Blue Whale Power.

My thoughts:

HOLY SHIT THE BLUE WHALE SUIT

HOLY SHIT THE BLUE WHALE SUIT

HOLY SHIT THE BLUE WHALE SUIT

*calms down.*

Ok but I'm starting to see a weird pattern in the PowerSuits in this season. For some strange reason, they have to retrofit the wearer's mouths to match the ACTUAL anatomy of the animal the suit is based off of. They did it with the Wild Pony and the Mountain Goat Power Suit and both of them were.... ugh. Now they did it with the Blue Whale Suit and to be fair, while I hate that particular feature, it's not enough to make me hate the suit. In fact, I kinda like it more because of how silly it looks (Martin is the perfect person to wear this suit tbh). Still though, I wish they designed it like the Crocodile, Hippo, or Puffin Suit where the giant mouth is simply an attachment that doesn't move while the wearer speaks.

For those who don't know, Indris are the largest species of lemur in the world (alongside Diademed Sifakas). They are the only animals besides humans that can find and use rhythm using "wailing songs" to communicate. They're also critically endangered due to slash and burn of their habitats and poaching for their flesh as delicacies (yeah, very odd that Gourmand isn't here, but I digress). There's an estimate to be less than 10,000 left in the wild and are expected to have a population net decrease by 80% within the next 30 years... yeah, considering that they're endemic to Madagascar, not a very good sign. I didn't even know what an Indri was until reading the article, and if I'm not the only one who had no clue about these guys, it's probably definitely a good sign that they're getting some spotlight in this show.

The Indri Power Suit looks so goofy, but again, something about how silly it looks just makes me appreciate it all the more. I... weirdly expected it to be way bigger like the Puffin Suit, but again that's just me.

I am a huge fan of how they designed the snake-inspired Creature Power Suits in the show. But the Anaconda Creature Power Suit... holy shit.

LOOK AT IT /POS

Look at the markings! Look at the green! Look at the patterns, and the color schemes! Chris FINALLY got a green Creature Power Suit to activate! Our boi won! It's also a pretty clever callback to the Amazon special where Chris met the Anaconda (I really hope the Power Disc for this suit is green because god that would be so aesthetically pleasing).

Ngl, if the old flash games were still on the website, and this was one of the Power Suits I could earn for my character, I'd play it in a heart-beat.

I'm really interested to see the Zach/Paisley team up. This season already started to utilize her better by giving her another solo appearance, and now we're seeing a 1 on 1 team up with her and another villain. I was always gunning for a Paisley/Donita teamup but this works too. They're both very similar characters that can bounce off each other in similar, yet different ways (I actually headcanon that they're related - second cousins to be exact - because of those similarities). The final battle is gonna be kickass.

If you were to tell me without any context at all that this was a screencap from the upcoming WK feature film (that this episode is often mistaken for), I would believe you. Because HOLY SHIT! The linework, the lighting, the hues, AND the shading! I am becoming more and more grateful for the 2-year long hiatus - the animators needed time to cook and they fucking COOKED. For an extended TV episode, this is pretty damn impressive.

People don't talk enough about this, but fun-fact: A lot of the animators of this show had experience working for Disney. Erika Worthylake was one of the artists on this show, doing several beta designs for animals such as wild ponies and salmon sharks. In 2019, she was the lead designer for Anga, one of the new characters in Disney's The Lion Guard (which, much like Wild Kratts, was animated in Toon Boom). Ben Balistreri had collaberated with the Kratt Brothers and Luc Chamberland in 2007 to work on the show's pilot episode, creating several different designs for the animated characters. Ten years later, he became the executive co-producer of Tangled: The Series. Kendal Brouet, who animated A Creature Christmas, worked on The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder in 2022. Just to name a few. It's just a fun little thing that comes up in the back of my mind whenever the topic of WK animation comes up, and this instance of animation is so fucking good that I HAVE to talk about it, because I have MAJOR respect for these guys, and if there were ever moments in the show that remind me "Oh, this slaps," I just remember what these talented artists worked on through the years and it clicks together nicely in my brain.

According to Whrokids, this episode is gonna have a runtime of 58 minutes. I found this screenshot of someone who did far more searching and sleuthing for new episode content (they were the ones who found this trailer actually). I'm not sure how valid this particular screenshot is, but if this is the case, then this will be the longest episode of Wild Kratts in history, and will be the closest thing we get to a Wild Kratts movie (until the actual WK movie is released in theaters).

Fucking. Hyped.

[callhermyname]

you're not going | eddie munson x reader, pt. 2

summary: Eddie goes missing, so you and your friends look for him

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

wc: 3k

warnings: angst, mentions of death, violence;

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

Eddie stayed still for hours. Didn't move a muscle, just layed there, hiding underneath the tarp that covered Rick's fishing boat, quietly sobbing while tears of pure horror ran down his face. He'd just seen Chrissy being killed by some invisible force right in front of his eyes. What the hell was that? He was petrified, all he could do was run away. There was nothing much he could've done, right? 

He'd been hiding for a few hours now — he could see the streams of sunlight hitting the floor of Rick's fishing shack, so that meant it was early morning. Now that the initial shock has worn out, his mind has wandered back to what kept him stuck  in his thoughts all day: you. The last few hours before what happened to Chrissy, all he could think about was how weird you were acting the day before.

When Chrissy came looking for him, he had an idea. He'd told her to meet him at the picnic table 30 minutes before the time you were supposed to meet him there, so he could make his deal with her and do something nice for you. He wanted to thank you for helping him — he had a feeling he was going to finally be able to graduate, and it was all thanks to you.

Before leaving the trailer park to meet up with you, he picked up some wildflowers you'd always say were pretty every time you went back to his place with him. He tried his best to make the small bouquet look pretty enough so he could give it  to you, as a thank you gift for being so patient with him. But you didn't show up.

He went out looking  for you, and when he talked to you on the phone, you sounded a bit off. He spent the rest of the day thinking about you — not that it was something unusual, he was always thinking about you —, worried he'd done something wrong. He couldn't bear the thought of you being mad at him.

You always took such good care of him, always managed to make him feel safe. He could use some of your comforting energy right now. Even when he was scared to death, running from whatever it was that killed Chrissy, hiding in some drug dealer's fishing shack, the only thing that made him feel some kind of comfort was thinking of you. He's definitely not a religious man, he never was, but for the rest of the day, he prayed that you'd come and find him. He knew you were the only one who could make him feel safe.

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

The morning after the game, you woke up with mascara all over your face. You should know better than to sleep with makeup still on, but you couldn't care less about that. You could feel your heartbeat pounding in your head, sitting up on your bed as you remembered all that went down the night before. As you roll out of bed, you notice you're still wearing last night's clothes and figure you should probably take a shower. Glancing over at the small alarm clock on your bedside table, you check the time. It's 10am, which means you have about an hour until your shift starts at the Family Video, so you hurry out the door to the bathroom.

As the hot water hits your skin, you try to fight the thoughts flooding your mind. What the hell was Eddie doing with Chrissy? What could possibly be a good explanation for that? You don't want to think about it, you try not to. You wash your face and your hair, feeling dirty, feeling like you deserve this. You shouldn't let your guard down like that, you knew better than that. 

You got out of the bathroom and heard the low volume of the TV coming from the living room. Your aunt and Dustin were probably already up. You hurry to get dressed up and get some breakfast, drying your hair and putting on your work uniform. When you're grabbing your backpack to head out, you hear a loud bang at your door.

"Yeah?" you call back.

"Hey, we need to talk." Dustin says at the other side of the door.

"Dustin, I'm sorry" you say as you open the door, ready to walk past him. "I can't talk right now, I'm gonna be late for work and you know I-"

You stop as you open the door and see Max standing beside Dustin. 

"Max? What are you doing here?"

"Trust me, being late should be the least of your worries right now." Dustin says, a serious look on his face.

You follow him and Max down the hallway, starting to get really worried. When you get to the living room, you see your aunt sitting at the couch looking at the TV with a horrified look on her face. When you turn around to look at the TV, you see the headline at the bottom of the screen as the reporter delivers the local news: "Hawkins High student found dead at the trailer park". Behind the reporter, you see a lot of police cars and a lot of cops, but what makes you freeze is the trailer behind them. Eddie's trailer. 

"Wait is that-" you start speaking but Dustin grabs you by your hand before you could finish, heading out the door.

"Keep it down, I don't want mom to get worried. Max will explain it to you on the way."

"On the way?" you ask as Dustin and Max hurry you out the door.

"Dusty, where are you going?" you hear aunt Claudia's voice coming from the living room.

"To see a friend." Dustin says as he shoves you out the door.

"You heard the news, it's not safe out there-" she gets cut off by Dustin, who's now running out the door and closing it behind him as he reassures her.

"Good point,  we'll be extra careful, thanks mom I love you bye!" he slams the door, Max already hopping on her bike as you and Dustin follow her, riding your bikes as well.

"Can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?" you burst out.

"They found a body at Eddie's trailer this morning." Dustin tells you, trying not to alarm you — as if it was possible to not be alarmed by this.

"They- WHAT?"

"It's Chrissy Cunningham." you hear Max talk for the first time this morning. "I saw her come home with Eddie last night. A few minutes after that, I heard a scream coming from his trailer, and the lights began to flicker. When I headed to the window to see what was going on, I saw him running inside his van and leaving. This morning I caught a glimpse inside of Eddie's trailer before the cops could isolate it. Couldn't see her face, but it was definitely her cheerleading uniform."

You freeze, stopping your bike. Half an hour ago, the fact that Eddie took Chrissy back to his place would be enough for you to throw up, but now that's not even a problem for you. Chrissy was dead? At Eddie's place? What the actual fuck?

"Hey, come on" Dustin stopped his bike, turning back to look at you. "I know it's a lot  to process right now, but we've got to get to find Eddie. You know just as much as I do that Eddie would never hurt anyone. Something else killed Chrissy, and we know damn well what could have done it. But we need to know for sure, we need to know what happened,  and for that we need to find him. Okay?"

"Okay." you sniffled, already panicking at the thought of what could've happened, worrying about Eddie.

You follow Max and Dustin to the Family Video store — looks like you wouldn't be late for work after all. As the three of you bursted into the store, Robin and Steve turned around to look at you.

"Did you see this?" Steve asked, pointing at the TV where the news was still on, the reporter talking about the body found at the trailer park. "Someone was murdered!"

"How many phones do you have?" Dustin asked.

"Three, if you count the one at Keith's office." you told him.

"That'll do." Max said, walking around the counter.

"What the hell is going on?" Robin asked, confused.

"You wanna fill them in?" Dustin nudged you, as he threw his backpack over the counter, knocking off Steve's breakfast.

You fill your friends in and they look at you with the same look they had on the night before, but now with a little hint of panic. As the day went by and you called everyone you could think of that could know anything about where Eddie was, you couldn't help but to feel guilty. You spent the whole night worrying about your hurt feelings when Eddie was witnessing something terrible you could have warned him about. You hoped to god he wasn't hurt. You couldn't live with yourself if something happened to him. You needed to find him. 

"Hey guys" Max's voice snaps you out of your thoughts. "I think I might have something"

—

Steve pulls up in front of Rick's house and the five of you storm out of the car, headed to the front door. Dustin rings the doorbell and knocks at the door.

"Eddie! It's Dustin"

Robin holds her flashlight up the window, trying to see inside the house. You pace around nervously, looking for anything that might lead you to Eddie. 

"Dude, stop yelling" Steve says, clearly annoyed at Dustin "He's not here."

"Guys?" Max calls up to you.

You all follow her to a shed at the back of Rick's house. You push the door open, and get inside. There's fishing gear all over the place, a boat covered at the center of the shed. Steve grabs an oar that was resting at the wall and pokes at the tarp.

"What are you doing?" Dustin asks, confused.

"He might be in here" Steve says, as he continues to poke at the covered boat.

You look around the shed, a table at the corner catching your eye. You walk over to the table and see a half empty bottle of beer, some food wrappers and a half eaten bag of chips. 

"Hey, look over here" you called. "Someone was here."

"Maybe he heard us" Robin says, behind you "Got spooked and ran"

"Don't worry" Dustin said, sarcasm dripping from his voice "Steve will get 'em with his oar!"

"I know you think you're being funny, Henderson" Steve bit back, annoyed "but considering that everyone in this room has nearly died a hundred times, personally, I don't find it funny in the slightest-"

He's interrupted by someone jumping from underneath the tarp, inside the boat, throwing him against the wall — it was Eddie. He held a broken glass bottle against Steve's neck, his eyes wide and shiny, full of tears and fear.

"Whoa whoa Eddie! Calm down! It's me! It's Dustin!"

Eddie looked back at you and Dustin, who was trying his best to calm his friend down. He looked confused, terrified, you've never seen him like this before. You knew something terrible had happened.

"This is Steve, he's not gonna hurt you." Dustin assured "Right Steve?"

"Yeah, right!"

"Steve, why don't you drop the oar?"

Steve drops the oar and Eddie seems to be getting more and more nervous. 

"What are you doing here?" he asks, his voice trembling.

"We're looking for you," Dustin explains. "These are my friends, you know Robin, from the band. This is Max, the one who never wants to play D&D."

Robin and Max nervously wave at him.

"And you know my cousin too, right? I know you two knew each other way before I even met you." 

"Hey, Eddie, it's me, it's okay" you try to calm him down. "We're here to help, we're on your side."

Eddie looks at you and Dustin for a second before letting Steve go, taking a few steps back and lying against the wall, slowly dropping to sit on the floor. Dustin approaches him, trying to take the broken glass bottle away from his hands, causing Eddie to flinch at his touch like a scared puppy.

"Okay, it's okay" Dustin holds his hands up, trying to keep him calm "We just wanna talk"

"Eddie" you slowly walk towards him, kneeling down in front of him, holding your hand out to touch his. He looks at you, allowing you to touch his hand, easing his grip on the broken glass. He lets out a shaky breath and grips your hand tightly, feeling a little less scared. "We wanna know what happened."

"You won't believe me" he sniffled, tears now rolling down his cheeks.

"Try us." Max said behind you, causing him to look up at her, and then look back at you. You gave him a reassuring look, trying to make him feel safe enough to tell you what he'd seen. So he told you.

"Chrissy, she came after me, she wanted to buy some weed. At first I thought it was weird, you know? It was Chrissy Cunningham, for fuck's sake. But she seemed off, like something was bothering her, she told me she felt like she was losing her mind. Asked for something stronger. I told her I might have something, but that I don't carry it around with me in my lunchbox. She asked me where she could get it, and I- I told her I kept it back in my place. Told her she could swing by after the game to get some. When we were leaving Hellfire, she came up to me, asked me if she could go with me back to my place so I could give her the stuff. We went home, and I was looking for the stuff and she-" he took a deep breath, dropping his face in his hands "I left her alone for one minute… When I came back she was just standing there, like she was in a trance or something. Her body just… lifted up into the air and, uh… and her bones… uh, she…" he squeezed his eyes shut, also squeezing your hand, which he was still holding. You squeezed his hand back. "Her bones started to snap. A-and, her eyes man- it was like there was something inside her head, pulling and I- I didn't know what to do so I… I ran away" he lifted his gaze, looking right into your eyes, his eyes filled with pain and guilt. "I left her there."

Your eyes were now also filled with tears as you listened to him, seeing how guilty he felt. It made your heart drop, not only because you couldn't bear to see him like this, but also because you knew — once you get into this, there's no getting out. So, you let Dustin give him the talk.

After you'd told him everything, you figured it was probably time to go. Everyone was ready to walk out the door, but you just couldn't leave him there. He was scared and alone, hiding on a boat, you just couldn't walk away knowing he'd be there in such bad conditions. 

"Guys, we can't just leave him here" you said "we can't leave him alone in here, he's not okay!"

"Look, we know you want him to be okay, but there's not much we can do," Steve reasoned with you. "He's a wanted man, we can't go out walking around with him"

"I know that, but please, just- I'll stay here with him. Dustin, you can tell your mom I'm at Nancy's and won't be coming home until tomorrow morning. I figure Rick probably has some blankets or something like that, I could at least make sure he's comfortable and not alone."

"You sure about this?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'll be fine, you can go. I've got my walkie-talkie with me, if we need anything I'll let you guys know."

"Okay then" Steve gives in. "But if you need anything at all-"

"I'll let you know. Thanks guys."

They walked out of the shed, headed back to Steve's car, and you followed right behind them. 

"I'll be right back" you told Eddie before leaving him.

You found an open window and jumped inside the house, looking for some blankets and pillows. The place was a mess, it looked like no one had been there for quite some time. You found a blanket that was big enough for you and Eddie to share, grabbing two pillows from the bed. When you got back to the shed, Eddie was still exactly where he was when you left him. He looked so terrified. 

"Hey" you called "got us something to sleep on."

"You're staying here with me?" he seemed confused.

"Of course. I couldn't just leave you here by yourself. I know this stuff is not easy to take in. Trust me, I  can't remember the last time I went to bed not being sure I'd probably have at least one PTSD nightmare."

Eddie huffed, a sad chuckle leaving his lips.

"Look, I know this is nuts. But I can assure you, we'll get through this. I've done it before, I'm sure we can do it again." you reached for his hand.

He let you hold his hand, rubbing his thumb against your knuckles, looking at you with those big, sad doe eyes.

"Thank you for not leaving me." he muttered.

"It's not a big deal, really. Just wanted to make sure you were okay."

The two of you made your improvised bed on the boat, lying down side by side. You felt butterflies dancing around your stomach as you laid down next to him, even though the situation wasn't ideal. You were almost half asleep when he called your name.

"Yeah, Eddie?"

"Can you, um- can you hold me? I know it's childish but I just can't sleep like this. I'm terrified, but I know you've been through this before and I- you make me feel safe."

Your heart melted a little at his words.

"Of course, Eddie. I'm here for you." you said softly, moving closer to him, wrapping your arms around his waist as he wrapped his arms around your shoulders. You could hear his heartbeat and smell him — faded musky cologne and cigarettes. You took a deep breath, taking in his scent. "You make me feel safe too."

[bibbityboppitybillyharvgrove]

Rambles - E.Munson

Summary - Eddie hosts a holiday party, Wayne not expecting 15 people to show up at their trailer. Although the trailer was filled with his friends, he spent most of the party outside with one of his closest friends, Y/N, sharing a joint. 

Word Count - 737

Warnings - Female reader, Use of drugs(weed), use of Y/N

Author's Note - Welcome to day five! I'm still keeping up so hopefully I will be able to keep up for the next 20 days! We shall see!

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25 days of fics masterlist

Feedback is welcomed and encouraged!

Enjoy!

not my gif

not my gif

A year ago, Eddie would have thought he was crazy for spending the holidays with Steve Harrington and Y/N Y/L/N, but this year, it seemed perfectly normal. Wayne had allowed him to host a party in their trailer for his friends. The deal was just Eddie’s friends and nobody else. However, Wayne had vastly underestimated how many friends Eddie actually had. The trailer was packed with people, everyone from Hellfire, including Lucas, was there, Max, El, Nancy, Jonathan, Argyle, Robin, Steve, Y/N and Will. There were 16 people packed into the trailer like a bunch of sardines, when Wayne showed up, he was quite surprised with the amount of friends his nephew had accumulated over the last year.

Most of the older teens had taken over Eddie’s bedroom, the younger ones taking over the living room. Y/N and Eddie were sitting outside on the steps leading up to the front door, sharing a joint as they sat in a comfortable silence. She was the one to break it after a short while. “Wayne seemed surprised with how many people showed up,” She pointed out.

“He thought I was only inviting the Hellfire guys but I don’t think he realized how many people I’m actually friends with,” He replied, “It’s weird to think about really. I mean I had maybe 3 friends last year but this year there are 15 people at my trailer because they chose to be friends with me.”

“Who wouldn’t want to be friends with you? You are one of the best people I’ve had the joy of meeting. You’re like one of my favorite people ever, everyday with you is something new. Nothing is ever the same and I love that because it makes hanging out with you so much more fun because I never know what you’re gonna do,” She rambled, Eddie’s cheeks turning a bright pink color.

“You ramble when you smoke,” Eddie pointed out, “It’s cute.”

“Shut up.” She bumped her shoulder into his with a smile on her face. The two of them shared a laugh before talking about random things that popped into their minds. They sat out there for a few hours just talking and laughing, only going inside as the younger kids started to leave. The number of people in the house dwindling, Steve, Nancy and Robin all left, it was just Gareth, Jeff and Doug hanging out on the couch with Wayne. 

Y/N was getting giggly because she had smoked a little too much. “She’s gonna crash here tonight, if that’s okay Uncle Wayne,” Eddie mentioned. Wayne gave him a noncommittal grunt. He took her hand and led her to his room, Gareth whistling at the pair and Jeff clapping which resulted in a middle finger from both of them. 

This hadn’t been the first time she had stayed over with Eddie, she had stayed over so often that Wayne was just used to her staying. It’s not like Eddie brought girls over, the only girl that was ever at the trailer consistently was Y/N. As they got to his room, he handed her a pair of his boxers and a long sleeve shirt to wear for the night, taking out a pair of long flannel pajama pants. The two of them getting changed with their backs turned to each other before climbing into his bed and getting under the covers. 

They laid beside each other, on their sides just looking at one another. She started to giggle again which made Eddie start chuckling. “What is so funny?” He asked between his laughter. 

“I don’t know,” She giggled with glee. The two of them laughed for nearly 30 minutes before being able to calm down enough to talk. “You’re so handsome,” She said suddenly.

“You’re so beautiful,” He responded with a smile. She pressed her forehead to his as they looked into each other’s eyes. “Your eyes are so red.” 

“So are yours.” 

Both of them fell asleep not long after, their tiredness sneaking up on them. Wayne had checked on them before he had gone to bed, finding the two of them face to face and holding onto one another tightly. He had gently shut the door with a smile on his face, happy for his nephew even though the pair weren’t together just yet. He knew it wouldn’t be very long until the two got together.

[bloodgulchblog]

Alright fuck it, s2e1 liveblog.

I'm watching this with people later so the goal is just to get through it enough to sate my impatience, so I'm back to ye olde standby of watching it at high speed with subtitles on. (...Only I guess I'm gonna be slowed down by making comments, huh?)

Spoilers and uncharitable opinions and unfunny jokes will follow.

Not going to talk about stuff in the episode opener until it comes back bc there's not enough to say anything about.

5 minutes in and we're already doing whatever this is huh?

6:30 - Alright okay, fuck, Vannak took his spine pellet out and gets to have one (1) personality trait and it's animal facts and I kind of don't hate that. TV Chief is very unlikable but characters like Kai and Vannak playing the angle of having very youthful quirks bc having emotions is new is cute.

~10:00 - I have nothing to say yet about spooky shapes in the fog but I think this shot of Chief back to back with a marine is fun. Also I wonder if Corporal Perez (this character) will still matter 5 minutes from now.

Also looks like the foggy sword fight from the trailer is here, too difficult to get any kind of cap that doesn't suck out loud. I'm thinking about how I heard someone making a big deal about how Season 2 feels "less like a video game" (whatever that means), meanwhile "fog full of stealth sword guys trying to kill you" feels very very video game level.

~13:00 - Man, and I really thought that sword fighting stuff in the trailer was a solid indicator they were dragging Thel 'Vadamee into this mess. Hey guys look, Arbiter's in this season. 4,000 of him!

Additionally, if a bunch of people decide this is a ship the fandom owes me twenty dollars.

~15:00 - Congrats to Perez for surviving five minutes. Also, we're still doing whatever this is:

16 minutes in we finally get the show's opener. (It has the Halo in it now, I don't think it was there before but let's be perfectly honest it's not like I cared a lot.)

~17:30 or something, reminded once again that a lot of people are attracted to this actor

Also guess what, Keyes is an Admiral now I guess????

Do we think he still gets to get eaten by the Flood eventually? Do we think the Flood will even be in here? Place ur bets at the counter.

Anyway, they're basically diving into a big timeskip here where a bunch of planets have been glassed since last season (including Madrigal). This whole AU is weird to the bone in terms of how its timeline is shaking out.

Anyway anyway, aww here we go

"I'm not here to replace Dr Halsey, I'm here because I believe in you!"

Ohhhhh he knows all the Spartans' names already, ohhhhh they want the audience to like this mf so bad, they want it to be such a tweest that he sucks shit-

Moving right along, at 22:30 we have the Rubble having a crowd decide whether various refugees should be spaced or taken into indentured servitude, because of course we do.

tl;dw the nebbish redhead knows where Catherine Halsey is and there's a big bounty out for her and he's trying to use it as a bargaining chip to not die and everyone thinks that's very funny, also Soren is here. I guarantee he decides to go after her, but first we have to have a scene cut back to whatever TV Chief is doing.

Man I'm really noticing they haven't shown the weird ridged rubber tech suit yet this episode, I wonder if they decided to replace it.

Anyway here's Perez, I still think they want people to start shipping:

Then Jimmy Rings has a meeting with tv show's new guy they want you to like so bad.

Also he says "The O-N-I" like a complete tool. (This is how you know he sucks.)

And while I'm talking trash about him: Ackerson stop flirting, didn't they tell you nobody's allowed to be gay in Halo? Get your shit together.

Thus ends the dream of the funniest possible universe where we just had Cortana: The Show forever. Someone get the penny whistle. My heart will not go on. 😢

Fuck, I was doing timestamps, right? I'm like half an hour in.

THEY STILL WANT YOU TO THINK ACKERSON CARES, BY THE WAY, IN CASE YOU DID NOT NOTICE

They're laying this on so thick so fast there's no way he's not a shitweasel in this AU, but also that would be the funniest possible thing to me.

(If anyone ships this, the fandom owes me forty dollars and therapy.)

ANYWAY... Action figure time. (Remember to boycott Jazwares!)

Soren's kid is playing with a MASTER CHIEF ACTION FIGURE and being weird, meanwhile Soren's wife is calling him out on shit and reminding him that refugees being turned away is, you know, bad.

Congrats to Soren's wife for continuing to be the most unexpectedly sympathetic supporting character I guess, but they made Soren so unlikable off the 1st season it's hard for me to feel investment of any kind here.

35 minutes in: the Spartans are watching a space TV broadcast. They have Ca-ADMIRAL. Admiral. Admiral Keyes presenting the Colonial Cross to Corporal Perez for blah blah blah you saw the start of the episode. The shape of the ceremony and the hovering tv drone thing are obvious H2 references.

(Does this mean Perez is our Sergeant Johnson now? Vote with your phones.)

Get your face out of here, Ackerson, I know what you are.

Oh god there's another team of Spartans (Cobalt) and having adult Spartan-IIs call each other names like children is fucking weird.

Aaaaand tumblr is capping the number of images I can post here and I'm still only about half way done. Fuck. I am not doing this this way for Episode 2 I can promise you that.

(Also hey look the tech suit is back, I guess Silver Team doesn't use it so much anymore to show you they're more human now or whatever?)

[datadegroove]

my rankings of the star trek uniforms (warning super nerdy):

TOS uniforms: silly looking but iconic. a simple shirt and pants. the women's uniforms are insulting cause it was the 60s

uniforms in the TOS motion picture: like almost everything else about the motion picture, everybody shits on them but they're pretty ingenious at taking you into a world where space travel is so perfected and lax that military personnel wear these comfortable looking ass uniforms and can still do their jobs effectively. this is part of what makes star trek a utopian society. I believe this effect is what the original uniforms were going for and in the first movie it's like perfect. i want to wear those uniforms as my pajamas. they're also the perfect bridge between TOS and TNG

Other TOS movie uniforms - very cool and stylish but they look uncomfortable as hell. probably what one would wear as like a dress uniform. plus you get sick of seeing them over every single movie from wrath of khan on. plus the flap that goes over the neck is just weird

TNG, early ds9 and voyager uniforms: in season 1 and 2 they look awkward. after the redesign you'll think in your head that they look stupid but you'll secretly come to love them

late DS9 and TNG movie uniforms: the worst things ever committed to the screen. ugly gray disgusting with the color on the neck poking out. plus it looks like the tops are made of fucking corduroy or something. they look very uncomfortable. it's the worst connective tissue to try to plant between the wrath of khan and TNG era for paramount to attempt to make a bigger profit

Abrams movies and strange new worlds uniforms: like everything else abrams and co. do, there's an attempt at a modern cool style that exists solely to be modern and cool, having no identity or forethought of its own. they take the original uniforms, bump up the saturation, and add this disgusting like sweat wicking pattern things on there for no reason. they look horrifically uncomfortable and it gets worse as the trilogy goes on, becoming more and more rigid until the characters look like action figures. they look like amazon delivery uniforms. in the beyond movie chris pine gets a jacket that again is overly cool for cool's sake, making him look like havoc from the x-men for no particular reason when it's never been required for any other adventure so that they'd have something to put in the trailer.

discovery: all denomination of rank is out the window. again there seems to be more inspiration from like corporate uniforms than anything military or even creative. the sparkly bits look like literal glitter like a little kid's arts and crafts kit. when people from the enterprise come on board they have different versions from the abrams movies that are so thick they look like biker jackets. what's the point? everything in terms of costume design on this show looks like it just got ironed and put onto the racks at a spirit halloween. apparently they changed them to be more star trecky later on to appeal to older fans - you know the people who actually watch star trek - but everyone already stopped watching their trash show so no one cares

star trek picard: they're only in there very briefly because patrick stewart is such a little bitch he's been going on about how he doesn't like wearing a star trek uniform for literally 30 years now. but they're primarily black because black is more coolerer and they have lots of pointless jagged lines because that's more coolerer. their entire idea was "take the tng uniforms and change very little about them so that we can do less work". and then they just use the tng uniforms anyway they jump all over the place in terms of what starfleet is supposed to look like so what's even the point? but it's probably because patrick stewart - the guy who made 750,000 dollars an episode for one of the worst series of all time - didn't want to wear the tng-looking ones so continuity is out the window

lower decks: similar thinking to picard, "just take what's popular and make it look slightly different so that people will be like 'that's what i know' and watch it". so just add a bunch of pointless lines on it and add a neck flap that opens to the side - again, going back to wrath of khan. could it be that they're just repeating elements from the two biggest hits of the franchise over and over and over again even though it's been FORTY YEARS since star trek 2 came out?? this couldn't possibly be true. what's the point of having an animated show if your art department will even be lazy there? have you seen some of the uniforms that are in spacefaring anime? you have literal scouters in your show so i know you've seen anime before. why be so lazy about it? USE YOUR IMAGINATION STAR TREK!!!!!

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

There is such a weird vibe around certain sections of Ewan fans and Tom fans (and to an extent Matt as well, although they have obviously had longer to grow as a fandom) that you just don’t see with fans of Emma, Olivia, or even Fabien. Not that those fans don’t have their sense of weirdness, but specifically it seems like I’ve seen way more possessiveness and (I hate to use this word) infantilization of these actors. They’re treated like little kids who are constantly at the whims of those around them, and not men approaching 30. Being on the show is some great punishment for them, instead of just… a job? Doing cons or the promotional tour was difficult not just because that’s a lot of travel and a draining schedule, but because they “have to act like something they’re not.” But why do YOU alone know who they “really” are? I’m sure they do act a little different at work, cuz who doesn’t, but that’s the only version of them we get to know, because WE are the fans!

I remember after the con in Brazil where they dropped the HOTD S2 trailer, there were several accounts going on about how that wasn’t the “real” version of Ewan, because he isn’t “actually” outgoing or comfortable in the spotlight, and we shouldn’t assume he likes that stuff. I mean, fair enough, but he seemed to have a fun time, and I’d rather think of him enjoying a day of work than hating it 😭 Idk. It’s just an odd combo of possessiveness and a parasocial relationship, but luckily it has died down. I think you’re right that many people realized the Aemond they had in their head was not where the show was going (nor was it where the show had ever suggested it would go, but that’s a different topic.)

I miss most of the drama, thankfully, as I don't ever venture onto Twitter, and I hear that that's where most of this stuff plays out.

I see bits and pieces on Tumblr, but I am very quick to block and filter, and most of the bizarre things that make their way into my asks I just don't respond to.

Fandom is so much nicer when you just focus on the things that make you happy. At the end of the day, Ewan is literally just some guy. He doesn't need anyone to white knight for him. He doesn't care about us, he doesn't know who we are, so there is no need to form an emotional attachment beyond admiration/inspiration for creative purposes.

As you say, the worst of it seems to be behind us, so let's hope it stays that way!

[loodgack]

I’m starting a huge thread (stuff will be added later)

these will be a list of headcanons that the fandom(it will be marked as “universal”)/me added over the years, and I will mention their canon sources/origins. so, this list will be expanded later!

(Universal)Neighbor being in his 30’s - this originates from the files. Neighbor’s swear lines,which went unused later, are titled as “male thirties swear”

Neighbor swears a lot - see scrapped swears in the files

Smith has deep voice - if it is him on the phone in HG, then yes

(universal) Neighbor has a sex dungeon in the basement in the alphas. - this one was a joke by youtubers, and probably the blow-up doll helped too

(Universal)Neighbor is into men(too) - the Jesus painting in the early alphas, which people knew little to nothing about

(Universal)Neighbor is satanist - Faust

(Universal)Neighbor stole Player's house in alpha 2 - since not much was known about the old storylines, some people assumed, that everything happens real-time, and there was an accidental house switch, and Player moved to Neighbor's house, who now takes it back

Neighbor is terrible at newer technology- this one comes from multiple sides. Most famous one is that Neighbor doesn’t get the film from Quentin’s camera in hn2, while all he should do, is open the camera and the evidences would destroy themselves. Despite being inventor/engineer, he seems to be attached to older stuff.

Smith is rich - this one comes from the fact, that JUST Smith’s lenses cost 4k USD.

Smith loves order and cleaniness - I headcanon Smith having an old fountain pen, an ancient typewriter and a 100 year old gramophone. He is a very arranged and precise man in canon, his coat is perfect, probably expensive, his hat and other clothes are perfect as well (aside from the mud) he makes clear plans and he’s very bad at improvising as the HG extended cutscene shows. He brings bad decisions and overestimates his powers

(universal) Neighbor is a genius - I mean, he is

(universal) Neighbor is an alpha male - I mean, he is, especially in the old lore, he is always in control, or is stronger than anyone else.

Neighbor ended his own life - this one comes from the alpha 4 opening, him crying on the windmill. The scene then cuts down to the car and a raven. He is also shown being stuck with his fears, possibly dying before the time came.

Neighbor is two-handed - he can hold things with two hands, and especially in the cartoon, once he holds the hook in his left hand, once he writes with the right one.

Smith is two-handed - this one is purely a headcanon only, but since he is an educated ex-policeman/detective, probably he is trained for a lot of things

smith is an ex-policeman - the extended ending shows how Smith grabs Quentin, when he wants to stuff him to his car. There’s also an alternate scene modeled in the files, same thing, but Smith’s car is a police car. He also appears to be wearing the same shoes as the policemen Leslie and Nielsen.

Smith is Quentin and Beatrix’s boss - Smith seems to be having their CV’s and he seemingly knows a lot about the park and them.

Mayak controls the weather - or at least, lures storms. I mean, it does. There are weird weather anomalies and it’s a weather station

mayak eye follows the player and the building is kind alive. - this is entirely a thought by me, and imo, a missed opportunity.

(Universal) Neighbor is a big boy - 🤷‍♀️ I mean…he is 😏

Smith is into calm, classical music - shot 1-3 which show his arrival are gentle, calm music

Smith quit from the police - he seems to be hiding from them in the trailers and he is not showing himself when they are nearby, only from a distance (see my trailers video, where I show his locations)

Smith is a perfect photographer - he takes photos in SN from the bush

Quentin wasn’t capable of the job, but got n anyway - I mean, he’s scared, not scary, not a threat, he maybe has lung problems even, he gets stressed easily

Quentin has lung problems - this one comes from the books, in the prologue of book 4, Ike’s lungs are burning, and in HGP/HG, Quentin does have inhaler

Quentin loves tea - I mean, he did (HG) you can buy tea and he even consumes the thermos too lol

Quentin is sub - he doesn’t fight back in the HG ending cutscene, despite he is probably stronger than Smith

(universal) Neighbor knows that he’s in a game - see 1003063

Smith accepts Quentin’s request when the man wants to dress into matching clothes - in the secret ending of HN2 alpha 1, we see fake Neighbor, who has Smith’s head mesh, he most likely dressed up as Neighbor to trick Quentin. Why? Mystery. But it’s the clothes that count now.

Neighbor never lets his moustache to be touched - his moustache is literally always perfect, he probably cares about it a lot

Nicky is into choking - 🤭 I mean…he is

Neighbor can eat with chopsticks - he orders so much chinese…

Smith hates everyone - I mean, everyone except Quentin hurt him, so he has all the right to do so.

new Quentin was Norman Darby originally vvv

Ike was Quentin - explanation

Smith is a dominant - Smith wants to dominate in the extended HG ending, kinda speaks for itself.

Quentin loves stargazing - in the 4th book, Ike randomly starts talking about meteors etc, saying he likes stargazing.

Beatrix hates crows - in her opening cutscene, she shoosh a crow away, so…she probably dislikes them?

Beatrix grew up early and she has to handle everything on her own - this comes from the fact that she has her own car she has to take care of, and she is very down to earth

Beatrix is lucky, Quentin is unlucky - this comes from the HG cutscenes, where Beatrix smoothly avoids stepping into a nail, and getting hurt, except when Guest kidnaps her, while Quentin is shown to be very ill-fated

Smith and journalist Quentin knew each other - in hn2 alpha 1.5 which is in the mind of Quentin, Smith is closed to the attic. He also does see him during the 16 hour stream, they are in each other’s sight while watching Peterson

Peterson knows he is being watched and he is perfectly aware of most things - I mean, he is

Quentin is afraid of storms - he is, in HG. he is pretty much scared of everything, especially when a lightning strikes into the mayak and such.

[pimento-playing-hopscotch]

This Wizard of Oz! And the sequels as well if you've seen them lol (also how do you feel about the new Wicked movie coming out?)

Hi! 😊 Thank you for the ask 🥰

So many feelings about the og Wizard of Oz! (Shameless self-plug; in the first chapter of my Find Carlos’s favorite movie fic, TK shows him the wizard of Oz- on Ao3 now)

First- I think it might be the most gorgeous movie ever made- like where she opens the door and everything is in color- like I am that screencap of “don’t disturb me; I’m experiencing childlike wonder” when I see that. I watched it last a few years ago and it is a good movie; like it’s still hard to watch where the flying monkeys rip the scarecrow apart and Toto is the cutest dog and for this to the first movie that used color- like were those people in the 30’s just blown away?!

Also I blame Glinda more for not telling Dorothy she could have left any time by her damn self more than Dorothy for taking the slippers cause like she chose where the damn house landers

But this movie it does bleed into for me the stories of how terribly they treated basically everyone when making a movie and that takes away some of the magic for me-

But it is an absolutely stunning film and Judy Garland was absolute perfection in this movie.

I only watched the Oz great and powerful once while babysitting years ago- Mila Kunis was in it as well- I think? James Franco was Oz and was weird- tell me if this one was memorable and I’m remembering it badly

(I had tk put Return to Oz at the bottom because of the screenshot I included lol)

The new Wicked intrigues me greatly!& I only learned after watching the trailer and looking it up that they’re splitting it into two movies- but the trailer looks outstanding and the casting for both Elphaba and Galinda is outstanding- and Jeff Goldblum as the wizard?? Like this sounds too good to be true lol)

Return to Oz- literally one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever damn seen- like okay I know this too was based on one of the books but holy hell! Like think we all know this that they genuinely couldn’t rate movies in the 80’s but this is-

(Like if you’ve never seen this Dorothy’s aunt and uncle are so tired of hearing her talk about Oz they take her to get electroshock therapy- and it just gets weirder from there- like in lieu of the flying monkeys they’re these things called Wheelers which are maniacal clowns who ride unicycles-

Actually IMDb can explain this better than I can (a great thing when you’re bored- look up the parents guide section for any given movie on IMDb to see what they think parents should be warned about; they’re occasionally hysterical- anyway this is all about Return to Oz:

[judgybitch]

Where The Stars Fell Season 1

Podcast: Where The Stars Fell

Episode Count for season 1: 8, 11 if you count the 2 minisodes and the bloopers.

Last Update: The last update to the core of season 1 was April 27th, 2021. It has been updated since then and I thought about reviewing this show as a whole, but decided to go season at a time.

Synopsis taken from apple podcasts and official website: Dr. Edison Tucker is having a very weird life. Not being able to die tends to color things that way. Lucille Kensington is the literary scene’s biggest enigma. That’s just the way she likes it. When the pair find themselves sharing a cabin in the strangest town in America— Jerusalem, OR— they’re prepared for a housemate situation from hell. What they’re not expecting is tidings of a stranger sort: Ed is the antichrist, Lucy her guardian angel, and if they can’t find a way to work together soon, the rapture is set to take first the town, then the world… but neither of them know that yet. Welcome to Jerusalem, OR, where what doesn’t kill you is just another mystery.

I don't know if this description has remained the same throughout the show, since I didn't start with the show until after season 3.

Rating: 3/5 stars

TL;DR: This season is extremely easy to get through in terms of length. 8 main episodes where most are only like ~30 minutes long means you can get through the first season in less than a day. This season was nominated and won awards, so there are tons of people that like it and respect it. The big question of whether you'll like this show is actually whether you can handle two main characters that seem to bicker more than they breathe. This season also, in my opinion, struggles to stand on its own, and if season 2 hadn't already existed when I first listened to season 1, I don't think I would have waited months to listen to more.

To start this, I want to say that I'm autistic and really struggled with whether to review this as a a whole of what's available and season by season. I decided to review it season by season, because I do fundamentally believe that while subsequent seasons will obviously build on what prior seasons did (unless it's an anthology) that they should have a cohesive idea and strength of their own to them.

Where the Stars Fell has some really spectacular strengths. The soundscaping is pretty great, and I really love how the transcripts are done, I currently don't know how quickly they're posted after the podcast is posted since I didn't start until well after season 1 was posted. Mostly because their trailer didn't particularly grab my interest at first. Sorry.

The concept itself is compelling. The anti-christ and her guardian angel going through a lot of shenanigans together is one I don't usually see, especially not in podcasts. And I've listened to quite a few podcasts at this point. Mixing science fiction and religion isn't new, although it can frequently go just god awful bad (looking at you Supernatural) and is usually pretty straight, if not downright homophobic (once again, looking at you, Supernatural). Where the Stars Fell definitely avoids some of the traps that make it bad, and also adds in that it's queer. Although that comes up less in season 1 than in subsequent seasons.

The actual events of the show though are...mild? In season 1 you get: a meet ugly, a lot of frogs, weird animal attacks on pigs, getting stabbed by a dewclaw, speaking to kids at a school, weird cocoon attack (while Lucy masters the art of gaslight, gatekeep, girlbossing), accidental experimental drug use, and a lion suddenly appears.

In terms of the main episodes, you don't actually get much of the science fiction part. Most of the episodes, in my opinion, feel more dedicated to the squabbles of Edison and Lucille to the point where the guardian angel/anti-christ thing only gets mentioned 1 time and then is mostly dropped for the rest of the season. Like to the point where I'd straight up forgotten about it by the time Lucille reveals she has wings. Edison has mentioned her 'can't die' thing and 'wow, suddenly I can be injured' thing periodically, but not why. So the season just ended up feeling more like 'huh, that's weird, anyway here's two bickering characters' than a cohesive season with an overarching plot.

And so since the season is so focused on the two main characters, let's talk about them. Both characters have very good voice acting. I'm terrible at recognizing when someone is using a good British accent so I have no idea of Lucy's accent is actually good, so I can't rate that aspect of it, but I will say that both Newt and Madelyn both give great performances.

The characters themselves are interesting. I personally don't like the phrasing 'I have autism' but I'm aware others do, so that's just a pet peeve of mine. Both characters are disabled. It's not super gone into in the season, but Lucille has autism (going with her wording even though I hate it) and is physically disabled. She's also got angel wings and is a Very British Author™. She uses a cane periodically and while hasn't named anything in particular as the cause in season 1, does mention fatigue and pain as playing parts in her overall health. Edison has ADHD and is dyslexic to the point where she just can't read. She considers herself a hick and has 4 pHDs: Biology, chemistry, mechanical engineering, and religious studies. She also has an 'IQ of 197'.

They're more similar than they are different, honestly. And this leads to them butting heads nearly constantly. About everything. Loudly. In public. Even dragons, although that is one time where I actually sided with Ed even though I usually side against her. Stuff outside the seasons reveal that they're a Enemies to Lover type deal but with supernatural lesbians, and there are probably going to be people who are like, "But come on, that's a queer staple! That sounds great!" And for a lot of people, it was and it will be for more people. I happen to be a queer woman who hates most enemies to lovers stuff. I don't particularly find condescending arguments sexy or something that makes me want to ship two characters together.

By the end of season 1 though they're barely even friends. And honestly Ed saying she thought they were becoming friends just kind of confused me upon first listen. Reading the transcripts didn't change my mind on that. I don't think you need to be friends to not want to let someone get themselves get killed because they keep walking into dangerous situations.

Also, I'm going to go into a tangent now, but IQ is bullshit and based in racist shit, so telling people you have an IQ of 197 is functionally meaningless. It also, much like the idea of getting 4 PhD's before 30 (which I believe is the age she lists in later seasons, is mostly TV 'look how smart this person is' shorthand that doesn't usually make sense, but we just kind of accept it. The vast majority of people will never get a PhD and those that have one, will usually not get another one, at least in some part because it's costly, difficult, and unnecessary. There are some people with 4 PhD's so it's not impossible, but it just reads as improbable to me, both because of the intensity of writing a paper that long and the fact that people need breaks, even during ADHD hyperfixation sprees. I bring this up because her PhD's get brought up a lot. Especially in arguments. And they argue a lot. I just don't think it adds anything to the character that merely getting 1 PhD wouldn't.

Oh and god, the amount of times she just talks down to people about the subjects involved in her PhD's made me want to throw her through the window of the Holy Grill. What do you mean you're surprised Lucille knew that frogs were a plague in Egypt? She's Jewish and grew up in England, and then moved to America. It'd be more shocking if she did not know. Like ma'am, you're not pulling out deep cuts. You're not asking shit most people have never heard of. You're not starting arguments with your religious classmates about whether bald jokes warrant death by bear or if 200 foreskins are an appropriate gift to your future father-in-law so that you can be allowed to marry his daughter. I've argued about both of those and those were weird days in the campus cafeteria.

Ultimately I was left with what should have been a quick, fun season to establish the actual premise of the show that ended up mostly just establishing 'this town's weird, now watch these two fight over nothing and everything', and then leaving me wondering how what I listened to was a full season. The show does get better, and so do the relationships. And that's why I was so torn about whether this should be a standalone review. Because I don't think it can stand on its own. I do not think it functions without season 2. But also it should have been able to. It should have been more than bickering with occasional supernatural thing happening. And the rest of the show is. And I'm frustrated because I don't think I would have ever continued with the show had season 2 not already existed when I listened to the show. Like I straight up do not think season 1 engaged me enough where I'd be willing to wait 7 months for answers. I'm glad everyone had fun making the show and I think a lot of the writing is good in terms of dialogue structure, but I just can't rate this season higher than a 3.

[semi-imaginary-place]

more job quests

paladin: mylia got friendzoned and solkwyvewrbjn didn't shwo hsi face. a good day. wow they totally pretended the paladin quests just didn't exist (tbf they were bad)

warrior: did we ditch curious gorge who going to be stuck on a ship to the far east for who knows how long. is it me or have the warrior quests gotten progressively more goofy like the maurader ones were pretty serious.

dark knight: esteem totally wrote that letter. are we going to end up in whitebrim? was gundobald one of the one's to witness one of the pc's very public mental breakdowns? *slaps roof of wol* this bad boy can hold so many personalities. fray/esteem, myste, ardbert, the reaper demon, im forgetting someone

monk: oh yeah wasn't widergelt revealed to be a secret prince or something. "please wait for me half way on the other side of the continent" huh weren't they going back to ala ganna anyways. hi lyse. i thought we were setting up a provisional government. how's that going. YES YES YES I am so happy about this, was a little disappointed this didn't happen in sb but i guess it's the structure of the quest system. these are made to be done after 5.0 those were meant to be flexible enough to be done during 4.0. rhalgr's reach is THE temple of the fist of rhalgr and the Resistance is there and I wanted widergelt to go there so badly.

dragoon: baby orn kai

ninja: there's no way this works. karasu better not fake his death a 3rd time. or well tht could be pretty funny actually. spiderman meme. uhh i choose underpants boy. eyyy got that one right i wasn't sure. and the adventures continue. nin is different in that way in the others so way have been about wrapping up loose ends or more like an encore.

samurai: i forgot this storyline.

white mage: a alaqua the worst job questline in the game. what do you mean she wasn't able to take down a treant wasn't the whole thing about how powerful a mage she was. also e sumi still sus af for letting sylphie roam around and take charge of the gatty situation. sooo we're not gonna talk about her dead family at all?

scholar of all jobs is the only one to have combat. i forgot about setoto and h=may have gotten her confused with surito carito

astrologian: so between 3.x and 5.x is less than a year. i'd say this is a deviation from all the politics of 30-50-60 but this did all start with janne's crush on her dad. my aro queen. wish this had more to do with sharlayan as that shows up in 6.0 but well she did fake her death. hope grandpa is ok.

machinist: hilda! I wanted to her to show up in a mch quest. oh hey i have to kill something again remember the bad ol' days where ever job quest was to go kill something

black mage: i feel like the game usually forgets dewlala exists

did the writers forget that cocobuki is like half yayake's age. i don't exactly remember but buki's like 27 and yayake's in her 40s. because buki was never this rude.

summoner once again continues to be the most msq relavent job despite never being featured in the trailers. smh and with the ascian saga ended with ew the devs lost their chance for a summoner meteor. that is the question someone is born (or made in foldora's case also offies zenos also has that implanted echo) to do something well, should they do what they're good at or not?

red mage: still think arya should have minmaxed into thaumaturge/black mage. wow how come its all the magic jobs that get combat. what's to stop other tomb robbers?

wow we really did tell the whole realm that there's multiple worlds and we went to one.

did you know that if you rotate your character near a wall at just the right angle you can see that they are empty inside except for the floating insides of their mouth?

role quest capstone

doing the job capstone. see this is a weird take because up until this point we are led to believe that it was the decimation of the First's native dark aether that unbalanced the shard to light. but here the shadowkeeper is revealed to be from another world (the 13th?). yeh 13th, wasn't that like thousands of years ago tho, well source time who knows about 13th time but that doesn't explain how she's still alive. ah she's echo'd too and friends with unukalhai wonder how he's doing..

these 2 statements seem to contradict each other. is Cyella talking about a symbolic radiance because she was trying to lose. instead of Cylva's death the Flood was triggered by by ardbert killling mitron and longhrif. im assuming cylva was the bait so that the ascians could better control the flood and bring the shard "to the brink" instead of over it as she puts it. ardbert and co then killed themselves and jumped shards. ascians got vauthy to transform the party's corpses into cardinal virtues. time continues to be a mystery. why is she alive. huh her goal was to kill them... uggg i nned to think this over

hmm but the lightwardens didn't have that thrall effect. but then again everyone who came close died. cant tell if sin eater conversion is related or not. oh his dialogue predicts going to the first. should have talked to him earlier woops

[zalrb]

Red White and Royal Blue Review

I'm sorry but as the president's son, wouldn't you know not to get drunk at an official engagement like this?

Is that cake about to get ruined because it feels like the cake is about to get ruined. I didn't see the trailer.

2. Yes, it was ruined. I feel like I should be drunk for this.

3. I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT MY REPUTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. I was like what’s going on with Uma Thurman but I realize she’s trying to do an accent. I do not think it’s working.

5. This ... looks weird to me

It almost looks like photoshop, idk.

6. I’ve only been watching this for ten minutes but .. why can’t I remember his name, whatever president son dude, I think he’s the weakest link. The dialogue isn’t as snappy as it thinks it is although I did chuckle at the “you’ll act like the sun shines out of his ass and you have a vitamin D deficiency” but Zahra sells the quick “snappy” wit with more ease than he does. He isn’t comfortable with it.

7. Equerry dude is hotter than both of them.

8. Alex. His name is Alex.

9. Honestly, out of the two of them, Alex is acting like the bigger jackass.

10. Yeah, Alex kinda irritates me.

11. He flirts better with Miguel. Those eyes?

like I know we’re not at the flirty part with Henry yet but I can already tell we’re not going to get the same energy.

12. I don’t think you understand the laugh that came out of my mouth when I saw this

because it’s basically like they each got their own Black Best Friend and I know this is supposed to be like DIVERSITY.

13. “Omg people would kill to come to my NYE party” so far, this is a pretty basic party, sir.

14. So Henry is supposed to be uptight and posh and Alex is supposed to be more carefree, the drunk partier dude, but the thing is, the actor doesn’t come across carefree, he feels like he’s trying to be carefree so he actually makes me feel more uptight than Henry because I’m like, you’re not letting loose but you’re supposed to be the loose one.

15. TO THE WINDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW TO THE WALL! TILL THE SWEAT DROPS DOWN MY BALLS!  AH SKEET SKEET MUTHAFUCKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, AH SKEET SKEET GOTDAMN!

16. LMAOOOOOOOOO. Honestly, I don’t know if them choosing Get Low as the song they’re supposed to see each other across the dance floor and look at each other longingly is brilliant or terrible.

17. Aww Henry wanted a NYE kiss. Sad face.

18. Henry, I just feel like you could do better than Alex?

19. WE GET IT YOU WERE WORKING CLASS

20. Well at least they’re not Malec when they kiss.

21. He’s reminiscent of a a young Al Pacino -- I’m actually thinking of Al Pacino in Scarface but they did darken his skin for Scarface, which is you know.

22. “He grabbed my hair in a way that made me understand the difference between rugby and football” this line is wasted on these two. Jesus, give it to people with chemistry.

23.

he deserves a better scene partner.

24. I can’t believe I’m not even an hour in.

25. Alex, do some work!

26. Oh, this banter is terrible. People are comparing this to Merthur?

27. Wait, but I want to know which other famous boys he’s shagged.

28. This is probably the most I’ve cared about them so far

29. And he's blinking rapidly to show he's nervous but it should be in the body language, Alex is kind of just standing there. It should be nervous and exciting and intimate and thrilling, it's just ... kind of happening. Like the dude who plays Henry, his back must be TIRED from carrying all of this.

30. Ah yes,

it's giving

but way less intimate.

31. OK. So. I was going to add a screenshot but I was afraid tumblr would block it if I did so when they're making love, Alex -- who I almost called whatshiface -- says "I can't believe how wrong I was about you" and here's my thing with dialogue during sex scenes and I feel really bad for comparing these two movies because no one deserves this but it reminds me of when anons were like please watch some clips of the um, what's that movie series based on Harry Styles fanfiction -- After -- WE ARE GOING TO PAUSE TO BRING ATTENTION TO THE PROCESS I WENT THROUGH TO GET THE NAME OF THESE FUCKING MOVIES:

I typed in movie based on harry styles fanfiction and then Google was like Anne Hathaway and I was like what no, there's another movie based on One Direction fanfiction?? HOW MANY ARE THERE? then I was like wasn't Jughead in the movie? but then I forgot his real name so I had to be like Riverdale cast and it was like Cole Sprouse and I was like RIGHT! then looked up his fucking filmography and it wasn't there and I was like I swear I saw a clip with him in it and then I was like RIGHT, he is a twin so then I Googled his brother's name then I got Dylan Sprouse and then I looked up HIS filmography and got the name of the movie JUST FOR THIS BRIEF MENTION IN THIS STUPID POST and I was like, but anons can't search the masterlist??????????

anyway there's that scene where they're having sex in her office or something and like in the middle of them having sex he's like "SAY I'M THE ONLY ONE" or something and it just made me laugh because his voice is unaltered, he just delivered the line like they were having a regular conversation and that's what happens here, Alex just says this line and it takes me out of the moment because I'm like you're not being breathy or moaning or something as you talk, you're just talking like normal? THEN DON'T SPEAK.

32. But what does Alex do? Is he in school? Is he ... what does he do? I know he wrote a memo that nobody read and will probably end up being a huge meaningful contribution down the line but he's talking about wishing he could help more and I'm like what's your job? Like you can still help people in whatever job you're doing, like are YOU going to hospitals and talking to dying children? Like what's happening here?

33. And he's going on and on about making his dad proud and being someone who can do something but you're the guy who got drunk at a wedding and made a 75,000 pound cake fall. I...

34. Ah he's a law student. Volunteer at a free law clinic then, jesus christ.

35. OK their together texts are infinitely worse. "I CAN'T HAVE SMUT FILLING MY INBOX".

36. I mean, Miguel is a journalist, Alex, I...

37. So I'm guessing Miguel will break the Alex/Henry story. Because duh.

38. HENRY IS TRYING SO HARD.

39. "Dad, what is this music? It's so not the vibe" I'm sorry but I find Alex insufferable.

40. Oh so Henry DOES read nonwhite authors, jfc.

41. Ohhhhhhh whatshisface, Alex, is having the IT ALL MAKES SENSE moment, which MUST happen when the love interest is singing, HENRY IS HIS FOREVER BOO. And then of course, princes can't be gay so even though Henry feels the same way, I'm sure he'll be all I TOLD YOU NOT TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ME.

42. This movie seems like there'll be a rain kiss in it.

43. "Yeah, he's tougher than he looks." You guys were drinking tequila shots, doing karaoke and playing volleyball, not chopping wood for your only source of heat during winter in the Appalachians. Relax.

44. "You can understand my life a little more" which is cool but what about HIS life, Alex? I don't know I just find him extremely self-centered.

45. IT'S LIKE THERE'S A ROPE ATTACHED TO MY CHEST AND IT KEEPS PULLING ME TOWARDS YOU. Yes, I see the Jane Eyre reference.

46. Aww, he's in the pool with his hand over his heart. I needed a better couple for this.

47. And here we go with the downturn before the uptick.

48. He's trying so hard to be melancholy and this is what we get?

A furrowed brow?

49.

I mean are you? What is this, Stefan about Caroline? Please be serious.

50. Well, there's rain. But they're not kissing.

51. "I flew across an ocean" which would be more impressive if you weren't the president's son, Alex.

52.

You didn't actually storm the castle, though. Who are you now, Damon?

53. This should be way more frenzied than it is. He should be yelling, out of his mind, and Henry should be doing exactly what he's doing now.

54.

Well that's because he's amazingly self-centred.

55. ON. HIS. BACK.

56. Stephen Fry being in this is kind of perfect though. I just wish the movie was better.

57. OK well that's over.

[classicintp]

It's pride month and living in the south I'm either hearing more of or just more aware of all the garbage people talk about that "make kids gay." From eating certain fruits to your dad kissing you on your face to show affection, I'm hearing enough to make a bingo card out of this stupid shit.

My dad kissed me and all four of my cisgendered, heterosexual siblings on their faces. Up until I was 9 or 10 years old, me and my younger brother pecked each other on the lips like we did to our mom when showing affection. That kind of feels weird to say today, but it was how everyone in my mom & dad's family were when they grew up, and not just us either, it's how all my cousins were with their siblings when we were all growing up too.

In the 6th grade I met the guy who would be my best friend for 15 years. I was 11 years old, he was 13. We went to each other's houses almost every weekend, and we always slept in the same bed when we stayed overnight. And there was no limitation on "always." We were in our 20s sleeping next to each other on a twin mattress at his dad's trailer so we could commute to work and save gas one night, and did the same the next weekend at my home in my bed. If we were in the same dwelling and going to bed, we slept in the same bed, always, and at least for me I believe it was so we could both wake up at the same time so neither of us felt obligated to stay quiet and awkwardly ho-hum around waiting for the other to wake up. I grew up with 3 brothers, we shared beds throughout our lives and this just felt like another brother to me, you know?

He came out as gay when I was 21. He was a no-doubt-about-it, had-always-only-been-sexually-attracted-to-men, gay man; he told me he knew he was romantically attracted to boys before he and I met. After the initial shock and (in typical cishet fashion) wrongly making it about me and how hurt I was he had lied to me for so long, we still slept in the same bed when staying overnight with each other. For some reason, two men who were sexually active with very different types of people sleeping next to each other under one blanket in the same bed wasn't weird to me and I can't remember anyone in my life ever seriously questioning the behavior despite living in southern Louisiana of the United States, a very conservative part of the country.

All of that happened and I never once felt romantic or sexual attraction to another man. I have always been a cisgendered, 0-on-the-Kinsey-scale heterosexual, and when the concept of non-binary genders started to become more acknowledged in the media I spent weeks questioning my identity because why not? Trying to figure out whether I was actually cishet as I thought or if that was just a mask sewn over my face by the culture I was raised in that I'd grown accustomed to. With a bevy of options to match exactly how I felt in practically every defining moment of my life, peeling through every potential curiosity that I have ever wondered about or considered, I came away from that period of reflection knowing for sure I definitely am cishet without exception.

And now in my 30s I have to deal with co-workers shooting the breeze with stupid fucking takes like "My wife was gonna let his (6 year old son's) friend sleep in the same bed and I said HELL NO. You ain't letting him get used to cuddling up with other dudes until it feels normal. IT AIN'T NORMAL." No, you ain't normal big dog, the only thing wrong with your son is you're his dad.